New Year, New Start

Wow!  It's been almost two months since I've blogged!  That may be a new blog-break record for me and it wasn't even on purpose!  I was totally consumed with my family over the holidays!  It was fabulous!  We did so many great things in December and then we went to California for a week over New Years!  I will try and share some pictures over the next month or so.  Disneyland was amazing!

As I'm getting back to real life I'm becoming overwhelmed with all there is to do!  My word for 2014 is ORDER!  Order in the court!  Order in the kingdom!  Order in my dang house!  I got a little jump on this word before the new year even began!  I decluttered and reorganized both my storage room and my family room!  I got rid of over a truckload of stuff (literally!) and rearranged things before Christmas!  It makes me feel so good to get big projects like that done!  Last week came my bedroom!  I went through the drawers, containers, closet and basically everything!  I donated two bags full of stuff to DI (our local thrift store) and threw away a bag full of junk.  My next house project will be my craft room turning into a craft trailer.  This will be a much bigger chore!

I've found a way to keep me on track with all my projects!  I'm making a plan!  Planning obviously isn't a new concept for me, but I'm doing this a little differently.  I'm giving each week a theme and planning my themes a few weeks in advance.  Some week's themes I've done are: family room, storage room, Christmas, packing for vacation, taking down Christmas & putting away vacation, bedroom, getting ready for a market...  By giving my week a theme it's giving me an area to focus my "extra" attention on!  One thing I've found is that by knowing a couple weeks in advance what my theme will be it's allowed me to be prepared for it both mentally and with supplies and I'm ready to take it on and finish it!  With these themes I've even been finishing my projects during the week leaving weekends for other things, either play or work without feeling like I have so much to do around the house.  I get too involved in too many things and the big stuff never seems to get done, but now a week at a time it's happening!

I hope that you all had a great holiday season!  I'm excited for this new year and all it will bring!  I'm happy to report that along with all the craziness 2013 brought I achieved all three of my goals for last year!  Here are three goals I have for 2014:

1. Take a family vacation to somewhere we've never been.
2. Be more social on a fun level.
3. Become involved with teaching & sharing my homemaking skills and ideals on a more regular basis.

Happy 2014!