I've got a plan.

Two weeks ago my laundry room looked like this.


With the door closed, it's not so bad.

Open the door and you see this. (Like the dust? One of the kids' jobs was to dust the door. You can see how high they could reach.)








It stressed me out just looking at it. You can see the metal shelves are packed with stuff. That's ok. They could be organized better but that doesn't bother me. It's the baskets and bins and boxes and bags all piled up. They were full of crap that needed to be put away after cleaning up for my daughter's sleep over.

I worked on it a few minutes at a time for a couple days and I was starting to see progress.


Not great but getting there. At least you can see the floor.

Then, last Friday was trivia night at my daughter's school. I helped organize that so I didn't get as much done around here last week as I normally would. In addition, I was at a table so I took a bag of food & supplies. That didn't get put away because I got home very late. Saturday morning we went to my in-laws' for the day to celebrate February birthdays. They live a couple hours away so we always pack the van with snacks, the dvd player and things to do. I emptied the van of a bag of that stuff and the gifts my daughter received. None of that got put away because we got home late. Sunday was busy. We went to church in the morning, I grocery shopped in the early afternoon and we went to my parents in the late afternoon (to celebrate one final time) and stayed until after dinner. After we put the kids to bed, I went to bed.

Here are the bags that needed to be emptied.


This morning I was stressed about them but was able to empty them right after lunch. I felt good about emptying them. It sounds silly but I really felt like I accomplished something. I could look at that spot and see the difference that the work I did made. Then I walked around and saw this:

and this

and this

and this

and this

and these.

More stuff that needs to be emptied and everything put away. It feels like it's never ending. I start to feel so defeated. Like, it doesn't matter what I do, this is what our house is going to be like.

I guess it's my fault. I should probably empty out everything as soon as I get home. I just can't make myself do it late at night. And, I'm the only one doing it. That also makes it frustrating.

I wonder, do other people constantly have baskets of stuff to put away? I feel like that is such a huge part of what I do here. Put things away. Do naturally tidy people just immediately put things away?

I have a plan. Instead of feeling like I have to do it all right now and getting stressed out because I can't, I'm going to do a little at a time. I have to remind myself it's not just me here. If I were home alone, I could get it done, lickety split. I'm not here alone. I have a four year old, a two year old and an eight month old here right now. I will have a five year old and a seven year old getting off the bus in a little over an hour. That is enough work all by itself without adding anything else.

Here's my plan:
Today, I emptied the bags from the weekend.
Tonight I will take the bins that need to go downstairs down.
Tomorrow I will empty them.
Tomorrow I will empty the laundry basket of clothes as I am putting away other laundry.

I can do that. If I break it down it doesn't seem so bad.