2008: Simplify

I always make New Year’s resolutions and sometimes they stick and sometimes they don’t. Last year I was inspired by scrapbooking celebrity, Ali Edwards’ (yes, nonscrappers there are celebrities in scrapbooking) blog to chose one word for the year. The word I chose last year was ENJOY. I even made a little scrapbook to add photos to document me “enjoying” my family, home, husband, kids, etc. Now I haven’t added one photo yet and that needs to go on my to do list. I do feel I did live up to that mostly, I especially enjoyed my surprise pregnancy and birth of Reese but felt near the end of year I’ve been complaining a bit too much about 3 year olds so I need to work on enjoying that age more. Ali has once again asked her readers to chose a word for 2008 (her word is vitality). My word is simplify. My resolutions are revolving around the word, simplify. So here goes my list for 2008:

1. In our home, we have an overabundance of people and stuff so it makes total sense to DECLUTTER. I did make a lot of progress in ridding our home of unused and unwanted things last year. I ebayed and sold some stuff but I can do a LOT more in this area. My sister and I are having one MEGA yard sale in the summer at her house. I think we will have every kind of baby equipment known to man there and then some. We just have way too much stuff for this house which seems to get smaller everyday. I am ready to get rid of so much stuff. I hate that my house is jammed packed and that it looks like I have wall to wall furniture. I am so over keeping stuff because “someday I might use it/want it/need it” or keeping for sentimental reasons. Now I just have to get Aaron to give up a few things too and we will have more room. He is getting better about this though, I just have to work with him when he’s in the mood to organize.

2. Another way for me to simplify things in my life since it’s so hectic with all these little kids is to go back to what I started doing near the beginning of last year and that’s make to do lists, menus, and schedules. Part of this habit comes from being a teacher: you must have a schedule to accomplish anything in teaching and I always had to do lists to keep track of what needed to be done. Part of it comes from having multiples – you have to be scheduled with triplets or more. Last year I was doing so well with this. I had menus on the fridge for each menu including the kids’ snacks; I had made my own -grocery list of things we always buy so I could circle what we needed when we ran out. At this point I am going to the grocery store without a list or even one meal in mind which makes you not know what to buy and spend a lot of extra money. I have one million things that need to be done but it's just up floating around in my overcrowded brain and I can't even find a piece of paper to write a list of thing to-do on so . . . I am going back to my roots of flylady. If you don’t know about flylady I would check her out. She helps you clean your home in a time efficient manner and organize a lot of other parts of your life. No one ever showed my “how” to clean and I am not a person who can spend one whole day or even ½ day cleaning my home. I need it broken up into small manageable jobs which flylady shows you how to do. Caution if you sign up to join flylady (which is free by the way) she will bombard you with emails but I learned to ignore those after a while.

3. Get the house ready to sell. It’s just too small for 6 people. It was too small for 5 people. There’s no real room to build on unless we went up to a third floor. We need so many things done like a roof, paint the outside, new kitchen floor, some inside painting and many other things – there is a list (yeah for resolution #2!).

4. Save $$$$$$. We are POOR: I’m not embarrassed to say that -- actually we do pretty well for 6 people living on one income but we could do better. If I were to tell you what we live on each year, I think most people would think it would be impossible. We really don’t buy a lot of extras as we can’t. Aaron seldom gets paid for 40 hours each week although he puts in way more than that. Even though our income is not going to increase, I really want to achieve this goal. We’ve had a hard year keeping our head above water sometimes but we did it. We need a cushion for just in case and to fix up this house (see number #3). I’m hoping with being a little more organized with lists that will help us save us money not overbuying and using coupons/sales more. Plus simplifing means we don't need to buy as much "stuff" so that will help save money.

5. Play with the kids more. Some days I have so much to do but just have all my ideas and to-dos floating around that it doesn’t happen like I want it to. Then I was pregnant and as I got bigger the fewer patience I had and I was just so tired the last few months. I am going to “schedule” time to play with them. I also organizing the toys we rotate so they get to play with everything even though it all won’t be out all the time. I have to make lists for this or I will forget to rotate things for them. Time really does go fast and I don’t want to miss out on any time with them while they are so young.

6. My last resolution is to do something creative everyday! I feel so out of it lately. I know I just had a baby and it’s Christmastime and I have 4 kids that are 3 years and under but I haven’t gotten to really scrapbook or do anything creative for a couple months. When you are a SAHM, you can spend all day every day doing things and still not be caught up and before you know it, the day is over and you’ve done a lot just nothing for yourself. Doing those little projects makes me feel like me and I’m doing something for myself: ME TIME! I need to schedule this too (#2) even if it’s just 15 minutes a day, it will help.

So that’s it! Maybe I should have started with simplifying my resolution list! I’ll keep you updated on my progress.