Organizing obession....

Recently I have become obsessed with organizational how-to blogs. Oh my word, you wouldn't believe how many of them there are. It was the first time I have ever entered a blog labyrinth, you know, when you start reading one and click on the in-text link sending you over to Suzie-Jean who discovered the cure for the Sock Bermuda Triangle, or some such thing, and soon you are enveloped in another nirvana of neatness. The only problem is that there are a couple of them I would love to go back to, but I have no idea how I got to them in the first place, and unlike in my real world, there is no trail of breadcrumbs.

Anyway, so over the last little while, I have managed to tear myself away from marveling at all the uber-organized domestic goddesses long enough to do something about my own home. Generally this big overhaul/reorganization/mass recycling event happens towards the end of Summer once I have soaked up enough solar power to tackle it and is all undone by the beginning of Fall when the lack of sunlight has me rocking and humming in a corner all day. This is what I'm saying about the Magical Lamp of Everything Good people! (I have become evangelical in my endorsement of that thing-I even make house visits with it to depressed friends), I am the modern-day Florence Nightingale!

When Aaron returned home today and witnessed the almost frightening organization of my kitchen he said, "Whoah...how long did you spend in front of the lamp today?" Seriously, that thing rocks. It's like legal speed. Without the pesky side effects.

I've also been a bit creepy in organizing the fam lately. We have colour coded schedules, charts and routines up the wazoo. It's a little disturbing, but really, it works and I feel so much less stressed and in control. I think my family does too.

I've always looked at preschools and loved how at the end of each day, within a few minutes of the bell being rung or the clean up song being warbled, (I know most of us wish Barney was just a bad purple dream, but we've got to hand it to him for the clean up song), everything is back in its place despite the fact that 20 or so small tornadoes have touched down there for a few hours.

Why? Because everything has its place, and everyone knows what they need to do and when. Deviation from the routine is unthinkable. I wonder why, all this time, I have thought my home should be magically serene and organized, with a bunch of little kids, not much space, lots going on, and a somewhat more vague approach to chore routines......all just because I wanted it to be.

Anyway it only took about 10 years (I'm a quick study) to make the leap and realise that I too, could run my home like a preschool. I decided that at any given moment, my kids should know what they should have achieved by then, and whether or not they were free to kick a shopping bag around the house while sharing a blow by blow account of their last soccer game, or whether they should in fact be making their bed instead. Not that I want a military school vibe happening, with everyone glancing at their laminated pocket schedule every few moments, (dude, we're all stocked up on OCD already thanks!) but by putting it all down on paper (and yes, I confess to laminating that paper), and accounting for the hours of their days, and what they need to fit into each day by when; when I walk into a messy room with languishing children lolling about, I have been able to say, " Hey guys! Who has done their morning/evening routines?" or "Hey has everyone done what they need to have done by now?".

Whereupon some look smug, and others look sheepish, and soon enough the room is the way it should be, and everyone is anxiously engaged in whatever it is they should be anxiously engaged in (and yes, sometimes that is just playing or chilling-I'm not Mussolini) . It is rather an improvement on the hysterical tirades that used to follow my discovery of a trashed room after which everyone (including me) ended up sitting in the middle of it completely overwhelmed and defeated and flummoxed as to where to start.

We're not at Von Trapp precision yet, but we're chugging along fairly efficiently. It just makes more sense.

Anyway, there was a point to all this but I have lost it because I am salivating over the idea of re-organizing my study now.

Til later (you are forewarned that it is entirely possible that I will post a picture of my freshly organized baking sprinkle shelf. Man, I have a lot of baking sprinkles).

PS: The trouble with those chocolate marshmallow easter eggs in the little egg crates is that you can tell that you did in fact personally inhale a dozen of them in the space of a few hours. I like my chocolate consumption to be less easily quantified.

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