Our Really Big House

 Living in close quarters through a pandemic changes how we think about our houses, doesn't it? I always liked the open floor plan of our first floor - made it easy to supervise little kids, seemed light and open.  But in the pandemic, we realized we didn't have doors to close on spaces when a number of us needed to be on separate screens, on separate Zooms (oh, Zoom, how we hate and need thee). 

My husband and I crunched the numbers and decided to take over the rest of the second floor apartment. When we bought our three-storey house, each floor was an apartment. When Genevieve was a newborn, we renovated the house to add interior stairs and create a first floor apartment for us that included part of the second floor. Over the years, we have gradually nibbled away at the second floor apartment until 2 weeks ago when we swallowed it entirely. 

Glory be, we added another bedroom, a family room, and a bathroom! Now our girls have separate rooms, which is a wonderful development in their relationship. Now I have an actual desk in our family room instead of just a drawer next to the dining room table. 

It feels incredibly luxe to not have to wait for someone else in the bathroom, to have masses of storage in the new bathroom, to have a second fridge in the apartment kitchen (and sink and stove, but the fridge is what I immediately put into use). We even have a second staircase to access our new space. 

It's disorienting, honestly. The first night in the new bedroom, I kept worrying about my babies, spread out all over this huge house. I'm still a little puzzled about how much desk stuff to take up to my desk and how much to leave in the dining room, which I have realized is the nerve center of the house.

We had to acquire some more furniture and organizing things. I did my best to buy second-hand items from local sources. The way I see it, not only is this cost-effective, but better for the planet than manufacturing new (cheaply made) stuff that is shipped from everywhere. But oh my, I am also now experiencing the big-house effect, where I have doubled the bathroom equipment, added more bedroom furniture for Genevieve, and considering how many duplicate desk supplies I need upstairs that are already in use at other desks. We have another air conditioner in a window, too, now, which I recognize as really helpful in our swampy summers, but hate the enlargement of our carbon footprint. Living in small spaces makes us efficient, for sure. 

Kitchen Spot for the Canned Goods

Part of the pleasure of canning for me is seeing the actual filled jars, so pretty in all their hues.  My husband hung a small shelf in the kitchen so I could see the jars and also so I didn't have to run to the basement every time I needed one.

To get to my basement canning storage, I have to go to the back door, put on my outside shoes, walk through the weather to the big heavy cellar door, and go down the steps to the basement. I go down there multiple times a day, actually.  The freezers are down there, the empty jars, so many things.

I'm just really thrilled to have this sample collection of canned goods right here in my kitchen.  The other night when I remembered there were some Christmas gingerbread cookies in the freezer yet, I plucked a quart of applesauce off the shelf to go with them.  Easy peasy.  No outside shoes required.

Clutter

"The word 'clutter' literally means being stuck together.  When we have clutter, we are preventing flow in our lives.  We are not allowing new things to come into our life, like relationships or hobbies."

"Clutter is a lot of unmade decisions."

"Envision your home and ask yourself: does it encourage your favorite activities? Does it reflect your values and the things that you love?  Can you easily access the things that you love?"

These quotes are from Colleen McDonnell (setmefreeonline.com) in an article by Alison Pidgeon in the March 2017 issue of Susquehanna Style.  These thoughts really got my attention and made me think.  I haven't been feeling like my home in general is cluttered and truly, the photos I used on this post are not meant to suggest my idea of clutter - just unstaged life at my house.  But I do have some trouble spots - the basement, a few closets, an off-site storage space - that I would like to redd out and organize ("redd out" is a local saying meaning to clean up or tidy up).

What are your thoughts?  Does your house (life) feel cluttered these days?  What, if anything, are you planning to do about it?  I could use inspiration!

A Clean Room and Bed Pouches

The major project over Christmas vacation was a deep-clean of the children's bedroom.  It was not fun. I could not bear to take any "before" photos.  It started with my husband banning everyone from the room while he boxed up all the junk and washed and vacuumed and dusted.

Then, Ben and Genevieve and I sorted through the contents of the boxes, keeping the good stuff, throwing junk away, and sending other things to the thrift store.  It was not fun.  There were sharp words, tears, and worse (tantrums!).

It was not fun.

 It required all my adult skill to focus on the end goal:  a reasonably clean room that we were not embarrassed to have children or visiting aunties see, and a reasonably tidy room that allowed Genevieve and Ben to work on projects, find their supplies, see their books, and sleep happily.

I will say it again:  it was not fun.

But now!  Now it's a pleasure to walk into their room and it's not hard for me to say, hey, the clutter is building up, take a few minutes to put things back where they belong.

When my husband roared into that room in December, I protested feebly that I try to teach the kids how to clean instead of doing it for them; he retorted that you don't teach drowning kids how to swim, you save the kids and then later teach them how to swim.  Yes.  So wise!  So he saved them, and now we're working again on teaching them how to clean.

One of the little problems I solved was a place for the in-bed reading books.  Usually, we cuddle on the living room sofas to read a book aloud at bedtime (currently, The King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry, one of my childhood favorites).

But then Genevieve and Ben like to read in a bed a little, too.  They had nowhere to put their books or their book lights.  I whipped up two little pouches.  Ben's is made from an old sturdy workshirt of my husband's; it tucks under his mattress.   Genevieve's is made from some fabric left from her baby nursery curtains, a Waverly print whose colors I adore.  I added ribbon ties to the back so it could be tied on the top rail of her bunk; I sewed some extra lines along the top to lend it sturdiness.

Any comments or wisdom on children and messy bedrooms?  I'm always eager to hear how other people manage this.

The Secret for Happy Kids with Just a Few Toys

The principle here is simple and relates to other areas of life:  keep something out of sight for a little while and it becomes new and exciting when you get it out again. (We are embarrassingly like magpies, yes?)  Like seasonal clothing, or even the seasons themselves, or summer tomatoes, or toys.  Along with the rest of America, I assumed that children were happy with lots of fun toys.
 
No. No no no. No, they are not.

 I have learned from living with my children and watching other peoples' children (and I would lay money that scientific research backs this up); lots of toys overwhelm children both in play time and clean up time.  They don't use the plethora of toys to play in new and exciting ways every day.  Instead, they grow jaded and beg for new toys, which obliging, doting adults give them.

But no.

All we have to do is pack most of the toys away, unseen, and then rotate the toy selection every so often (every month? every week?  whatever you have energy for).  I have one shelf in the basement and one shelf in an upstairs closet dedicated to this.

She's saying "burrrr" (bear)

This post is coming from a recent toy upheaval at our house.  Phoebe is developing rapidly (talking! crawling!) and her baby toys were too babyish.  So I found little-kid toys in storage and started sorting them with her in mind, but my big kids fell on the toys with literal cries of joy.

I was astounded because I had put the stringing beads and Fisher Price toys away because they outgrew them.  But no - just having the toys out of sight for a few years made the little-kid toys interesting, fresh, and absorbing for my big kids.

We do not have a kids' play room at our house - we have little stashes of baby toys in most rooms and that's it.  The big kids have some toys in their bedroom and some in the playhouse outside.  That's it.  The rest are in storage and I have renewed determination to rotate toys to keep the fun fresh.  Because I do not want to drown in toys because they're usually ugly, plastic, and a sign of over-consumption.

And besides toys, we also have lots of books and the raw materials like tape, paper, cardboard, stuff in the recycling bin, and let us not forget the entertainment of cooking up an edible mess in the kitchen or the almost-helpful mess of cleaning the front porch with the mop and hose or going to the park or playing with the bunny.  You see what I mean?  I have little tolerance for plastic objects made just for children's entertainment.  I want to keep that stuff to a minimum.  Your thoughts?

My Four Lists

There are so many details to keep track of in our modern lives, especially for the person who is running a household.  Add multiple people in the household and the details increase exponentially.   I am helped by writing lists (my mother jokes that her mind is written down on post-it notes around the house).  Currently, my system has evolved into four lists on the side of my fridge (made on quarter-sheets of scrap paper).

Top left:  grocery list. (verbatim from the list: soy sauce, wax paper, red lentils. . . )  There's a general list of items that I could get at any grocery store; I shop at any local store that fits in with another errand.  On the side, I write items with their specific store, if there's a sale or something (for example, I buy my laundry detergent by refilling containers at a specific store). If there are coupons that go with any item, I clip those to this list.  My market list is a separate sheet of paper because I write a new one before each market trip and carry it with me (and sometimes lose it).  

Top right: this is my running list of non-grocery things that I'm keeping an eye out for, whether online or in physical stores. (verbatim from the list: blinds for green bedroom, black trash bags, construction paper. . . )  So, if my husband is running to the hardware store, I glance at that list to see if there's something he can pick up for me; or if I need to hit a minimum at a website to get free shipping, I try to combine purchases. This list is useful for me to decide if I really need something because it slows down my decision-making process and helps me decide how committed I am to that thing:  shopping for it, dragging it home, storing it, cleaning it, maintaining it. . . all that mental weight that I want to remember before I buy something. 

Bottom right: this is my very sketchy menu plan for the week. (verbatim from the list: honey mustard chicken, brown rice, kale)  See this post for lots and lots of detail about how I plan menus.  

And the final list, on the bottom left, if my to-do list for the week. (verbatim from the list: make samosas, start piano lessons, plan washing windows, schedule H&H)  It only includes the extra jobs that I am trying to accomplish in addition to the dailies. These could be cleaning tasks, social obligations, financial tasks, kid reminders, etc.  Sometimes a job reappears on the list for several weeks before I give up and drop it, or just make the time to do it. I am highly motivated to do my jobs because I get to put a checkmark next to an item if I worked on it and I get to cross it out if I completed it.  Seems silly, but that's motivating for me!

I'd love to hear what lists you keep to maintain your house and life, or maybe a different way that you run things.

Mailboxes in the Garden

I found this idea on Pinterest:  keep small gardening tools and gloves in a mailbox next to your garden.  They're available and protected from the weather and bugs.

After a fruitless search for old mailboxes for sale, I emailed my church listserv to see if anyone could give some hints.  Instead, I got offers for 3 old mailboxes and a fourth offer to salvage a discarded one from roadside.  Wonderful!  I accepted 2 mailboxes.

The green one from Roger and Rosalyn, tucked in next to the raspberries and the overflow compost bin, holds my garden tools and gloves.

The adorable old house from Sheldon and Naomi keeps the miscellaneous bunny supplies together:  comb, clippers, leashes, and treats.

Our church listserv is an incredibly useful resource.  Offers, answers, questions, and events are posted frequently.  People find housing, vacations, tickets, and lost items, thanks to the listserv. Does someone need plants?  Just email the listserv - I'm dropping off hostas today to a church friend, with a promise for irises once they're done blooming.

Our neighbors' yard, with a carpet of violets and a blooming magnolia tree on the right. 

Dapper

Ben has developed serious opinions (sometimes involving tears) about his Sunday attire, specifically his neck wear.

For a while now, he's insisted on wearing a bow tie every Sunday.  Then he started asking for a necktie. I found a handsome J. Crew silk tie at a consignment shop for $5 - it's not easy to find nice children's ties.  I had already cut apart one of his daddy's ties to sew down for him, but I keep bypassing it for other projects.

All these ties were taking up valuable sock-and-underwear-drawer space.  I actually started shopping for one of those little tie hangers, but suddenly got cold feet about spending the money. I confess that my thrift goes by spells, and that is okay with me.  We live pretty frugally, but it's not rigidly enclosed by a budget.

In this case, I decided to see if I could mimic the features of a tie hanger:  soft surface to grip the ties and let them dangle without wrinkles.

I used a cheap-o wire hanger and made a little rectangle from old flannel and scraps of batting.  I enclosed the hanger in it, sewed down the seam and then covered the raw edge with a scrap of bias tape.  Done!  It does exactly what I want it to, and I used what I had on hand.

And here is Genevieve on Sunday afternoon.  A rare treat:  she told me I could do whatever I wanted to with her hair that morning.  So I made rainbow braids and enjoyed looking at her all day long.

This follows on the heels of a mysterious flu that she had for almost two weeks, one of the reasons my blogging slowed down. I was so worried.  Two doctor's visits and a round of blood work later, she is finally perking up and gaining back her lost weight.  Thank God!

Found Containers as Drawer Organizers

I love the jigsaw puzzle of a drawer, fitting all the little things in there so that people can grab what they need and also see the obvious spot to put it back.  Of course, this does not mean the drawer stays tidy or the things put themselves away again in their spot.

I do not buy drawer organizers anymore.  I use little boxes, bins, cups, and oddities when I can.

And I keep a spot in a closet just for this kind of random, found storage container.  The containers are all just shoved in there as I collect them.

I love learning to look differently at things, to see opportunities where previously I did not.