An Organized Christmas

I love it when I actually think ahead and it pays off.

Our tree is up and decorated now, and I have to say, while real trees still have a warm fuzzy place in my heart, this year’s new pre-lit fake tree, though small, was a cinch to set up and decorate. We debated between it and the slightly cheaper no-lights one and realized a) we had thrown out all our Christmas lights because none of the strands fully worked and so we’d have to buy a bunch and b) we wouldn’t have to fight with the branches. Sold.

And then  …

We brought out the ornament box. I had been eying one at Target last year after the holidays and waited for it to go on a deep discount in January when we took down our tree. I was sick and tired of trying to figure out where all the ornaments were stuffed in this box or that bag. It isn’t my first choice in color, but in purpose it did the trick. All of our Christmas ornaments fit inside (we had to double-occupy some divided spaces, with plenty of cheap plastic bag padding.) When we picked up a couple of new ornaments along the way this year, they too went into our under-bed storage box full of ornaments. No hunting required to decorate. Yay!

Finally, the rest of our small decorating objects I had stored in an older popcorn tin I had been given as a Christmas present as a teenager. I no longer eat popcorn (insert sad allergy discovery tale here), but I kept the tin with its cheerful ice skating snowman. Not has it protected my little items through several moves, but it is also decorative in its own right, so it stays out through the Christmas season until I fill it once more and store it away in the attic until next year. For extra bonus organization points, I had kept some Christmas silk flowers inside the tin in a big freezer Ziploc bag, all sorted away, and it was super easy to add them to our tree without digging around for them.

I’m pretty proud. Why, last Christmas, I hadn’t even fully begun my organizational mission (I started this blog in February,) but yet I had given myself a head start. Now, as my year of organizing the house comes closer to the close, I am so grateful as the efforts have begun paying off. Little things I did a year ago are helping out today.

So today, I’m celebrating the little successes. They show me just how far we’ve come in a year. Oh, yeah!

It’s December Already?

I was just getting used to Fall, and now it’s gone and become December and before you know it we’ll be into the official start of winter and then Christmas.

I broke out the Christmas decorations yesterday, only to realize, well, we don’t have many. And now I have an opened tin of what is basically Christmas tree ornaments with no Christmas tree. We’re still deciding on that one, since we’ll be spending the majority of the holidays with family.

I also have what seems like a mountain of packaging supplies I’ve amassed in my living room that need to be stored for Etsy sales. I have dishes that need to be washed, clothing that needs to be laundered, and a refrigerator that desperately needs to be cleaned. I need to take the dog for her shots this afternoon. I’m also out of my natural cleaning supplies I made, so I need to make more. Yet all I can do at the moment is stare at my laptop screen, hunt Pinterest numbly, blog, and hope my killer headache goes away. Quite frankly, I feel overwhelmed. I guess it happens to the best of us.

Maybe it’s just me? But sometimes the cleaning and the organizing that needs to happen makes me freeze in place and just want to leave the house so I don’t have to think about it. I know I’m avoiding making all the decisions necessary to tackle my projects, but man, today I just want to sit and veg and nurse my headache.

I’ll snap out of it, I know. I have a plan … start with the room that confuses me least. My master bathroom. Some people hate cleaning bathrooms. I actually don’t mind it. You wipe, scrub, shine, spiff, sweep, and straighten. Done. The obsessive compulsive side of me wants to re-fold the towels in our bathroom linen closet, just to feel like I have some level of order in place that is manageable and quick. I can fold a towel. You know, as opposed to organizing the pile of boxes and packaging supplies in my living room. Or somehow whipping up a bunch of charming Christmas decorations out of a miniscule budget.

Oops. I just revealed I’m not always a perky clutter-busting fiend. Today I’m exhausted and grumpy. Today I’m just the girl with the headache who wishes her house magically looked like those houses in beautiful blogs and magazines, decked out for Christmas and clean enough to pass a white-glove inspection. Does anyone know a real-life Mary Poppins I could borrow?

You know what? Don’t mind me. I’m just going to go take the dog for her shots and then come home and tidy my bathroom to regain my clutter control and composure. I’ll see you soon.