5 Days to a Clutter Free House - Review

Today I am writing a review of 5 Days to a Clutter-Free House - Quick, Easy Ways to Clear Up Your Space by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims.  I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell Publishers.

Initially I thought this would be a fabulous book - who doesn't want to have a clutter free house in five days? I've been working at de-cluttering for what seems like forever and I am still not done - five days seemed a little like a miracle.

It didn't take me long to figure out that this could be a fabulous way to go about de-cluttering, but not for me.  This system is designed for those whose clutter has literally taken over the house.  Because of all of the work we've done already this isn't true of my house (Praise the Lord!).  Let me give you a quick synopsis and then I'll share the gems I gleaned from these pages.

1.  This may be a benefit to you if you have a significant clutter issue in one or more areas of your home.
2.  You need to gather a team around you to make this happen.
3.  Once the system of the five day de-clutter has taken place there will still be significant work to do to re-order your home and maintain that order.
4.  The authors address the issues that may prevent you from maintaining the new regime and give great suggestions as to how to actually do the work of maintaining it and give you some idea of how you got here in the first place.

I decided to try their de-clutter plan on a very small scale.  My living room had been taken over for several days by some very messy children.  I decided to corral those same children as my 'team' and employ the system.  In the five day plan they work at a certain 'level' each day.

Day 1 - knees to floor
Day 2 - knees to shoulders
Day 3 - shoulders and up
Day 4 - inside areas
Day 5 - storage areas

I instructed the kids to work in the same fashion, we followed the order and had the room ship shape in about 30 minutes, including vacuuming and dusting.

The deciding factor for someone implementing this plan would be your 'want-to'.  I believe that this could really be an excellent tool if applied with determination to follow through to the end of the plan and then continuing to maintain the desired order.  Felton and Sims are experienced organizers and self-proclaimed 'messies' - they know whereof they speak.  There are also plenty of examples sprinkled throughout of the right and wrong ways to accomplish this mammoth task.

If you have a mammoth de-cluttering task, whether it be just the garage or your whole house there is beneficial information contained within the pages of 5 Days to a Clutter-Free House.

Places to Purchase this item:

Amazon.ca - CLICK HERE

Amazon.com - CLICK HERE

Barnes & Noble - CLICK HERE

Christianbook.com - CLICK HERE

organized summer...maybe??

Today was the beginning of my new leafiness!  I think we've done pretty well today.  I slept in a bit but I decided that doesn't happen very often so I enjoyed it.  THEN...we got the party started.

I just had the three youngest at home so I thought we'd get a schedule going with them the hopefully we can use until school starts.  The older three are supposed to be working anyway so the schedule we drew up won't work for them...THEN we tried it out this afternoon...cause it took us that long to figure it out!

It went pretty well I thought and they seemed to enjoy it...what got accomplished?

- we all read today
- all the kids played outside for awhile
- they all had only 1/2 hour on the computer
- we did some chores (the hallways are clean, some laundry got put away and one boy learned how to sort laundry)
- they played piano for awhile
- we had a good lunch and cleaned it up
- we blessed a big brother by cleaning his room (this was part of our 'bucket' time)
- I managed to get all my living room drawers de-cluttered and sorted (all homeschool stuff) I know no one can see that but it sure felt good to do it! :)
- supper is in the crockpot

This evening we are planning for a movie time (another 'bucket' item).  If this schedule works for us I'll post it and maybe it can help someone else get their summer organized.

psst:  this should be under the NEW LEAF page I made but I don't know how to get it in there!  HELP...

Turning Over a New Leaf!!

I am attempting to turn over a new leaf in my life!  I know it isn't January 1 or anything but I just have this feeling bubbling up that change is coming and the time is now...Of course, I want to do it all at once and have a perfect life but that isn't going to happen!

So one step at a time...just little ones and hopefully the result will be wonderful.

Before I begin this remarkable transformation I will just need to assure you all that I am far from perfect and I'll probably have to go back to square one more than once.  It's going to be a journey, one that's been a long time coming but I'm ready to begin!

I think I may even put a new tab on my blog site for these kinds of posts! (I have no idea how to do that, but I'll give it a go)

Things I'd really like to get more disciplined about...

1.  Cleaning my house...I hate the piles and debris that are everywhere...all.the.time.  I'd like to think that my house is clean some of the time but if I'm honest...it's pretty rare.  I got inspired from reading www.aslobcomesclean.com  she is funny, honest and has a messy house like mine!

2.  Reading the Word - I'm actually doing not to bad on this one right now.  I got myself a through-the-Bible-in-a-year program and I'm not ridiculously far behind.  I'm actually kinda proud of myself on that one.

3.  Exercise - I have started and stopped more exercise programs than I can count.  I have tons of videos and work-out stuff...I just don't use them very consistently.  I want to do better at this, whether or not I lose any weight.  I'm going to use www.myfitnesspal.com on my phone to help track progress.  I have even, *gasp*, invited two friends to see my progress...

4.  Finances - we have been failing miserably in keeping up to date with our farm finances and getting more in debt with our personal finances.  We just signed up for personal coaching which means I'm going to have to stay on top of things and hopefully better decisions will be made!  I'm really excited about that.  We are using www.mvelopes.com so far I like it.

5.  Writing - I am a writer who doesn't write very consistently.  I want to change that and perhaps get the ideas I have in my head onto paper (or cyber-paper)!

There are alot more things in my life that I'd like to tackle but that's probably enough for now.  I'm not even sure how I'll do all of it but I'm going to post about it here for your reading pleasure, hope I don't bore you to tears.

Hold My Hand

"Mommy, I need your hand!" "Why?" I queried, "You seem to be keeping up okay." "But you let go of my hand and I don't think I can keep going without your hand." Her little six year old legs had already walked a mile and a half with me, only half a mile to go, but she was getting tired. As I took her hand in mind it made me think of the journey we are on with our RAD son. There have been many days lately where I don't feel like I can take one more step. I told God right then and there that I'm just like my little girl, I need to hold His hand if I'm going to make it all the way. Today He encouraged me through phone calls from two unexpected places. Both of the gentlemen who called reminded me that kids his age need to know you love them no matter what, that he is pushing all the boundaries to see if we'll go the distance with him. They reminded me that this too shall pass and on the other side he might even thank us for sticking in there with him. I was reminded of a friend with whom we prayed for years and years when her sons were this age and they strayed far away for a long time and now are back where they belong, wrapped in glory and doing well. I was reminded to remember the positive things. Our situation could be a lot worse if we still lived in the city. He is almost 14 and many kids with his type of challenges are already in juvenile halls by the time they are 12. He doesn't have some of the issues that many kids similar to him have. There are things to be thankful for. So today I'm saying, "Daddy don't you let go of my hand, I know we've got some tough pieces of road ahead yet, hold me tight and don't let go."