Since the arrival of Child #2, I’ve finally come to understand that “cluttered house = cluttered mind” thing. Up to this point in my life, I’ve always been a bit of a hoarder. Add to that my less than perfect housekeeping skills, throw in the trails of abandoned toys, books and other miscellany that follow your average 4-year-old around, and finally stir in a generous helping of baby paraphernalia, and you can picture the disaster zone that is our house these days. Sigh.
Even if I was a better housekeeper I doubt I’d be keeping on top of it all. I honestly did not realise that with a second child, in terms of workload, one plus one suddenly equals three. I’m sure it will improve as Niamh gets older and they start to occupy one another, but for now, the equation just isn’t favourable.
At night, after the small people are in bed, I desperately want to be being creative. I want to be stitching. I want to be sewing. I want to be crafting funky little things. I want to get back to dyeing, and I want to be working on some web stuff. But all those things I should be doing (dishes, laundry, clearing up…….), they’re still there! And I feel guilty doing fun stuff while the work’s still waiting. So I have this never-ending ‘to do’ list occupying every space in my brain, and I just feel completely and utterly overwhelmed by it all, and of course, nothing’s getting done, fun or otherwise!
So. Enough of the problem. I’m working on a solution.
I do love this comment I found on finslippy’s blog :
There are 24 hours in the day, which is plenty to get things done. If that doesn’t seem enough for some reason, you can cut back on sleep, which will give you an additional 6-8 hours. Plenty of time.
Yep, that should work!
What I’m doing (or beginning to try to do, at least), is working on my packrattiness. I’m starting to declutter. Less stuff, less to clean up, right? There is so much in our house that we just don’t need to have, and I’m finally starting to do something about that.
I’ve unpacked boxes of books labelled (I kid you not) “Packed in 2002”! We’ve been through those and other books and set aside two boxes for secondhand sale. We’ve set aside a box of kitchen gear to donate to the op shop. I’ve been through my accumulated craft miscellany and ditched a boxload of that (some went to Finn’s pre-school). I’ve set aside a variety of stuff (craft, stitching, baby gear) for ebaying. I’m feeling good about the start I’ve made, though I know there’s so, so much more to be done, and it’s still really hard for me to do. It will make a difference – our house will be more useable, and hopefully it will start clearing the way for me to get to the fun-stuff more often.
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