New Year- Renewed life

Tara over at Seeking Deals inspired me to post my New Year Resolutions for 2009.

I, too, am struggling with organizing. Two years ago, Paul and I were both working full time plus overtime, our home was more or less livable, clothes were usually clean, and dinners weren't a struggle. Well, the last two years have seen the birth of two preemies, our decision to have me stay home with the kids, Paul's job loss and 10 months (and counting) of partial employment, hospital stays and multiple doctor appointments. In that time, our lives have become nearly unrecognizable- with a messy house, finances in disarray, and a harried, tired set of parents.

So my resolution is this: To streamline the finances, the house, and our day-to-day activities. I am going to break everything down into weekly, manageble goals so that I don't become overwhelmed and give up.

First thing I'm addressing is the house. We've got soooo little space- and right now some of it is being underutilized. The kids' room is too cold for them to sleep in, the pantry has a couple mostly-empty drawers and a cabinet that's filled with stuff that belongs in the kitchen, the back hallway closet is currently holding a radiatior that no longer works and is taking up half of the space, and our closets are in dire need of organizing and new shelving.




Here's the plan for giving us more space:

1. Move the crib out of the kids room and put it in the parlour. Abby sleeps in there anyways. Use space under the crib to store diapers, wipes, and toys.

2. Move the computer, desk, and filing stuff out of the bedroom and into the kids room.

3. Move the playpen into our bedroom, and set it up where the desk used to be.



In order to be able to do these things, my goal for the week is to clean out the crib and the area around it. Since it hasn't been used as a bed for quite some time, outgrown and out of season clothes have taken up residence. These need to be sorted into keep and donate, then organized by size for the keepers, bagged and stored. Once this part is done, Paul and BIL will be moving the crib for me!

Next week's goal is to get the desk area prepped to be moved. This means A LOT of paper purging and filing, separating the desk stuff from the bedroom stuff, and organizing the desk drawers so that they are *GASP* usable.