My HomeMaking Mentor

Okay everyone I am super super super excited!!! I am now an affiliate of the fabulous Jami Balmet. Being an affiliate means I will make a small commission off of any purchases you make when you click through my link. However, my promise to you is that I will never promote something unless I myself actually like it! In other words, I am not going to promote something just to make money. That being said I do want to promote this!! I signed up for it last year and it is just fabulous and I haven't even been taking as much of advantage of it as I should be!! Mainly, because we don't have internet at the house lol. Seriously though, this is the first thing that I bought as a wife looking to do better. After watching just the first video I could already tell I was going to love it and like I said I haven't even watched them all. The group of ladies involved in this are just amazing. They all have their own stories and you feel like you can really connect with them. I have been following Lisa Jacobson for years and seeing her as a member of this greatly impacted my choice to try it. I didn't regret my decision in the slightest. My Home Making Mentor is a wonderful course filled with helpful valuable information to help any woman make it through. My biggest blogger goal right now is to be able to join the teaching side of the homemaking mentor. For me that would be a huge success in my blogging career. I am so excited to be a part of such a wonderful community of women and I look forward to sharing more opportunities with you.

 

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!!!

https://homemakingministries.clickfunnels.com/my-homemaking-mentorczjncc5v?affiliate_id=629471&aff_sub=&aff_sub2=&nopopup=false&noautoplay=false&cookiepreview=true

Creating Home: Simple Improvements

So obviously y'all know that we have been working hard to get our little home all sweetly situated! We have put a LOT of work into painting, adding trim work, electrical wiring, raising the roof on the extra room off the house, turning the garage back into a garage, and that's before we fix the flooring, do any yard work, or put anything like furniture into the house. So while all of that has obviously had a major impact on our little fixer upper house there are also simple little things we've done that have completely altered the appearance of the home. I am taking a page out of the book from one of the blogs I follow (http://thefrugalhomemaker.com/) and decided to start sharing our little remodeling/redecorating adventure with you. I was originally going to do a series called creating home, however, I decided to rename that series and use the tagline to make it easier to find my décor and homemaking posts. On with post!! where was I oh yes...I am excited about sharing this with you, because seeing the before and after pictures really reminds me just how much work we have done. More importantly though I want to get into simple things that you can do on a tight budget that can vastly improve the functionality and appearance of your home! So while the major before and after pictures I will save till later, I want to share a few of our minor improvements with you now!

Fix the lighting

Okay long story short if you have crappy lighting your house is not gonna look to hot. Though it may seem that no one would really notice or care about what fan you put up or if you outside light fixtures are "pretty" people do! I know crazy right!!! I never thought it would make that big of an impact but it really does. It is one of the subtle things you can do that can completely alter the appearance of the home. Example....our original porch light verses our new porch light!

It is a simple thing but it made a BIG difference in the entrance of the home. Best part...it was only $10!!!

Of course that isn't the only lighting we changed out we did the fans and are working on doing the bathroom and hallway.

Paint

Oh painting is a wonderful thing. It can turn pretty much any room into a completely different environment. For us we picked grey. I have lived my whole life in a beige house so I was determined to under no circumstances have a beige house when I finally got one. I picked grey because frankly I still needed a semi-neutral color. IT LOOKS FABULOUS! originally I was going to have a general color for the main parts of the house and then do the bedroom different. buuut with it being a smaller space I thought that it would look to patchwork quilty if I did the bedroom and bathroom a different color. I instead decided to make an accent wall in the bedroom. Just a darker shade of grey. We also put that darker grey on the inside of the front and back door. It really tied the whole house together. Plus we did a fresh coat of white on the baseboards to freshen it up a little. (feel free to ignore the people in the room. It was the only picture I had that had that wall and door before we painted :p ) (I will be taking better pictures soon!)

Decorate

The way you decorate really determines the atmosphere of the home. Whether it feels cluttered, organized or sterile in some cases. Now I am NOT big into staying with the "trends" of the year. I like what I like and I won't decorate with something that is "in" if I don't like it. However, once in a while my likes link up with the trends of the year. I love it when this happens because I go all mainstream and say "I liked it before it was cool" lol. Anyway, I am a BIG picture taker. I take pictures of anything and everything. That also means I have a lot of picture frames and little sayings I like to hang places and oh my word I really don't have enough wall space for everything. If you have the same problem then try a rotation method. Pick the ones that flow together well and then change them out every few months. It keeps the place looking fresh and perky and your guests excited to see what you've done with the place. I am still in the decorating phase but here are a few pictures of what I've done so far.

Curtains can really be a key element in setting the mood of a room! The red gave a nice accent color as well as provides much needed insulation against the brutal Texas heat.

The bathroom

Okay seriously the bathroom can totally make a home. It is like the one room that could be just another boring bathroom or could completely be the best room in the house. I am currently working on ours. It is the one room in the house I have put on hold until later because it is perfectly functional as is and I want to wait till we have the money to do more with it. However, I have big plans for that room and I can't wait to share them with you!

Our biggest project.

So the little extra room off the house that has the utility room in it has easily been our biggest project. It had some water damage so a new roof was a must and are wonderful little framing guy was able to do about a half a dozen other things. I am not going to put up pictures for this just yet since we are talking about simple improvements however, I will be doing several before and after's of the house when it is completely finished and as we slowly get more stuff done! I am so excited about our little home!!!

I am so excited to share more details of our little home as we slowly pull it all together! Stay tuned for some more updates! Don't forget to subscribe for the newsletter and like our facebook page!!! You can also follow me on twitter and Instagram.

Working on a household project? Share it! leave a comment or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com! you just may be featured in my next Creating Home post!!

Purposeful Time Together

Happy Friday Lovelies!

Oh and what a beautiful Friday it is! Well at least down here in Texas. Today I decided to send out a short note of encouragement. I received an email this morning from basically my all time favorite blogger Lisa Jacobson over at Club31Women (http://club31women.com/), the purpose was also a little note of encouragement (something I'd encourage all of you to sign up for!) and I will be honest it really hit home for me. If you remember, my last post was on the point of being still and little yourself let God take over. But her little "Note from Lisa" today reminded me that we also need to be putting some effort into encouraging loving time with our spouse and families. "...A small, simple routine...A powerful, memorable, connecting time." Basically, find a way find a time whether in the morning or afternoon or evening depending on your schedule to just connect with your family. Her special time was coffee in the morning. And that is probably one of the best ideas (if you don't like coffee insert your favorite drink here lol). In other words, strive to find a way to have a special time whether it is an hour, two hours, or even thirty minutes to just connect. I think the most important thing she said was this, "...only positive communication is allowed." Make sure when you are setting aside this much need and very important time you aren't using it as a way to iron out issues. It should be a time to just enjoy each others company and catch up with each others lives (especially if you have kids). This is actually something that has been weighing on me a lot lately since we made our big move. I have been wanting to find a way to set up a routine (not a forced one obviously) that just gets us together in the mornings or evenings but not around the TV. I can think of two ways I want to try to start implementing this. The first is in the morning. Now I am a lazy bum in the mornings. I literally sleep as long as possible before I have to get up and leave for work. I am just not a morning person. I would like to be though! So I think I will take a page out of her book and try to see if I can drag my lazy self out of bed early to enjoy morning coffee with my husband. Another idea I have been leaning towards is in the evenings. I am an avid reader so I thought maybe I could start implementing "reading time." We can pick a book and I'll read some and then maybe just sink into some quality connecting time and conversation. There are so many different things you could do! We had originally tried to start a tradition at my favorite coffee shop. Every Sunday we would go and it was phenomenal time spent talking about anything and everything under the sun. It's like we were dating again. Unfortunately that got kicked to the curb when money got a little to tight but I am hoping we can turn it back into a tradition again at some point. I digress. Point is there are a multitude of ways to find to spend time just encouraging and loving one another. I think the key ingredient is truly to agree that it will be a time of positivity. Turn on some soft music in the background and talk, take the dogs on a walk, go to the grocery store together! Even though we live with people that doesn't necessarily mean we are connecting with them. Spending intentional time together to talk and connect is honestly the difference between just being in the same house with someone and having a relationship with them! So I want to challenge you to try to find time this coming week to make intentional time to spend together. Purposeful, encouraging, loving time together. Whether it is over coffee in the morning, or sitting on the porch swing watching the sunset. Let the dishes be, leave the laundry for another hour trust me it will all be there when you get back. Big shout out to Lisa Jacobson for inspiring this entire post and helping me remember that purposeful time together is completely different than default time cause you live in the same house.

Have some good ideas of purposeful time together? Leave a comment below or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com. Don't forget to like the facebook page! and Hop on over to Club31Women and check out her blog! Until next time! 

Have a Blessed Weekend,

~Maryanna 

Be Still

     It is all finally coming together! Oh it has been a crazy few weeks packing, moving, unpacking, going back packing more, moving, unpacking. Painting, cleaning, remodeling. My goodness it has been quite the adventure! Finally though it is all coming together! I am hoping that also means I will finally be able to get back on the band wagon of blogging. With starting this new chapter in our lives of having our first home there has been a lot of things that I have noticed we had been lacking. Starting with a decent meal most nights and ending with the simplicity of a few moments of quite. As I sat on the couch yesterday taking a break from all the unpacking and reorganizing I realized how long it had been since I felt like I could just be still. It’s funny how we don’t always notice the need to just have a few moments of peace to ourselves. With work, possibly kids for some of you, dogs or other animals, cooking, cleaning, planning the list goes on. Sitting on the couch in that moment I remembered the quite calm of letting the heavenly Father handle it all. I looked around my cute little house and the complete silence surrounding me (the dogs and my husband were outside) and I prayed. Just a little thankful prayer for His providence. I’ll be honest I felt kind of guilty for not being more deliberate in making time to just sit and be still. I’m not talking about time relaxing, watching tv, or doing some other activity. I am talking about complete quite. This time is typically enjoyed by most during early morning or late evening devotionals after the masses have drifted off to sleep. That is perfectly find and completely reasonable especially for those of us who have busy schedules. However, I would like to encourage you to maybe at least once or twice a week to try to find a way to just sit and be still. Even if it is only for five minutes. Time to simply ignore the long list of need to do’s and the twelve million things swirling in your head. Just sit and be still. Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” With all the demands in life it can be difficult to remember that God instructed us to BE STILL. As with all things God did not arbitrarily place that in the Bible. He knew the importance of being still. Trusting Him. When we are constantly running around trying to keep it all together. Stressing about the bills, the housework, what’s for dinner and the million other things we can get side lined. Feeling like the weight of the world is on our shoulders as we try to handle it all ourselves. The importance of being still is to remember that we aren’t alone. We aren’t handling this by ourselves. God is in control. For me in that moment of complete silence when I didn’t have to be doing anything for those precious five minutes, it was like a refreshing breeze just taking every stressful worry away. So try your best to find time and be still. Take a few moments to breath and understand you don’t have to have it all together because the Creator has a plan. Trust Him.  

I hope you enjoyed last month’s series “Finding Normal” if so then I hope you will enjoy my next series just as much! Stay tuned for updates about my next series which will be coming soon! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our email list (I will be adding a special 5 day series for new subscribers also COMING SOON!) And if you liked what you read then give us a like and a share on Facebook and twitter. Don’t forget to leave a comment or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com

Finding Normal Week 4: Remembering the Reason for it

Cooking, cleaning, shopping, tidying up, scheduling, planning, stressing, being a housewife is a truly exhausting task. Think about it. You want to have a perfectly lovely little home. Clean and tidy. Everything in it’s place. I delicious hot meal on the table for your family. You want to do all these wonderful things. But it is exhausting and stressful and overwhelming at times. Sometimes we let the overwhelming aspects get to us. We turn our everyday lives into mindless little tasks that are honestly just time consuming and depressing. So what do you do? It is in these terrible moments of wanting to give up and feeling like a failure because you can’t keep up that you need to remember the reason behind it all. Glorifying God. Literally everything we do should be done to the glory of God. The thing is, when we look at it that way we end up finding so much more joy in the things we do. Cleaning, cooking, keeping the house together may not seem to be a big deal in the eyes of the Father. I mean, does He really care if our house is clean? The answer is yes. He cares because it is how we serve Him. How we have a testimony of service. It’s not about the clean house. It is about the mindset behind it. It is about wanting to serve our family through our efforts. Wanting to create a sanctuary and a place to recharge. A place of peace. I am not saying in anyway that if your house is messy you aren’t pleasing God. What I am saying is that when we put even the most menial task in a perspective of serving God it can completely alter our attitude towards that task. Instead of being another mundane task it turns into a joy. The real reason behind our every action should be glorifying God! I know, I know, we all hate housework even the most organized neat freak gets tired of the constant need a house has. So what do we do? well here are just a few ideas of some things that may help you get in the right mindset.

Play Music

Music is just wonderful. It has the strangest ability to completely alter anyone mood and can turn a boring chore into a fun activity. So turn on some upbeat tunes or some good praise and worship music and get to work!

Stay Positive

The biggest downfall we have is our own negativity. Being positive is the key essential element of accomplishing anything! So keep a positive mindset. Even if it isn’t a task that is your favorite try to find something positive about it and if that is just impossible then try looking at it in a different perspective. For instance I hate hanging up clothes I don’t know why I just do. So when I get really, “I totally don’t want to do this” I look at it in a different light and say, “It is a blessing that I have enough clothes that I can hang them up. That also usually helps me clean out my closet because then I just think of all the people that could use the stuff I have (win-win). Point is stay positive. Try not to dread your tasks and just find little joys in them instead.

Worst things First

Do the things you hate the most first. Having the most dreaded item off your list makes all the other things seem so much more enjoyable.

Be Thankful

Honestly when it all comes down to it, the cooking, cleaning, chores, everything is one of our greatest blessings. It is how we show the love and servitude of Christ to our families. It is how we become the Proverbs 31 women God intended us to be.

I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have! I hope it has helped and encouraged as well. Let me know what you think! Leave a comment below or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to like and share on your favorite social media site!

Finding Normal Week 3: Routines

The struggle is real. Waking up early, going to bed late, being tired all the time. Even when you try your best to get to bed at a decent hour there is just so much to do and so little time to do it in or hey maybe you just want to watch an extra episode of Netflix. Whatever the reason it doesn’t make dragging yourself out of bed in the morning any easier. This week we are going to talk about routines. And the first and probably most important is to get in a waking and sleeping routine. I am a night owl. I get so much more done at two in the morning than I do at nine. Unfortunately, working away from home tells me that staying up till two is no longer a real option anymore.  Another reason I stay up late is simply because I just don’t like going to bed. I mean why do I need to sleep anyway it’s such a waste of time! Yeah reality, you have to sleep whether you want to or not. Getting in the routine of an actual “bed time” will greatly improve your quality of life and your overall attitude. Now everyone is different. If you don’t have a day job then staying up late won’t really be an issue. However, most people, even those who despise mornings know that waking up early leads to a more productive day. Starting your day off right is the key. In order to do that we are going to back track to the night before and start with bed time routines because when everything is in order the previous day then you’ll have a much more relaxing morning.

Bed Time Routines

Everyone has their own bedtimes. Some go to bed at 9PM and some go to bed at 2AM. No matter which group you fall into the key is to make sure you’re going to bed at the same time every night. Now fun fact! If you go to bed before midnight (even just 11:30pm) and you wake up at 4AM you will feel more rested and relaxed, then if you go to bed at 2AM and wake up at noon. Now don’t ask me what it is called but there actually is a science behind this and I have tested it multiple times and it is (for me anyway) a proven fact. I don’t know how it works but somehow the hours before 12AM count as more hours. Weird I know! So if you are a smart cookie you’ll try to get to bed before midnight. Having a set bed time doesn’t mean you have to fall asleep at exactly that time. It means you need to be in bed, relaxed and comfortable ready to go to sleep. Now a big important thing about bed time routines is to do as much as you can before bed so you’re not stressed in the morning. Find the things that stress you out in the morning and try to get them done the night before. Here are some examples:

Showering-If you have to much to do to get ready for work then shower before bed instead of in the morning. It will save you some time and you won’t have to spend an extra half hour blow drying and fixing your hair.

Find your stuff- I lose my shoes ALL the time. I lose my keys, I lose my wallet, I lose my phone. I am usually running around looking for all these things while counting the seconds as I run late for work. FIND YOUR STUFF! The night before just take the extra time to find everything. Make sure your wallet is in your purse, you have BOTH shoes and your keys are where they belong so you can just calmly gather everything in the morning and not wonder what you are forgetting.

Pick out your outfit- Somehow when I wake up on time I still end up being late because I “have nothing to wear.” Picking out your outfit or picking at least two options can be helpful to having a relaxing morning to getting out the door.

These are just a few examples but the idea is to get things ready for tomorrow so you can have a more relaxed day. Set the coffee pot up so you just have to push a button, have the dishwasher already loaded so you just have to push a button. You get the idea lol. Nightly routines of tidying up, and getting prepped for the next day is a huge part of having a successful and productive morning.

Morning Routines

So now your mornings should be a little less stressful, but you still need to implement a routine. Starting your morning with Bible reading and devotions is always important for a happy day! It is very important to do family Bible study but having personal devotions is incredibly important. I value my time each day with God to calm my spirit and prepare me for the day ahead. Always make sure you’re finding time to spend in the Word. If you can’t find time in the morning, spend time on your lunch break. It doesn’t have to be an in depth study every time. The point is to make time even if you just read a short passage. Having a set time to wake up is vital to a good morning routine and the kicker is you need to keep to that even on the weekends (you can sleep in a little but don’t go over 2 extra hours). The reason is because it gets your body into a routine. It will make you wake up less tired and grumpy in the morning because your body is used to it. I am soooo not a morning person but I have found when I am consistent with my waking up I feel better. I may be a little tired but I don’t feel like a crabby frustrated human as much. If you can try to wake up and do some exercise. Get your blood flowing and energy going! Make a cup of coffee and relax. I personally feel like an important aspect of a good day is to have a relaxing morning! Point is set a routine for your mornings so things just run smoothly and you don’t feel like you’re running around like a chicken with her head cut off.

The most important part about routines is to NOT live by them. Setting routines is important, keeping them is good, living by them is stressful! The point of a schedule and a routine is to help you structure your day. Not to give you a flawless plan that when something doesn’t happen at exactly a certain time the whole day falls apart. Always keep in mind that life is life. Be flexible! Try to keep the plan but don’t make it so necessary the very thing that is supposed to help you just stresses you out. If you don’t get the laundry done by 7 that’s okay! Do it now. Finish it. The point of a routine is to make your life less stressful. If you are more stressed…you’re doing it wrong.    

A big part of setting routines is making a to do list. This can be as vague or as detailed as you want it to be! Here are two examples

Vague

Wake up

Daily Devotionals

Exercise

Make Breakfast

Start laundry

Tidy up

Detailed

5:00AM- Wake up and start the coffee pot, a load of laundry, and put the dishes in the dishwasher away if you saved it till morning.

5:30AM-Daily Devotional

6:00AM- Exercise (we will have a series on setting an exercise routine soon)

6:30AM- Toss the laundry in the dryer and start it. Shower and get ready for the day. Wake up SugarBear.

7:00AM- Breakfast for the humans and the dogs (don’t forget to put the dishes in the dish washer)

7:20/30AM- Feed the fish and leave for work

I am more of a detailed person so I always tend to lean that way. However, if the detail makes you feel to stressed if you get “behind schedule” then just be vague about it and use it as a guideline of things you need to do. The goal is for you to feel productive and accomplished not stressed and like a failure because you didn’t start something on time.

So now that we understand the importance of having routines for ourselves…let’s talk about routines for the house.

Routines for the House

First things first for creating home routines, divide and conquer. In other words, separate your house into sections. The sections are generally obvious but writing it down and making a plan is still very helpful

Sections

Kitchen

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Laundry Room

Game Room

Guest Bedroom

Guest Bathroom

Now how many sections depends on your house. For us, we only have one bedroom so I wouldn’t need a section for the guest bedroom. If you have more than two rooms then you just add them and can work from there.

General Cleaning Routine

Okay so now we know our household “sections” but we aren’t going to get them all clean in one day…unless you have a really small house. So now you need to set up a general cleaning routine by daily, weekly, and monthly.  Example:

Daily

Make the beds

Clean the kitchen (keeping the dishes clean and put away/counters wiped down etc.)

Laundry Basket Tidy up

Hang up clothes (laundry and stuff that is just lying around)

At least on load of laundry (to completion: as in washed dried and put away)

Weekly

Vacuum/Sweep

Dust

Wash Sheets

Clean the toilets/wipe down the showers

Take the trash out

Go through the fridge and get rid of bad food (bring a rage so you can wipe down sticky bottles and spills while you’re there)

Monthly

Wash the windows (inside and out)

Deep clean the kitchen

Deep clean the bathroom

Get rid of spider webs in the top corners of the ceiling

Clean the fridge (Like take it shelf by shelf and actually clean the fridge)

Beat out the rugs

Wipe down the base boards

Clean behind the furniture.

As you can see we got more stuff the longer out we went. And that is the general idea. We want our daily chores to be simple and few so we aren’t spending hours a day cleaning and scrubbing and not enjoying life. Here is an example calendar plan to getting it all done.

Sun	mon	tue	wed	thu	fri	sat
	01	02	03	04	05	06
	Vacuum Dust		Clean the Toilets		Wash Sheets Go through fridge Trash
07	08	09	10	11	12	13
Deep Clean the kitchen Clean the fridge	Vacuum Dust		Clean the Toilets		Wash Sheets Go through fridge Trash	Wash the Windows Get rid of spider webs
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Vacuum Dust		Clean the Toilets		Wash Sheets Go through fridge Trash		Deep clean the bathroom
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
	Vacuum Dust	Clean the Toilets	Wash Sheets Go through fridge Trash
28	29	30	31
Wipe down base boards Clean behind furniture	Vacuum Dust	Clean the Toilets	Wash Sheets Go through fridge Trash

That is just a generalized calendar for the month. You can move your weekly schedule around and mix up what you want to do or you can set it up so you have a set day every day that you accomplish the tasks. The point is to have an idea of when you are planning on doing your cleaning so you know what to plan for that day. And as you can see not every day is a cleaning day! I mean you will still have your daily cleaning but if you are keeping up with it then it shouldn’t take much time out of your day.

Routines and schedules are important but don’t feel like you have to live by them. If something comes up it is no big deal. Go on that spontaneous outing. Take time for yourself and just say I am not doing it today and move it to tomorrow (obviously this is not to be used every day lol). Life isn’t about schedules but having them can make your life much easier. Ask your husband or kids to help you out if you are feeling overwhelmed with it all. Most importantly know that it is okay! You are not a failure as a mom or a wife if you didn’t vacuum the house or finish the laundry. Spending time with your family is always so much more important. Never feel like you are not a good house wife just because your house isn’t June Cleaver ready 24/7. I know it is difficult sometimes to not feel that way because so many other ladies may seem to have it all together. But remember it doesn’t matter. Being a good wife/mother isn’t about the cleanliness of your home. It’s about the time spent with loved ones. The lessons taught and learned. The safety and love that the home provides. I get it your mother in law may be coming to town or maybe your OWN mother is the one who comes over and is all I can’t believe your house looks like this when all you have is a spoon in the sink. It can be difficult when you want to please the people you respect and are seeking validation from. Remember though that at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter if your sister has a cleaner house or your brother’s wife’s third uncle’s cousin’s sister is the world’s most organized person. Your house is not their house and though we all want to live in a clean home don’t let the opinions of others dictate your worth. You are valued and you are not a failure just because something is out of place. Never give up just because someone may be looking down on you. You’re valued and loved by the Most High King! So keep up the good work. Keep trying and know that no matter how many times you may have to start over it is okay.

I hope this week helped you discover a good routine and also encouraged you in your endeavors and knowledge that a clean house is something to work towards but not live for. No matter how organized or completely disheveled you may be it is okay and you can get a handle on everything as long as you never give up!

What are some areas that you struggle with when making routines? Do you prefer a check list or a detailed plan? Do you ever compare yourself to how well others can “keep it together?” Leave a comment below or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com.

Don’t forget to like my facebook page to keep up to date in your news feed and you can always follow me on twitter and Instagram! As always thank you so much for your support!

Clearing the Clutter

I am a totaly stuff hoarder myself. However, when my husband and I got married I had to leave everything behind. My parents refused to allow me to get anything from the house and I had only managed to get a very few items like extra clothes and a my letter box. Although it sucks, having to leave all that stuff behind wasn't such a terrible thing...minus the one blue bin with all my family heirloom pieces from grandparents and aunts that I really wish I had. Anyway, it gave me a completely empty canvas of nothing. Which means all the clutter I had managed to gather and collect over the past 20 years was no longer there. Fast forward two an a half years later...waaaay to much stuff again! We are moving in the next few days though so I am going to take advantage of that and as I unpack boxes and put things away I am going to declutter. That way I am not just filling my house with more junk. I think the key to minimizing though is to not only declutter but to prevent new clutter. As amazing as unclutter is it totally sucks to do all that work and then in a few months just have it reverse back to what it was. Maintaining the clutter is the key! This comes from having a purposeful mindset to not say, "I'm just gonna shove this here I'll get to it later." So here are a few ways to declutter and then maintain the unclutteredness.

Have a Junk Drawer

EVERY house has a junk drawer and if yours doesn't....yeah I just don't believe that is possible lol. Point is it is fine to have a "junk drawer." But it is very important to let let it become a junk cabinet, then a junk counter and eventually a junk closet. Junk drawers are for those little things that are necessary but don't really make sense anywhere in the house. It's like the catch all for things like paper clips and random screws and little notes that you know are important but don't know what to do with. Having a junk drawer is like the one little place in the house that you can not worry about because it's not supposed to make sense and be organized (although props if yours is). So instead of shoving stuff in random places designate a DRAWER (emphasis because you don't want something with a lot of space) and when you don't know what to do with something put it in there. Now don't just leave it there...and this leads us in to part two

End of the day declutter

If you have been following me for a while, especially for the month of February, then you know about my "Finding Normal" series and hopefully have already been working on cleaning your home up. If that is the case then this fits right in. At the end of the day while doing your laundry basket clean up add a declutter the space task to your to do list. All those things you put in the junk drawer...go scan through it and see if you can find it a home. If you can't ask yourself if it is important or there is any REAL reason you should save it. If not chunk it. get rid of it. If yes to any of those questions then you should be able to find a home for it. The idea of the junk drawer is to be like a holding cell until you have a little more time to thoroughly decided if you need something. If you managed to still convince yourself to shove stuff other places as well, then go through those too. It might sound like a lot of work going through each area and looking for clutter. However, if you do it daily it won't take more than five minutes. The idea behind it is to fix the clutter daily so it doesn't actually become cluttered. 

15 minute declutter

If you haven't decluttered yet and are just starting this process, it can be very daunting. Every room seems like it will take hours to conquer and where do you even start? I don't know about you but I usually have to work myself up to a big project so I suggest starting in the easiest room to do. The reason for this is twofold. Not only do you get started somewhere but more importantly you will be done with that area faster and therefore, feel very accomplished. That will encourage you to keep cleaning in the other rooms. Anyway, I digress. Pick a room to start in get a trash bag a box and a laundry basket. Set a timer for 15 min. then start decluttering. Go through each item. If it is trash toss it, if you don't want it but it is in good shape and not trash put it in the box if it is something that just shouldn't be in that room put it in the laundry basket. When the timer goes off stop. Throw the trash away, put the box somewhere to be donated or sold, and take the laundry basket and put the items away where they belong. Do this in every room. taking 15-30min. breaks in between. 

Give yourself some credit

Seriously even the person whose home looks perfect probably just shoved all their crap in a closet before you came over. So give yourself some credit. The fact that you want to clean and organize your home is the first step in the whole process. Even if your house isn't perfect that is okay! Our homes are meant to be our sanctuaries not places that we are constantly stressed about if they aren't in perfect shape 100% of the time. Nobody is perfect you're meant to live in the house not treat it like a museum. 

What are some tips and tricks you use to declutter or keep cutter from piling up? Leave a comment below or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com I love hearing from you! Don't forget, you can share this on facebook and like my facebook page as well as follow me on instagram and twitter! Remember that "Finding Normal" Week 3 is this Tuesday can't wait!!!