Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Did you know?
-Monthly Mission – Garage
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-If You Can’t Live In The House You Love, Love The One You’re In

Introduction

It’s May! The weather is heating up, school is winding down and we’re spending more time outside. We also have a busy schedule with all the school and extracurricular activities going on. It’s a fun time of year. We’re also looking forward to our summer break and planning what we want to do to fill our time. Sorry kids, daily chores will need to be part of it. I feel much more inclined to go out and do fun stuff if the house isn’t a mess. And then there’s the other extreme… sometimes it’s better just to leave the messy house and get out and forget about it!

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Did you know…

“The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are.” Mother Teresa

It’s time to get out into the garage and sort it out! We definitely have some work to do in our garage. After insulating our attic, some things stored in there moved into the already full garage. Time to go through our belongings and purge what we can to make space. For more information about the monthly mission for May, click here.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Home Filing System - Keep all your paperwork in order so you can find what you need at a moments notice, and learn what to keep and what to toss.

Organizing Children's Artwork - School is over and you have piles of artwork that your talented kids brought home. What should you do with it all?

Travel Planning Tips - Are you planning a trip over the summer break? Here are some tips to make your planning and packing go a lot smoother.

Organizing Your Day - Suggestions on how to better organize your day so you can get more done in less time and with less stress.

Garage Makeover - before and after photos of my personal garage makeover. See how we tackled the problems and ended up with a functional garage.

Streamline Your Morning Routine - Ideas to help you get out the door in the morning and be on time for work or school.

If You Can’t Live In The House You Love,

Love The One You’re In

I am a huge fan of shows like “House Hunters” and “Love It Or List It” where they visit lots of houses for sale. I loved house shopping for our current home almost nine years ago. Unfortunately, since buying houses isn’t something the average person does every day, I’ve got to get my fix through TV shows and open houses in the area.

I love seeing these beautiful houses that seem so big and spacious and clear of any clutter. This got me to thinking, would a new house be the answer to our dreams for a more organized home? The answer is definitely NO.

I don’t hate my home at all, but I do hate the excess clutter in it. In fact, my home was big and spacious and clutter free when we first saw it for sale! It was staged so nicely and it had a huge living room space that made the house feel really opened and bright. It was going to be perfect for us and our belongings.

The problem is, our clutter and bad organizing habits moved into the new house with us and now it doesn’t really look much like it did the day we bought it. My large living room area feels so much smaller now that it’s filled with extra furniture, too many kids’ toys, and the daily mess.

I know, that moving somewhere else, even if it’s a little bigger, is going to have the same problem. Same stuff to deal with and same struggles with keeping things put away and organized. We simply own too much stuff.

What we should do instead, (in the words of the show “Love It or List It”) is to love it! We don’t even need to pay for fancy renovations like they do on the show. I believe that simply paring down our belongings to make the home more spacious and keeping things clean would make a huge difference. We can once again see the positive attributes of our homes that we fell in love with.

I have to tell you, the other day I found some pictures of our living room and I was impressed by how large and clean it had looked. Then I realized those pictures were from the day we had our carpet cleaned and much of our furniture was moved out of the area. I was obviously impressed with how big the house felt and didn’t want to forget it!

So here’s to renewing our love for our current homes, taking pride in them, caring for them, and making them the most they can be. Let’s choose to “Love It”.

Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com