Completed project: Overhauling my daughter's room.

My daughter has a lot of toys.

Like...

A LOT LOT LOT of toys.

That? Is a HUGE amount of toys. That's not even all of them. Under the bed, in the closet, in the toybox...

Toys are fun. Toys can be hours of imaginative play. It's always fun to get a new toy, right?

Well...too much of a good thing isn't necessarily a better thing, and that's a concept I've been pondering for a while now. I've posted a few articles in my Friday Thoughts posts about how less is more when it comes to toys, and that message came through loud and clear for me this week.

Recently, Elizabeth Willard Thames, she of the amazing and inspirational Frugalwoods blog, made a post about the challenges of holidays with small children. So much of what she posted rang true for me, and when she mentioned a book called Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids, my ears (eyes?) perked up. This sounded like something I needed, and as luck would have it, my local library had a copy.

I'm not done with the book yet, but SO much of what this author is saying makes sense. Basically, given too many options, too many choices for anything, kids become easily overwhelmed, and it shows in their behavior. One of the examples he gave talked about a little girl with so many toys that she wasn't even playing with them, just kind of...arranging them. Gathering them in odd mixes. And with that, I sat back and went, "Oh." Because that's pretty close to how my daughter plays with her toys. I'm constantly finding bags and containers full of toy food, play rocks, Mr. PotatoHead parts, Barbie clothes, a block or two, a shoelace, just odd mixtures of things that don't at all go together (but of course need to be separated and put back into their proper containers). And that's when I realized...maybe my daughter wasn't having all that much fun. Maybe something needed to change.

And so last night, I started making plans. I broached the idea with my daughter (she's 4.5) and, to my surprise, she readily agreed to it. Now, this is a kid who once sobbed during a game of imagination when a doll (that she had JUST MADE UP) had broken. The doll didn't even exist, but she burst into tears over the mere idea of this doll not existing anymore. But she was amenable to the idea of clearing her room out so she could focus on a select few toys, and so I told her that was the plan for the next day.

I'm even happier that I cleaned the basement out this summer, because that's where everything went. The first to go was the toybox, which isn't so much a toybox these days as a giant catch-all for stuff she rarely plays with anyway. And then the little Frozen mirror table, the Little People toys that she doesn't play with anyway, the tent and stuffed animals that filled it and rendered it useless (I SWEAR stuffed animals multiply. I'm going to go through them and pass some of them on, because no one on this planet needs four garbage bags full of stuffed animals), her dollhouse (she plays with the dolls and clothes, but not the house), and a whole bunch of other stuff. Downstairs it all went to a corner of the basement. She helped me carry some of it down, and she knows that she can visit it or trade some stuff out for something else whenever she wants, but for now, that big pile stays down there.

And we'll go through it from time to time, I'm sure, to see what we can get rid of, or what she's developed an interest in, but for now, we're going to give this new, streamlined room a try and see if her behavior improves any. She's always been an intense kid, prone to quick tantrums and meltdowns if something doesn't go exactly the way she thinks it does (or doesn't match up the picture in her mind. Last week, she sobbed because I wouldn't put doll pants on the cat...), and although I'm sure a large part of that is just her personality, overwhelming her with 234823497832749832 options for toys probably wasn't helping, as evidenced by the grouping-odd-stuff-together method of playing. Thus, the whole room overhaul.

And there we go. Calm. Clean. Relaxing.

When we were finished, her exact words were an excited-sounding "I LIKE my room like this!" She was especially excited about the two sets of drawers being separated. "Now I can reach everything!" she told me. Before I was even done hauling stuff downstairs, she was digging through the drawer with her coloring books and coloring on the table- something she's NEVER done before. The table was always covered with Little People toys she never played with, and although she knew exactly where the coloring books were, she never took them out. Today, she did. Later on, the table became a place to make phone calls (her kitchen has a cordless phone), and she used the stool under the table to set up a lemonade stand. I lay on her bed and read out loud to her as she played, and she enjoyed that. She kept sighing happily and chatting about how much she liked the space, and when we cleaned up before going downstairs for lunch, it took two minutes. It really does feel like an entirely new room. 

So thanks, Mrs. Frugalwoods, and thanks to Mr. Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting, because although long-term results remain to be seen, today she's happy with the calmness of her new room, and so am I. 

Completed: Laundry Room Cleanup

Do you have one of those areas in the house that, over time, turned into a dumping ground? One of those areas that the job is SO big, you weren't even sure where to start and so you've been avoiding it?

That's our downstairs.

So.

Story time.

When my daughter was born, she didn't sleep.

Ever.

You go into parenthood expecting some level of sleep deprivation. You expect to yawn, to be bleary-eyed, to maybe hit up whatever caffeinated beverage gets you through the day a little harder than normal. This was what life was like with my son. I was at the level of tiredness where everything was funny when he was young. Not a huge deal.

But my daughter never slept. And when she slept, she woke up constantly, and since my body was her food source, I was awake constantly, too. It wasn't abnormal for her to wake up six times between 11 pm and 6 am, and that was my life for 18 months. 18 months of getting, at most, 3-4 broken-up hours of sleep per day. (And forget naps; she rarely napped decently either, and I was too keyed up to fall asleep, not that it would have mattered, because her naps were 45 minutes tops until she got much older.)

So instead of yawning with bleary eyes, I sobbed uncontrollably, would think something and then have ZERO clue what I had just thought (there were times when I would think, 'Oh, I should get that out of the kitchen,' stand up, and then have NO clue why I was standing up), had joint pain and random aches for no reason, forgot where I was going when I was driving. I wish I were exaggerating; with that last one, my son, who was then 13 years old, had to remind me that I was taking him to school.

Oops.

There's a reason sleep deprivation is used for torture; it does terribly things to your physical and mental health. My daughter is four years old now and sleeps pretty well, but I still feel like my brain is recovering from all that time it spent without restorative sleep.

Anyway.

I struggled pretty badly through that time. I did my best to take care of what needed to be taken care of, but I failed pretty badly at a lot of things, no surprise there. Our basement was where the majority of the boxes were stored from our move (we moved back to our home state when my daughter was 8 months. NOT. EASY), and my husband's boxes, which are full of junk from college and also contain things like Comcast bills (paid, of course) from 2008, are still there. It's a dumping ground, one that I'm planning on tackling next, but the dumping ground had started to bleed over into the laundry room and I hadn't yet found the energy or the fortitude to tackle it. So it got worse and worse and worse, until suddenly, I couldn't take it anymore.

Are you ready?

Seriously. Steady yourselves.

Here's the laundry room.

*infinite screaming*

That's AFTER I started the cleanup process, as evidenced by the pile of stuff on top of the washer. But the stuff scattered on the floor, that was just...there. The bin of what looks like rolled-up wrapping paper was actually a small trash can full of roller shades (none of which fit any windows in the house) that was there when we moved in (as were the old disgusting mop and the other things leaning by the wall. Yuck). That's the thing about not sleeping- you don't even THINK of easy solutions, like, "Hey, I could throw that out." Never even occurred to me during that time, not even once. It's almost embarrassing to admit that.

But part of starting this blog was to hold myself accountable for all the things I both want and need to do, and this was definitely on my list of absolutely need to do, so I began slowly tackling the room. I started on a set of shelves left here by the previous owner (an older lady who had passed away). I weeded out a bunch of things she had left behind, then reorganized my own belongings and called it a day. The next time I organized, I worked on that large set of shelves you see on the right hand side of the picture, then moved to the space between that and the washer. And so on and so forth. Yesterday, I tackled the dryer, which is across from the washer, and the area to the right of it. And last night, I decided that the job needed to be over and done with, and I tackled the final box down there and swept the entire room. 

Are you ready?

It's so much better.

Here we go. 

Isn't it lovely? Isn't it woooooooooooonderful???

The amount of relief that picture gives me is enormous. Clutter triggers my anxiety in a bad, bad way, and I keep going downstairs to examine the gorgeous fruits of my labor. Let's look at some more organizational and cleaning fantasticness, shall we?

The area to the right of the washer had been FULL of boxes, clothes, and junk. FIRE HAZARD.

A view from the other direction.

So clean. So clutter free.

This took a LOT of work and a LOT of effort. My back is pretty toasted today; my hips hurt, my pelvis aches, and I was having trouble walking up the stairs last night after finishing all of this. It's going to be like that when I do the tough jobs; that's unfortunately just how my body works these days, and while it does indeed stink, I'm used to it and know to expect it. But the payoff here is really great; I get the satisfaction of both a clean, clutter-free laundry room, I get space to set up my drying racks for the winter so I don't have to use up so much electricity running the dryer, and I get the immense satisfaction of knowing that I completed a project that desperately needed completing.

I bought a small shelf from Menards today; that will go around where the bottles of water are in that last picture. It'll hold my daughter's paints, which are currently languishing where my husband left them, on the super cluttered bar in the basement. I'm sure I'll find other things to be stored on there as well, because up next...

The basement!

Wish me luck, because that place is seriously Nightmare on Elm Street-levels horrifying.

Do you have any major projects that you're tackling?

Friday Thoughts 8/3/2018

Happy Friday! This week has gone by so quickly. Maybe it's because summer is speeding to a close and all the Back-to-School mayhem is in full swing. We've got less than two weeks before my son heads back, but I have friends whose kids have already returned. That was the norm when we lived in Tennessee, but I always thought that was crazy early. Anyway, let's get down to...Friday Thoughts!


*Don't Be Afraid of Robert Munsch's Love You Forever*

Everyone knows Love You Forever, right? The sweet children's book that starts out with the mom rocking her new baby and singing, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." I first read this when I was twelve and my librarian/teacher grandmother owned a copy. I sat on the floor in front of her bookshelf, turning the pages, and by the end, I had tears streaming down my face. When my son was born, I couldn't even read it to him, the book hit me so hard. My husband, who prides himself on not getting emotional over anything, got halfway through the book and refused to finish, and my teenage son was like, "Why did you make me read that???" after I'd pushed it on him. 

This book punches people in the gut. It's the perfect illustration of not only the deep and abiding love a parent feels for a child, but also how deeply young children need their parents. I've seen far too many people write the book off as 'creepy.' 'Why is that mom climbing into her adult son's window and rocking him?' they cry. 'That's just messed up!' But those people are looking at it the wrong way. If you look at it from the perspective of a five year old snuggled up next to their parent, reading this book, they don't see a creepy mom who can't let go. What they hear is the message that even when they're big and grown up (and the idea of being big and grown up is kind of scary!), Mom (or Dad or whoever is raising them) will still love them just as much as she does right now. It's comforting. It's reassuring. It's a promise of security and stability, of support and lifelong unconditional love. It's what every child deserves to hear, and Robert Munsch has framed in perfectly and beautifully. 

I'm never going to be able to read this book without crying- heck, I'm tearing up right now. I won't ever flip the page like the author of this article has, and I'm okay with that. :)



*How Decluttering Saves Me Money, Time, and Stress* 

This blog post is exactly where I'm at right now. A lot of my time lately has been going to my summer project of organizing, deep cleaning, and weeding out clutter that I don't need. "The more I own, the more I have to clean, the more I have to store, and the more I’m responsible for," Elizabeth Thames writes, and I've come to understand that. The things we own, own us. If we bring an item into the house, we're responsible for maintaining it, for caring for it, for figuring out where it goes and how/when we'll use it, how/when we'll clean it. I've begun to consider deeply before bringing anything permanent into my house (things that will be used up, like food or toiletries, fall in a different category for me). Do I want to be responsible for that item? Do I want to try to find a place to cram it into, in my already-hurting-for-storage home? (Spoiler alert: I usually don't.) For the most part, I have everything I need. There are a few things I would like, things that I've thought about for a while and decided that it would be worth it, but they're not going to make or break me. I really am content with what I have. 

If you've read the blog post, you've seen the picture of what the Frugalwoods' basement looked like, pre-decluttering and organizing. That's a close approximation of what my basement looks like, no joke. Mine might be worse. My husband has 4382947329843 boxes from when we moved in, and that's where they were all abandoned and forgotten. Sadly, my laundry room, which is also located in the basement, isn't much better. That room is my next project; I'll be tackling it slowly because it's kind of overwhelming, and then I'm going to move on to the basement. That room might involve buying things like Rubbermaid containers for storage; our crawlspace gets a little moisture in it sometimes and it's safer to store things NOT in cardboard boxes (ask me how I know). So we'll see. It feels SO much better to be decluttered and organized, and I'm smack in the middle of it right now, to the point where other projects are kind of getting pushed to the side. I'm okay with that- who knows when this organization bug will bite again? Might as well run with it. :)

Have you read Meet the Frugalwoods by Elizabeth Willard Thames? I adore her blog. I just finished her book this week and it's great. Full of frugal inspiration and long-term planning and the big payoffs that come with each, and I enjoyed every page of it. Highly recommended!


*Trying to Keep Up With the Kardashians? Here's How to Stop Money Envy*

I don't know that I've ever suffered from money envy, per se. I do see pictures of well-organized homes where everything is coordinated and things are perfectly placed and everything seems so calm and orderly, and I envy that (and am trying to emulate at least the sense of calm and organization in my own home), and when I was younger and money was tight, I distinctly remember lamenting to friends that I didn't want anything super fancy but I just wished we could go into the grocery store and buy a few frivolous things, like cookies and orange juice. Those were luxuries that were unaffordable to us, things we usually had around the house when I was younger, and at the time, it felt like deprivation to not have them.

It took a while, a lot of growth and learning, self-examination and studying of others, but I don't feel deprived of anything these days. While we can afford orange juice, it's not something I normally buy because I don't feel like we need the extra sugar. And cookies? Meh. I can make my own, and they're far superior in taste and ingredients than what I could buy at the store. I've learned to appreciate the process of baking, the way it makes my house smell sweet and feel warm and cozy, and the feeling that I've accomplished something when I pull a tray of something homemade out of the oven. It's a little luxury, one I'm grateful for, and I'm now trying to cultivate that mindset of gratitude in my daughter. She definitely has toy envy; it's hard passing by toys at stores or yard sales because she's immediately thrown into a deep abyss of "That dollhouse is a different color than mine and thus it's SO MUCH BETTER and I WANT IT!" We had a long talk the other night, and I'm very focused on helping her learn to appreciate the things she has and not focusing on what she doesn't. It's a lesson much better learned earlier in life, so I'm hoping I'll get there with her. :)


*Bringing Afternoon Tea*

How gorgeous is this post??? Such lovely baking, and the message is something I need to get better at. I usually have all the ingredients to whip up quite a few things at any given moment, but often I'm too busy or exhausted, especially during the school year when I'm running in twenty different directions after my two very different kids! It's something I'm working on. :)


*Tsundoku: The Practice of Buying More Books Than You Can Read*

Eek! This is something that every reader I know struggles with, and I'm no different, but now that I'm aware of it, I'm actively working to prevent this. While I'm focused on emptying out my Goodreads To Read list right now, I'm reading my own books while I wait for my interlibrary loans, and when my To Read list is down to books I'll have to buy (some of them just aren't available through my library system), I'm going to focus on reading what I own (and then weeding those books out). All these books on my shelves aren't doing me any good if I'm not reading them, and they're taking up space that could be used for other storage or just clear, calm empty space. 

'I will allow myself to engage in some tsundoku – besides, it's not actually a waste because of course, I'm going to get to that teetering stack of books someday, really!' the author says. I don't necessarily like that. No more somedays for me: I'm a woman with a plan. If it's not something I'm going to actively use, I no longer want to bring it into my life. I ADORE books, but I want to be the kind of person who reads- and benefits from- the books she owns, not the kind of person who lives among the stacks but never touches them.


So that was what was on my mind this week (which has been a little bit of an odd week around here, but I'll get to that on Monday). What have you been contemplating?



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