A New Goal

It has been 54 days since my last posting. Sad huh? Where has all the time gone? Well, this holiday season has recked havoc on my house and organizing. A lot of what was organized is no longer. It seems as though a lot of time was wasted looking for where I put things such as gift bags, wrapping paper, and Christmas gifts I bought months ago. Of course I put them all in a safe place where I would know exactly where they were. Yeah, didn't quite work out that way.

My goal last year was to conquer all of my projects by Christmas and I am sad to say, I did not achieve my goal so I am setting a new one. It is going to be smaller and less menacing. My new goal is to have my library closet (aka Mary Kay closet), office closet, and guest room closet organized and decluttered by March 16th. That way, my birthday, March 17th will be nice and clutter-free. After my birthday, I will set another goal. Eventually, I will have my whole house organized and decluttered, maybe by the end of the year and that is OK with me. I have a lot to do and not much free time. I can live with taking a full year to get my house perfect. I heard once, "You will never FIND time, you must MAKE it," and that is so true. "For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned." -Unknown

On a blog that I follow called The Clutter Diet Blog, I saw a posting dated December 22nd that I really liked called, "Ten Simple Ways to Be More Organized in 2010." This gives simple and practical ways to get organized. I subscribe to The Clutter Diet and I really do like it. Lorie Marrero really breaks down these daunting tasks into manageable "meal plans" each week. There is also a discussion board where you can post your questions about problem areas and professional organizers will respond to you and help you out. You can read all of the postings and get ideas from other people's questions and answers as well. I recommend this program to anyone wanting some guidance on decluttering. For about $15 a month, I think it is a bargain.

I'm trying to go green whenever possible around the house. On Real Simple I found an article called, "How Green Are You?" There are a lot of small changes that can really add up to big changes for our environment. I hope to become a mostly green home soon.

I think that I am also going to start blogging about ways to save money around the house. For $25 a year, yes a year, I signed up on a website called Practical Saver. A woman named Kara from our church started this website. On it, she posts grocery store ads and points out bargains. There are homemade gift ideas, bargain products, a discussion board, and links to other sites on the website. She shows a video on how to cut, organize, and use coupons on each shopping trip. I know other women who have used these techniques and actually save more money than they spend! I want to be like that. I'm not very good at this saving money thing yet, but I will be and I'll share my tale with you. While picking a new background for this blog, I noticed that The Cutest Blog On The Block had a "free coupon" section. I clicked on it and it took me to a page with quite a few links to free coupons and samples.

I am revisiting some of my favorite organizing blogs and websites and becoming more excited and motivated to reach my March 16th goal. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.