Ramblings on Order

What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order.

Katherine Paterson

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Order? What is that?? Some times I *truly* wonder! Sure, it may be easy to understand with a house full, but I am coming to the conclusion that the excuse is not good enough!

When we first moved into the new house, it seemed that the children took *very* good care of their rooms. The house stayed in *some* order, but there were no major complaints. Over time, we all (and by all, I *do* include myself!) got a little too comfortable! Things started getting put aside, "I will take care of it in a few minutes", but with a house full this makes piles, and honestly...do we ever get to taking care of that thing in a few minutes? Not really!

Last Thursday and Friday, I worked heartily on the bedrooms with the children. We got everything out that did not belong, everything folded properly and put away, all the laundry caught up (some of that spilled into the next couple of days, though!), walls scrubbed, floors swept and vacuumed and mopped, etc etc....from top to bottom the rooms have become little sanctuaries again!

Sunday, I tackled the bathroom, I got the closet re-organized and got everything scrubbed down. The toilet roll holder and the hand towel holder had fallen, so I put those up and screwed the little screw to make them sturdy and up again! I had a talk with the children (after walking into the bathroom 4 times that morning and seeing a mess each time!) and everything has stayed pretty straight since!

In the kitchen, yesterday, I rearranged some of the cupboards, cleaned, organized, and made it all work for us. I think the way it is now will be much easier for us to utelize :o)

For now, the way that I see it, the children are now responsible for the areas that have been finished (they were responsible for them before, but NOW it should be much easier!) I am learning to be consistent in pointing out one small mess that will only get much bigger. They do have more responsibility in making sure they are taking care of their own little messes each day...We will be able to fall back into our routines so much easier, AND have more time for the fun things in life! There are so many blessings in a home that has order!

I hope that you are all doing well and are enjoying the fall! I am letting fall work for me, it is telling me winter is coming, which is my favorite season for crafting. I want to have time for that, so in order to have time I have to have a little more help throughout the house! With each room getting a complete "make over" to work better for us, this should not be too difficult to keep it up :o) I am actually having alot of fun in getting these things done, and it has been interesting to have the children keep a room up as it gets done, but it will all get learned over time, I just need to remain consistent!

I have heard of spring cleaning, but I guess this year we are enjoying FALL cleaning! I look forward to when everything feels like it has a little more order, one room at a time. My motivation is realizing that I will have more time for family and fun!

(speaking of order! I have tried several times for this post to come through formatted the way I am doing it "behind the scenes" and it simply keeps making it ugly and disorderly, sorry if it is hard to read!!)