Get Real

Childhood Dreams
When I was a child, I often dreamed about what my life would be like when I grew up. Sometime during the later grade-school years, I created my “life plan.” This plan detailed how many children I would have, what their names would be, when they were going to be born, where we would live, how much money we would have, etc. I planned to have twelve children, and name them all after characters in my favorite books, which at the time included The Boxcar Children.

We were going to live on a farm where we could own a few horses, breed and raise Rottweilers, and go star-gazing every night. I had detailed floor plans of our house and barns and even had a list of furniture I was going to purchase to fill my children’s rooms (including cool plastic toddler beds, bookcases, toy-boxes, and child-size tables & chairs).

Then I grew up.

I am currently expecting our seventh child, so I’m more than halfway to twelve… but almost nothing else from that plan has happened or will ever happen. I got married earlier than I had anticipated (20 instead of 23), I obviously had no choice in the gender of my children, and none of them are named after fictional characters from children’s literature. (One of the twins has Henry as a middle name, but he is named after a great-grandparent, not after Henry in The Boxcar Children.) I recognize now that animals are a LOT of work. While I enjoy riding horses when I get the chance, I have no desire to own one or care for it. I raise children instead of dogs, and frankly I’ve discovered that I’m not really a pet person. I would still love to go star-gazing more often, but I’m not sure that the farm life is for me. I love the suburbs and our trick-or-treating friendly neighborhood. The floor plans I drew as a child would likely not pass any building codes and had no interesting (and very little functional) architecture. My taste in furniture and desire for race-car and princess toddler beds has definitely changed as well.

Adult Aspirations
When I was in college, I majored in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. I took courses on infant, social, cognitive, and language development, as well as parenting, marriage enhancement, and family finance. For several of these courses, I compiled binders full of parenting articles and created plans for how I would raise my children—what I would teach them, how I would train them, and how I would make them behave.

Walking at graduation, 8 months pregnant with my first.

Then I became a mother.

My first born, K, 30 May 2005

Reality is so different than fantasy, isn’t it?

Adjusting to Reality
These fantasies never came true, and that’s okay. Creating fantasies and dreams helps us to find something to work towards. 

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars." - Les Brown

However, if we are forever dreaming and planning our fantasies, we can miss out on beautiful things from the present. There is a wonderful post at ZenHabits about Savoring Life. It can be difficult to savor life when we are constantly reminded of all the things we are not doing that we believe we should be. When our lives are cluttered with unfinished projects (or un-started ones), and items that our "fantasy self" would use... but our "reality self" just won't, we cause ourselves unnecessary stress.

If you truly want to become a master baker... start learning now. Make time for it. Put other things away and purge in other areas so that you can be free to bake as often as you can. Personally, my fantasy self would make homemade bread several times a week... my reality self is not good at baking, doesn't enjoy it at all, and would rather sew a quilt... so I guess I can pass on my pastry flour to someone who would enjoy it. :) Maybe then I can quit fantasizing about homemade bread, and enjoy my quilting with less guilt about not being the perfect homesteading wife. :)

Quilt squares that ended up in the quilts on my girls' beds.

My mother also sews, and when my siblings and I were growing up, she made our Halloween costumes most years. She always made high-quality garments and the costumes are still in great condition 20+ years later. I always thought that was awesome, and wanted to do the same for my children. One year, when I had
three children, I made themed costumes for my children, my husband and myself.

Pooh and Tigger - 2008

They turned out perfect, we got a lot of compliments on them that year, and we have used at least one of those costumes every year since.

Halloween 2009 with Piglet, Kanga, Thing 1, Tigger, a princess, Thing 2, and Eeyore

But, it was a lot of work, and I didn't really enjoy the process, and I've never done it since. In fact, now that we live close to my parents, my kids choose their Halloween costumes from Grandma's collection.

Halloween 2012 with a butterfly, Piglet, a cowgirl, a pirate, Tigger, and a princess.

Even if we didn't have access to Grandma's costumes, at this stage, I would rather buy costumes instead of sewing them myself.

Move On
My fantasy self from my childhood has changed. Even my fantasy self from 3 years ago has changed. And that's okay. It's time to grow up, move on, work on current goals and dreams, and let the old ones go... along with the clutter that goes with them. 

Experiment Day #2

A few weeks ago I did an experiment where I purposely allowed the house to go to disaster mode, then cleaned it as fast as I could... alone. When I told my mother what I had done, she told me I should re-do the experiment with my kids helping, and see how much time we could save.

The kitchen 4:20pm

Another view of the kitchen 4:21pm

The dining area 4:21pm

Yesterday turned out to be that day. I didn't mean for the house to get totally out of control. We weren't even home for half the day. We started the day rushing off to our homeschool group, and returned around lunch-time. We normally eat lunch at our co-op, but we were late and didn't have time to pack a lunch, so we came home instead. 

The family room 4:21pm

Another view of the family rom 4:21pm

The hallway 4:22pm

After making lunch, I was pretty much ready to crash for the weekend. So, I sat down with my computer and allowed the kids to play. We'd already finished our school-work for the week, and I wasn't really motivated to do anything else yet. Shortly after 4pm one of my boys complained that there was "too much pee" in the toilet. I went into the kids bathroom and discovered that the other twin had stuffed about half a roll of toilet paper down the toilet, and there was a flood slowly creeping towards the hallway. I quickly threw a couple towels down to dam the flow of water, and plunged the toilet. This is when I noticed that the laundry basket was totally overflowing as well. 

The bathroom - still with a puddle on the floor, but contained for now 4:22pm 

The girls' room 4:22pm

They had been building tents in their room 4:23pm 

The boys' room 4:23pm

As I looked around the house and realized we were back in disaster mode, I decided now was a good time to try to recover WITH the kids. 

The gathering 4:24pm

I rang our "dinner bell" to let the kids know it was time to gather, and I sat them all down on the fireplace hearth to explain the situation. Then I gave them each an assignment. Most of these assignments were their normal chores for the week anyway. Then I went around taking pictures and helping with the assignments in the normal order I do for the house pickup. 

1. Move Laundry

K moving laundry 4:28pm

K (age 7) had already emptied the dryer earlier, but the washer was still running when she did it. So now she moved the load from the washer to the dryer, then started another load of kids clothes (and emptied the overflowing basket from the bathroom!).

2. Clear Kitchen Table & Counters

C (age 5) started clearing table & counters while I moved on to help D.

3. Wash Dishes

D unloading the dishwasher 4:29pm

The dishes had been run earlier in the day, but never unloaded, and now the sink had more in it. So D (age 6) an I unloaded together while the others worked. 

J2 & M working on the clean-up pile 4:32pm

Also during this time I had assigned the J1 & J2 (age 3 1/2) to work on the "clean-up pile" which involved throwing everything they could find onto the train table. M (age 16 months) tried to help with this too. When K finished moving laundry, I sent her to help the boys with the clean-up pile, since they were already getting distracted.

4. Wipe down Kitchen Sink, Table, Counters & Stove

C wiping off the table 4:32pm

By this time, C had finished clearing off the table & counters and and moved on to wiping things down. 

C moving chairs 4:39pm

When she finished wiping the table & counters, C moved the chairs out of the kitchen so I could sweep. Then she went to start folding blankets in the girls' room. 

D loading the dishwasher 4:40pm

By now D and I had finished putting the clean dishes away, and started loading the dishwasher again. It wasn't full enough to run, so we just finished wiping down the kitchen and moved on. 

5. Sweep Floor

J1 working on the clean-up pile 4:40pm

When D and I finished dishes, I assigned her to start assembling the chunky puzzles so they would fit back into the toy bin, and I swept the kitchen floor. 

Mid-Clean-Up Status

When I finished sweeping the kitchen, I went around the rest of the house to inspect the progress so far. Time elapsed since "the gathering" - 22 minutes. (For reference, the last time I did this it took me 31 minutes to get to this point on my own... and the kids have already been working ahead on the clean-up & put away.)

K had already put away all the stuffed animals 4:46pm

C was folding blankets 4:46pm 

I asked J1 & J2 to put the chairs back into the kitchen 4:46pm 

D was busy putting the puzzles together 4:46pm

6. Straighten & Wipe Bathrooms

A clean bathroom again 4:55pm

Now it was time for me to get back to the bathroom. Straightening didn't take too long, and K had already emptied the laundry basket, so I had a perfect place to put all the wet towels I ended up with after mopping up the flood and wiping the floor. 

7. Empty Garbages

I didn't get any pictures of it, but D took out the kids' bathroom garbage for me, and J1 got a new bag for it.

8. Clean-up Pile

Boys' room picked up 4:59pm

Girls' room picked up - two of the girls wet their beds the night before, and their sheets were just moved to the dryer 5:00pm 

The rest of the girls' room picked up 5:00pm

With my help, the rest of the clean-up piles went very quickly and we got everything else to the train table. 

9. Put Away Stray Items

Putting away things from the train table, the puzzle bin is almost full of completed puzzles! 5:00pm

Down to the last few piles 5:04pm

K and I quickly sorted the remaining items on the train table and K, C, J1, & J2 quickly grabbed piles of stuff and put them away.

10. Vacuum

When we finished the stuff, I grabbed the vacuum from the garage and vacuumed the bedrooms, hallway and family room. K moved the cord for me midway through so I could actually get the one corner of the family room I can't reach when plugged into the bathroom outlet. 

Freshly vacuumed family room 5:15pm 

More of the family room, and the hallway, all freshly vacuumed 5:15pm

11. Fold Laundry

Again, I was burned out by this time, and since I didn't fold laundry during the last disaster clean-up, I decided not to this time either. All the clean laundry is piled on the toddler bed in my bedroom, out of the way.

Total time elapsed since "the gathering" - 51 minutes. 

Compared to doing the clean-up on my own - 1 hour 21 minutes.

Verdict - I saved 30 minutes by working WITH the kids... even though I spent a lot of time trying to keep them on task, and several still got very distracted.

Still, less than an hour after "the gathering" the kids were free to play in a clean house. They decided to practice some gymnastics moves. :)

Playing in a clean house is fun!

The Garage: A Work in Progress

We have to store the "clutter" somewhere, right? In our home, all the "stuff" that we don't use enough to keep in the house, is stored in the garage. As the title of this post suggests, this is a work in progress, and it always will be. We are continually purging our storage, and adding to it, and rotating through, and cleaning out, and reorganizing. Some days/weeks/months it looks better than others. Right now it actually looks pretty good, but that just makes it easier for me to "see" the projects I have ahead of me. :)

So, here's the tour of the most cluttered space in our house:

The view of our garage from the driveway. Obviously, our van insisted on nosing his way into the picture.

The other side of the garage. Again, the van wanted to be included.

I've mentioned our garage laundry area before, but here's a more zoomed out picture of it. On the floor in front of the machines is our laundry bucket that collects dirty socks and kitchen towels, as well as a diaper bag full of cloth diapers that need to be washed. On top of the washer is the detergent dispenser, as well as several grocery bags full of toys that were confiscated because the kids refused to pick them up, and now they have to earn them back. The dryer currently holds a stack of empty boxes because I haven't figured out where else to put them yet.

Next to the dryer is a water heater and on the floor in front of that is a tiny garbage can for dryer lint, a box of baby wipes and two boxes of disposable diapers (Costco coupons). Behind the diapers is an extra kitchen chair that currently holds a bag of potatoes and a bag of grapefruit. You can also see the step to the house, and through the open door you can glimpse our dining table and part of my fridge.

On the other side of the door to the dining area is the "mud room" shelving unit that holds adult coats & shoes. Above my shoes is another shelf that holds toys that don't fit into toy bins. I took this picture on Monday before we moved the waffle blocks to the house for this week's toy rotation. On the very top of that shelving unit is a stack of empty boxes that also contain original foam packaging for various items in our home, like my sewing machine and KitchenAid mixer. We've moved a lot in the past 10 years, and I have insisted on keeping several of these boxes.

The back wall of the garage holds the kids' coat/shoe/mud room area. The shelving above on the left is our pantry. It's more sparse than we would like at the moment, but it's functional. Canned goods and other dry goods live here. We plan to expand this farther to the right as we build up our food storage. On the right are storage boxes.

Here's a better view of the storage boxes. Four of those boxes are sewing supplies that I put back after my craft/sewing purge, at least 10 of them are homeschooling materials that I needed out of my way, and plan to seriously purge soon, and 5 of them are empty. I also have a couple boxes that hold off-season mud room items, like swim floats (since it's winter), and soccer cleats/shin guards/socks. I think there might also be one box of baby girl items, that I moved out of the house after we discovered that our anticipated addition is another boy. As we purge more of these boxes, we'll have more room for our pantry.

Under the shelves, and to the right of the mud room area is our workbench, which is currently hidden behind our giant double stroller, two umbrella strollers, and our large vacuum. The back corner of the garage has an additional water heater that is only connected to the master bathroom (probably my favorite feature in this house!).

Our back door is currently blocked by a couple saw horses that need to be returned to my parents, some wood for a current project, and a couple more empty boxes. The shelves along the far side of the garage hold more "long-term" storage, including Christmas decor, other holiday items (like Easter baskets & plastic eggs & trick-or-treating baskets), dead files (paperwork I can't get rid of for various reasons, but that I don't need to access), luggage, etc. On the floor in front of several large totes are the toy bins that are not in use this week (and a couple empty pink ones that just got dumped into the train table drawers). The totes behind and to the right of the toy bins hold things like extra winter coats & snow pants (we don't live in a climate where we need access to snow gear, but we visit family that does live in snow). There's also a tote of "sports equipment" that we are not currently accessing because it's too rainy, and there's a tote of home decor items that don't fit in our current home, but have sentimental value and I can't bring myself to get rid of them (see, I'm not completely heartless...).

The middle of the garage seems to be the catch-all. Right in the middle of the garage is a short coffee table with a white vinyl cover on it. This was meant to be the kids' art table, but it lost its place in our family room when we rearranged things not too long ago, so it's in the garage. It has actually been used for painting, while in the garage, so it's still functional. Currently, it's holding several items that I am passing on to my sisters and need to ship to them. On the floor to the right of the table are a couple boxes and bags that are donations I haven't dropped off yet. You might recognize some of those bags and boxes from my craft supply purge. There's also a red recycling bin behind the black bag that holds glass recycling.

Behind the table is a large jumble of bicycles and tricycles. Someday we will be purchasing some type of bike rack to keep these from falling on top of each other... but this is also part of having a large family... 2 adult bikes, 3 children's bikes, 2 tricycles and a scooter just take up a lot of space. :) If you look close (I-spy...) you can see an extra high-chair, and a bumbo seat. I've considered passing on the high-chair, but we've used it for guest's children, and occasionally for our 3 year olds when we have people over for dinner. I'm also pretty sure we'll use two again when our newest baby can sit up, and before our toddler outgrows hers.

To the far right in this picture are the large recycling bin and the smaller garbage can. We like to keep these in the garage so we don't have to go outside to empty indoor garbages, and so they don't get full of water when it rains, but also close to the garage door so we can drag them to the curb easier.

Also hanging on the far wall close to the garage door are two sets of golf clubs, and a large hiking backpack that is an emergency pack. Admittedly, it's a very old 72 hour kit, that was meant for 2 people and would probably last our family about 8 hours. :) Time to update.

Here's a better view from behind the garbage cans. Next to the adult bikes is the lawn mower and a collection of yard tools. On the floor under the fan and exercise ball are several wooden drawers that hold other yard equipment, but can really only be accessed when the lawn mower is pulled out.

As I said, this garage is a work in progress. It has changed a LOT in the year and a half we have lived here, and it is slowly morphing into what we want... but it will still take a lot of work. I will say that having a semi-organized storage space has made seasonal and holiday transitions much easier because we can find what we need fairly easily, and get it put away pretty quick.

And I just noticed how full our garbage can is in that last picture... that's because it's garbage night and we haven't squished the bags down yet... we usually fill the can, but rarely, if ever, overflow. :)

Our Mud Room: What Works for Us

I've always wanted a mud room. I actually had something closely resembling a laundry/mud room in one home we rented once. But we only lived there for 8 months, and only had three children back then.

The more children we have, the more I have found a need for a mud room type space to store things like coats, shoes, boots, mittens, backpacks, diaper bags, etc. Our current home has nothing resembling a mud room, and our laundry is in the garage, so no laundry room either. But we have improvised.

We have been blessed with a two-car garage, that is too small to fit either of our vehicles. The home was originally built with a very long garage, but the back half of the garage was converted into our master suite by previous owners. Our large van is too tall to even fit in the door, and even our mini-van is too long for the shortened garage.

So, since our garage is unusable to park in, we have used it to create a make-shift mud-room.

We started with shelving units that came with the house, and laid carpet scraps down to create a cozy, and semi clean floor. The bench used to be in our dining area, and we still may use it there again someday, but it's not needed now, so it functions better in the mud-room.

On the far left of this photo you can see the door into the dining area, my long winter coat hanging from the side of the shelving unit, and then the area for my husband's and my coats. There are six hooks (the same kind holding the kids' towels in their bathroom) that we use to hang our coats, jackets & sweaters. My husband lines most of his shoes up on the bottom shelf, and my shoes are lined up on the upper shelf.

On the right, you can see the spaces for our two youngest. Each child has two double hooks and three baskets in their section, plus shelf space above. In the winter, the hooks hold jackets, backpacks and snow coats. In the summer, they hold swim floats, sweaters, and backpacks.

We have the kids lined up in age order, with the youngest closest to my husband and me. The older ones don't need help getting their shoes on, so we put them farther away.

Here is our oldest daughter's section. She has a sweater, a jacket, a coat, and her backpack hung on the hooks. Her snow boots are on the bottom shelf under her hooks (and her sister's boots are also in her space...it happens). Her tennis shoes are in the red basket on the bottom shelf. In the bottom left corner you can see our second daughter's tennis shoes in her blue basket.

The kids also each have two hanging baskets. The lower basket for each of them contains socks. I've mentioned before that we tend to go barefoot in the house. My kids much prefer to be barefoot, and if they attempt to wear socks in the house, we end up with them under beds, stuffed into the couch, etc. The kids don't put socks on until they are putting shoes on to go outside, so it makes sense to store the socks with the shoes. This is also why we have a laundry bucket in the garage to collect dirty socks as they take them off when they take their shoes off to come in.

The upper basket holds seasonal or personal items. Currently my oldest has her winter gloves in the basket. I think she also has a wallet with her money in this basket too. In summer this basket holds swim goggles and in the fall it holds her shin guards and soccer socks.

The shelf space above is used for Sunday shoes and other personal items that don't fit so well in the upper basket. We have found that it is best to keep the Sunday shoes out of the way so they are not worn and lost, and so we can all easily find them when we are leaving for church. When we get home from church, or another fancy event, we make sure everyone's dress shoes are put back on the shelf, and the kids are not allowed to wear them at any other time.

Ideally, I would love to have fancy, built-in locker type spaces for each of my kids. And with doors to hide the clutter...but we do the best with what we have. As I mentioned above, these shelving units came with our house, I bought the hooks cheap at Target, and the baskets were pretty cheap at Ikea. Also, since our kids are pretty short, we can't do taller, skinnier spaces yet, so this takes up a lot of horizontal space.

While this mud room space is less than my dream space, it has functioned beautifully and mostly unchanged since we move in to our current home a year and a half ago. If it works, don't change it. :)

Tomorrow I'll share the rest of our garage.