Organized Chaos

Since moving here, we've been constantly downsizing, organizing, trying to find a place for everything, and rejoicing every time something gets used up or worn out so we can get rid of it. It's a constant battle. I'm what you would call a "type A" personality and have been struggling with the continual mess. It's not that I have spotless house ever, far from it, but usually things have a home and we get them there regularly. That hasn't been the case here.

It seems like every time I start the organization process, I quickly become frustrated with the lack of space and throw in the towel. It makes me crazy! We still have boxes in places but no where for the contents to go so they just sit in the corner waiting for me to sort through the precious belongings and decide what isn't precious any more. I've become much less attached in the past few weeks. It's amazing to me how much stuff six people can accumulate and not really ever use or need!

Today I had to find a place for my jars of peach jam in the pantry. This has been one of the worst spots for me. I love food storage and, even though we had been eating out of our storage and not adding to it for some time, there was still too much to organize on the shelf space we have here. We basically cut our food storage space in half. Gary bought a couple shelves and that seemed to help. He put one together and started stacking random items on it. Even though things weren't as crowded as they had been, there still wasn't room for two dozen pint jars if I wanted them in one place. I had to tackle the pantry.

An hour later, the new shelf was organized and space was made for the jam. I even got rid of the four more boxes that were packed with random food items. You can now walk across the floor of the pantry without stepping over boxes and coolers and jugs of water. You can easily find the boys lunch items. I know how many cans of tuna we have - way, way too many. I can replace the virtually empty shampoo bottle in the bathroom without running to the store because the ones in the storage room are lost. It's a lovely, lovely feeling. Maybe I should start working on some of the other boxes. Nah. Baby steps.