2009 Wrap-Up

One of the things I set out to do in 2009 was put my ideas into action. I have done a good job of that for the most part. I feel I have accomplished a lot. For starters, I finished the coursework for my dissertation. I also cleaned and re-decorated three rooms in my home that had been bothering me. The main area of my house had been fine, but I had a playroom that was such a disaster you couldn't even walk in there, had an office that was a mess, and I needed my kids to do some room-switching.

The toy room was a complete disaster area. Not only were toys in there, but other things that no one knew what to do with got thrown in there. I wanted this toy room to turn into a bedroom so that each of my kids had a room. My current situation was that my two older kids had their own room upstairs, and Lily didn't have a room, and slept with me. I was so tired of her kicking me, plus she needed to learn to sleep on her own.

In March I decided to remove everything from that toy room, got new carpet in there, mounted a flat screen TV in the corner and moved my older daughter in there. It was smaller than her other bedroom, so I had to bribe her. Yes, it cost me a few hundred dollars between the carpet and TV, but it was worth it to get things moved around so that everyone was happy. I then cleaned out my older daughter's bedroom and turned that into a room for my little girl with Down syndrome. I needed her to be in a room upstairs so she would be near me. This room switch was done over about a 5 day period. I had company coming from England, so I had a deadline and I met it. My office is another story.....

Okay, In June, I spent about 6 days in my office writing a huge paper for one of my doctorate classes. As I sat in my office, I looked around for the first time and said, "this is unacceptable!! I spend HOURS in here. It needs to look great." I promised myself that the moment my paper was done, that I would get this office looking great. The only thing I knew for sure, was that I wanted my carpet removed and to have the cement floor stained and acid treated. My friend Heidi had this done at her house, and it looked awesome.

What I did was I got several tubs and laundry baskets and moved books of mine with a common theme into these baskets and tried to be somewhat organized as I had all of the contents of my office moved to my formal living room. The computer and printer was set up at my dining room table and I was proud of myself. So, I had it cleaned out, and a few days later the guy came to do the floor. It wasn't exactly as I had ordered it, and he said he would come back. Never heard from him again. I got used to the way he did the floor and am actually happy he did it this way now. Funny how stuff just works out. I then needed to find new office furniture. I went all over. I finally found the set I loved. It was black with arches and looks very European. Beautiful. I then started to hang up art work, brought in plants. I am telling you, my office looks like an artist lives in here. How long did this take? You don't want to know. It took me about 5 months to get it all back together and looking good. In the end I had to have a few friends help me, because the task of putting this back together overwhelmed me.

I had a birthday party for myself and everyone LOVED my office. It rocks. So, my advice to you...clean up your house and decorate it so that it is amazing. We spend a lot of time in our homes, and they should represent us. If you can't get going yourself, hire someone to help you. I hired a friend who is really good at organizing things to come over and help me. We schedule 2 or 3 hours and we just start working on something that needs to be organized. Whether it be drawers, closets, cupboards, etc. I am almost all the way done with everything in my house and I am here to tell you that it is liberating. I finally know where things belong. I discovered that my problem was that I didn't have a home for things. I needed to bring in an organizer to help me think through where I should keep things. This cleaning/organizing has been a more powerful thing for me than anything else. I am so glad that I have worked on that this year.

I have had a cleaning lady for several years, but there is only so much they can do for you. You really need to do the initial organizing and sorting of your stuff so that they can come in and clean. Now my cleaning lady can actually make my whole house look great. There is a link I want to share with you that is sooo helpful when you are trying to get control of organizing and keeping your house up. Check it out: wwww.flylady.com