My son woke up feeling sick today and refused to go to school. This after only 3 days of the new semester. This worried me because any missed days of school seems to cause a mini catastrophe. In his school they seem to be graded mainly on organization and compliance, not on intellectual capacity or understanding of material, and certainly not on creativity. If you have a boy of a certain age I'm sure you can understand how much of a challenge this can be. The whole time he's been in this school has been a process of me ripping my hair out. That's why I refer to "our" school breaks. Whatever it was that he had I seemed to catch the headache part, which I rarely get, so today was a bit of a wash. We did manage to get the holiday stuff in the attic, so I feel ready to go. When I look around though, I really don't know where to begin. I don't know if I've mentioned the psychotic level of procrastination that I have, but I will let things slide for years and years and years. I have over 75,000 emails that I have been meaning to weed out for, oh I don't know, a decade? That's just for starters. So I think it's time to put down some intentions about getting this house in order, because an unorganized and chaotic environment is a major obstacle to creativity and productivity. And many of them are crafty!
1. Find architect. We have been wanting to put a skylight in this place since we bought it 4 years ago. If there's one thing that's crucial to my mental health, it's sunlight. It's why I live in SoCal. Most of the house is sunny except for the most important place, the living room. We also want to do a little bit of expansion and reconfiguring. Once we do that we can get new furniture. What we have is 10 years old and from a much larger house, so never really worked here. I also want to find a storage solution for my library. In our old house we had a gorgeous mahogany library built in the formal living room. I don't miss my old neighborhood but I pine for that library. My books are now shoved into a my ginormous china cabinet, which lives in the garage (sigh).
2. Curtains. Speaking of sunlight, what's the brightest room in the house? Why, the bedroom, of course! At some point in 2013 I ordered some blackout fabric to line the rattan shades that are up. Several months ago, I took said fabric (enough for 3 windows) and clipped it to the shade on the window with the most sunlight coming in using binder clips. Problem solved! I am realizing that maybe the white trash look is not the most inspirational though. There are also stacks and stacks of books and photo albums that live there because there's no other place for them. It would be so nice to more them out and put in a a. vanity b. dress form c. spinning wheel. Thank goodness my DH doesn't have any makeup or hobbies. In that same fabric shipment was some lovely linen to replace a roman shade in the bathroom. Still bare.
3. Speaking of those photos, most are still in boxes, along with tons of memorabilia from our world travels. These were the days before kids and digital cameras. The thought of compiling all this stuff into albums and scrapbooks is daunting but would be super fun once I got started doing it. Then we get to the digital stuff. I have dozens of videos of my son's life on mini DV that is hard to get onto the computer, VHS from our wedding and old films, plays and classes of mine, cassettes of music I've recorded, and even some old family film reels from the 60s I rescued from my mom's basement. All in need of digitization, and some in seriously fragile state.
4. Get rid of crap. I've been doing pretty good at this for the last few years as my son has outgrown tons of clothes, books and toys. I managed to sell most of them at LA Kids Consignment which holds about 4 sales per year around the area. It's extraordinary to actually realize the thousands of items that the average American kids owns in their short childhood. What I plan to do it this - completely empty out my closet. Like most of you, that's where my yarn lives, along with all the other crafty stuff, some books, wrapping paper, gift bags, boxes, yoga supplies and a whole bunch of other crap. I'm going to clean it, and then fill it back up with just clothes and accessories, and just the ones that fit and that I like. There are clothes in there I haven't worn in a decade and are completely out of style or are no longer age appropriate. It's a small walk-in closet which is bound to be pretty empty when I get though with it, which could be a pretty liberating feeling.
5. Deep clean, repaint and fix what's broken. By that I mean sending the rugs out, which is major. The walls really need some zazz. I had to paint them white to keep the front of the house as bright as possible, but it's boring. And did you ever notice how everything seems to break and wear out at the same time? That's so happening here, inside and outside.
So that's my mini punch list of stuff. The best part of getting your house in order is that you can then just live in it, enjoy it, and spend your energy on things that have a higher calling.
1. Find architect. We have been wanting to put a skylight in this place since we bought it 4 years ago. If there's one thing that's crucial to my mental health, it's sunlight. It's why I live in SoCal. Most of the house is sunny except for the most important place, the living room. We also want to do a little bit of expansion and reconfiguring. Once we do that we can get new furniture. What we have is 10 years old and from a much larger house, so never really worked here. I also want to find a storage solution for my library. In our old house we had a gorgeous mahogany library built in the formal living room. I don't miss my old neighborhood but I pine for that library. My books are now shoved into a my ginormous china cabinet, which lives in the garage (sigh).
2. Curtains. Speaking of sunlight, what's the brightest room in the house? Why, the bedroom, of course! At some point in 2013 I ordered some blackout fabric to line the rattan shades that are up. Several months ago, I took said fabric (enough for 3 windows) and clipped it to the shade on the window with the most sunlight coming in using binder clips. Problem solved! I am realizing that maybe the white trash look is not the most inspirational though. There are also stacks and stacks of books and photo albums that live there because there's no other place for them. It would be so nice to more them out and put in a a. vanity b. dress form c. spinning wheel. Thank goodness my DH doesn't have any makeup or hobbies. In that same fabric shipment was some lovely linen to replace a roman shade in the bathroom. Still bare.
3. Speaking of those photos, most are still in boxes, along with tons of memorabilia from our world travels. These were the days before kids and digital cameras. The thought of compiling all this stuff into albums and scrapbooks is daunting but would be super fun once I got started doing it. Then we get to the digital stuff. I have dozens of videos of my son's life on mini DV that is hard to get onto the computer, VHS from our wedding and old films, plays and classes of mine, cassettes of music I've recorded, and even some old family film reels from the 60s I rescued from my mom's basement. All in need of digitization, and some in seriously fragile state.
4. Get rid of crap. I've been doing pretty good at this for the last few years as my son has outgrown tons of clothes, books and toys. I managed to sell most of them at LA Kids Consignment which holds about 4 sales per year around the area. It's extraordinary to actually realize the thousands of items that the average American kids owns in their short childhood. What I plan to do it this - completely empty out my closet. Like most of you, that's where my yarn lives, along with all the other crafty stuff, some books, wrapping paper, gift bags, boxes, yoga supplies and a whole bunch of other crap. I'm going to clean it, and then fill it back up with just clothes and accessories, and just the ones that fit and that I like. There are clothes in there I haven't worn in a decade and are completely out of style or are no longer age appropriate. It's a small walk-in closet which is bound to be pretty empty when I get though with it, which could be a pretty liberating feeling.
5. Deep clean, repaint and fix what's broken. By that I mean sending the rugs out, which is major. The walls really need some zazz. I had to paint them white to keep the front of the house as bright as possible, but it's boring. And did you ever notice how everything seems to break and wear out at the same time? That's so happening here, inside and outside.
So that's my mini punch list of stuff. The best part of getting your house in order is that you can then just live in it, enjoy it, and spend your energy on things that have a higher calling.
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