365 days later

Uh, okay, I THOUGHT this post had been published . . . apparently not! Maybe the Habits and Impatience post will make more sense after reading this one?

One year ago today, I posted my first “this is what I learned today” post. I really intended to post something new every day. That didn’t happen. Sometimes I had to post several days’ worth of learning in one day. Other times several days would pass without me learning a single thing. But I still think I managed to learn/try 365 new things given that there were a good number of days where I learned/tried 2-3 new things. One thing I did discover is that learning didn’t just happen. Sometimes I would just randomly bump into some interesting information or learn something new. But, most of the time, I had to go in search. The easiest place to find new information is in the kitchen. This year my family and I have tried countless new recipes. I’d say that about 1/3 of them were amazing, 1/3 were mediocre and 1/3 were awful. I still enjoyed trying out all of the recipes, even the flops. As a result, I’ve gained a vast amount of kitchen knowledge such that I’m pretty comfortable saying that I know my way around a kitchen. If you asked me for specific things that I learned, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you. But, I do now that I can whip up something for dinner out of seemingly nothing, and I’ve gotten quite good at finding substitutions last minute!

Overall, I’m glad I embarked on this journey. If nothing else, it has gotten me to keep my eyes open for new information and experiences. If I keep that up from now until the end, I’ll have gained a vast amount of knowledge that I otherwise may not have encountered. In my book, that’s a win.

So where do I go from here? I had thought about saying farewell and inviting you to follow me on my other blog, A Diva Moment, something you are still welcome to do. But, I’ve decided to continue blogging here with a slightly different goal. Rather than learning something new each day, I’m going to try and organize my life and household a little bit each week. Notice, I said week and not day. This past year has taught me that expecting myself to do something every day is unreasonable. I’m thinking a week is much more reasonable. Anyway, so each week, I’ll be popping in and sharing the little things that I’ve done to eliminate the chaos in our household. I hope you’ll stay with me as I start this new journey!

Habits and Impatience

There’s a saying that goes: Old habits die hard. This year I’ve created the habit of paying attention to what new information I am exposed to on a daily basis. Now that I’m not blogging about said new information, I’m finding it hard to turn that switch off in my brain. Over the past few days, I find myself learning things, like another way to peel garlic, and another recipe for stew and, and, and. Every time, I think, “Oh, I need to remember this to put up on the blog.” And then I say, “Self, you aren’t blogging about that anymore!” I’m guessing it’ll be a good month before the “I need to blog about this” switch is disabled. I am hoping, however, that I’ll still remain aware of new information. I wouldn’t say that I necessarily learned more this year than in previous years, I was just much more aware of the learning. This is an important distinction. Being aware of learning means that the chances of the information staying in my head are greatly increased. That is a good thing!

My brain has been all sorts of busy the past few days. Partly because I’m still consciously thinking about learning, but also because I keep seeing all kinds of things around the house that could use organization. I have a problem, I like instant gratification. If I get a bee in my bonnet, I need to deal with it right away. I see so many disorganized things in my life and around my house and I want to fix them RIGHT NOW! That’s really not at all practical for several reasons. 1) Apparently, mayhem and disorganization run rampant around here. 2) Fixing and changing everything at once would be too dramatic and I’m sure my family would balk. 3) Many of the things that need organizing are giant projects that just can’t be done right now. So, I’m making a list of all the things I see around the house and little by little, I’ll get to them this year. Here’s a sneak peek at my list:

making a daily schedule
helping the babes find a good morning and evening routine
paying bills on a schedule
make a menu-planning system
make a cleaning-the-house system
organizing the appliance manuals
spice organization
laundry room organization
filing organization

I’m going to be busy this year! My goal is to have a more organized life, which I think will lead to a happier family life. This isn’t to say that our family life is horrid, it’s just woefully disorganized. Every time we add another member to the family, I notice the disorganization more and more. This is the year that I make a turn-around. Finding ways to take my home-making to the next level is my main goal for the year.

Being a perfectionist and generally organized (I was very organized until I had kids and became a homemaker!), I have lots of ideas to help me create order out of the chaos. But I won’t be doing this alone. I have a friend who is also on a quest to organize her home-making. Her new blog, Home, Made by Carmona is full of beautiful pictures and really great ideas. I would be remiss if I didn’t give her a shoutout and thank her for inspiring me to embark on my own organizational journey. I’m looking forward to the changes, and trying to keep my impatient self at bay. I did abate the impatience by organizing several drawers in my kitchen . .. but that’s for another blog post!