Final Tidy Countdown Day 1 of 64

I'm ready to be done. I mean, I'm ready to take action to be done. By December 31st. Done-done.

I mapped out all of November and December, identifying which days I'll be able to devote to the final tidying tasks. There are 64 days until Dec 31st and many of those days, I can tell, I won't probably get to tidying for various reasons. I sense the Lord has a deadline on my final tidying and the end of the year is it. So I need to make this happen.

I made a list of a few spots that I think will be the most difficult and I'm going to do those first. I remember moving and doing the garage first, what a huge relief it was when that was actually finished! It motivated and propelled me because all the other tasks were small compared to the garage.

I quickly made a notebook with the lists and calendar. I'll be focusing (and taking ACTION) over the next two months so I can finish by December 31st.

Reviewing "Freedom Is":
-knowing what I have and where it is...(see below)
-maintaining with quick daily pick-up and tidy (we are already implementing this on our daily chores, each day is assigned one room and we tidy that one room to the best we can right now, we've come SO FAR, most of the rooms are actually quite tidy on a daily basis)
-embracing "what's next" for my self-education (as I enter this "final phase", the Lord is speaking to me about laziness and being willing to take action and discipline, it is really good! I'll look forward to some in-depth word study at the first of the year)
-being unencumbered to help my kids' education (what a delight that will be!)
-completing long term dangling projects (the list is down to:
help Sarah with room
go through cubbies
get rid more stuff
go through plushy boxes
clean playroom/other final tidy)
ALL THE OTHER PROJECTS are completed! Of course, I've started a list of "new projects", but those are new and I haven't procrastinated any of these. I think it is reasonable to have an ongoing project list. In the next couple days, I need to make the Thankgiving pillowcases which we decided to do a couple weeks ago and bought fabric (the kids LOVE their pillowcases)!

It is quite exciting to see that my "Freedom Is" list is really coming along and not too far from completion!

SO

the most difficult:
-playroom
-Sarah's room
-cubbies
-legos

Playroom:
This room is going to be awesome. Need to go through the bags of stuff. Be brave.

Sarah's room:
I need to help Sarah let go of some things. She needs me to do what's going to be best for her, not just what she WANTS.

Cubbies:
Actually, things are looking quite good. Just need to make a list of the cubbies which need attention and finish the job.

Legos:
Hmmm. I bought special boxes for the Legos for the other house. They just don't work here. I need to brainstorm some ideas.
-boxes to slip into attic, easy to retrieve
-maybe wheeled carts to fit in Dan's closet, easy to roll out when want to use
-could stack some smaller boxes behind Titan table in flop room
-what to do with large plates/storage for completed sets?

Out of these four, I think Sarah's room is the most difficult, then playroom, then cubbies and Legos. I'll start tomorrow on Sarah's room.

Status:
IN PROCESS-go through cubbies (I'm REALLY close to being done!)
IN PROCESS-help my daughter purge and organize her room
-go through several bags and boxes of plushie accessories and organize (in Fred and in playroom)


DONE-finish taxes
DONE-finish quilt (gift)
DONE-finish handmade napkins (gift) 
DONE-finish a huge crochet project (gift)
DONE-finish handmade pillowcases
DONE-another afghan (waiting for yarn to arrive) {the yarn arrived, afghan 80% finished!}

FINAL TIDY COUNTDOWN:
Laundry
Flop Room/Desk
Pantry
Master
Master Bath
Master Closet
Kitchen
Dining Room
Playroom
Fred
Dan's Room
Sarah's Room
Office
Attic/Shed/Barn
Main Bath
TV Room

Video Game Shelf

When we moved, we put a chair in this corner and a box and bins...it was a jumbled mess. I thought Daniel would enjoy organizing his video games, consoles and controllers and I knew I would enjoy having this area organized.

We assembled the shelf together and he immediately got to work putting things where he liked them. He apparently likes Oreo on the lower left shelf, ha! No one tells that cat what to do!

The TV room is officially tidy! I'd like to put a lamp behind John's chair (IKEA floor lamp is in its box in the office waiting to be assembled) and some art/photos/kids' projects on the walls...oh, and I want to apply some Fray Check to the edge of the carpet, but that's on my "new to-do list" and I can do that after the final tidy. Nice work, Dan!

Playroom Boxes

I want to get through all this stuff in the living room (we call it the playroom). This has become the dumping area...contains mostly stuff I don't know what to do with and Sarah's plushy stuff.

I didn't take a photo, just dove into the boxes. Wow, I actually accomplished something! The room isn't done, but I feel terrific that about half of the stuff is dealt with...I have a looming sense of dread about what to do with Sarah's stuff. But...I'm going to put off that feeling until after we go through it together. Maybe she'll let go of more than I expect.

TV Room update...I purchased a shelf to house the video games and controllers, tucked the Rock Band drums up in the attic, easy access but out of the way. Once I put together the shelves, that room will be d.o.n.e.!

Status:
IN PROCESS-go through cubbies (I'm REALLY close to being done!)
IN PROCESS-help my daughter purge and organize her room
-go through several bags and boxes of plushie accessories and organize (in Fred and in playroom)
-another afghan (waiting for yarn to arrive) {the yarn arrived, afghan 80% finished!}

DONE-finish taxes
DONE-finish quilt (gift)
DONE-finish handmade napkins (gift) 
DONE-finish a huge crochet project (gift)
DONE-finish handmade pillowcases

FINAL TIDY COUNTDOWN:
TV Room
Laundry
Flop Room/Desk
Pantry
Master
Master Bath
Master Closet
Kitchen
Dining Room
Playroom
Fred
Dan's Room
Sarah's Room
Office
Attic/Shed/Barn
Main Bath

The Hooks Are UP

The hooks have been on the "to-do" list since March 1st...and today was the DAAAAAAYYYY!

Organized the shoe shelf, and wait for it, the best part is I put our "shower shoes" and "beach shoes" that we take camping or to hotels in the back closet in a bankers box-PERFECT! LOVE having a shelf for electronics (iPods and Kindle) and a shelf for my purse and camera, along with a spot for me to put things that are "in process", like lists or checks to cash when I go to the bank.

Worked outside on the back patio, yay, that's getting picked up, too!

LOVE having all the coats off the floor! OH, and the brooms, dust pan and Swiffer all got a nail, so they are hanging up off the floor-AH! To the left of the door, I hung the hats and visors and those lower hooks are Sarah's.

Did some pinning of boot trays and after all was said and done, I'm going with the cheapest (Target $4.99) because it is the right size, can't wait, it fits right under the coats. Muddy and stray shoes can get tossed on the tray and the tray will be super easy to clean...love that!

Seven More Cubbies Tidied

I needed a place for my daughter's glue gun, my LOL stuff, my word study books, put the trash bags in a cubby near the recycle box, got the Vitamix off the counter into a cubby and labeled a few others. I'm using the cubby spaces for NEEDS because these cubbies are so easy to access. As I find I need a place for something, I clean out the cubby, label it and insert organized items. I just added 7 more! That's a total of 15 done out of 75!

Tidy House THE FINAL PHASE

Freedom is...knowing what I have and where it is AND completing long term dangling projects. I've labeled this post "2013 dangling final tidy". Yes, we actually have ARRIVED at the LAST phase of complete tidiness! I'm expecting it to take a couple months to finish up everything and come into freedom. It brings tears to my eyes and joy to my grateful heart! From messy to marvelous!

Part of "freedom" is to "know what I have and where it is" so I'm going through each room and getting to know what I have and where it is. In this process of going through each room (a FINAL time), I'll be doing some rearranging, purging and possibly purchasing. (Why not make it easy and call it Positioning, Purging, Purchasing?!)

POSITIONING: I want to have the things I use accessible and everything else into a storage mode. It doesn't have to be tucked away in the attic, but labeled and contained. When we moved, some things got stuffed onto shelves and never properly situated, now is the time to do organize (especially the pantry).

PURGING: Now that we've moved, I want to get really sleek, getting rid of stuff we just don't need to hang onto. Our lives are 1000% improved since we offloaded a ton of stuff during the move (thank you Christi!!!!) and there's still more that can go.

PURCHASING: There are a few items I feel that would help us stay organized or help us in one way or another. I've been keeping a list of things, so now as I go through our final phase, this may be the time to purchase these items. I could us a reading lamp in the tv room and a shelf for inside the frig, for example.

Today I had the idea to put a label under each cubby and use this method to tidy up the shelves. I can easily do a cubby label anytime, so I grabbed my daughter and taught her how to use the label maker with me. We made eight labels and stuck them on the shelves that were easiest to organize and purge. Then we took a few minutes and tidied each cubby! Nothing else goes in these cubbies which are now labeled (besides the contents that belong there). There's a shelf in the dining room and two in the playroom. Now I have eight cubbies (out of 75-that's over 10%!) that are DONE and labeled. I have another 10 or so that are ready for labels, but I can do that another time. It will be fun to see all the cubbies colored in soon!