I must be having a mid-life crisis. Ten years ago, if somebody would have mentioned table runners, organizing kitchen drawers or thinking about do-it-yourself art to decorate the walls – I would have looked at them funny, shrugged and went back to the lab. I never thought of becoming a home-maker. Never crossed my mind. Cooking, cleaning and ironing to keep my family happy? Ha! If that’s what marriage was supposed to be about – I’m out!
And yet, here I am. Ten years after “I’ll never get married!” resolution, I have a husband and I have two young children. All of a sudden, making a house into a home is very important.
I want our home to be a place of calm. A place that suggests “relax, leave your worries behind”. A place that becomes our respite from stress. A place where we all can be happy.
I like the idea of simplicity. Not minimalism, no. Just comfortable simplicity. So, I am sitting here and dreaming about organizing, donating, improving, up-cycling, re-using and recycling. I have converted a couple of shoe boxes into pretty boxes by covering them with polka-dot shelf paper. Two cute boxes are now keeping my daughter’s socks and underwear from being scattered all around a gigantic drawer. I organized our pantry – throwing out expired items and trying to group “like” items together in a logical fashion. I organized the under-the-sink area in the kitchen, leaving only the things we use. One important –very important – concept I just learned (Thank you, thank you IHeartOrganizing (http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/) and Jen Jones – organizing is not an once-in-a-lifetime event. Instead, I think of it as an evolving process. It takes a few organizing iterations to get things “just right”. And then – as our family’s needs change – so will the organization of our home. Here we have it, a paradigm shift. Instead of static “Box A goes here, box B goes there and that’s the way it is going to be for the next 20 years”, I will be always looking for ways to improve my home.
There is a lot of work to be done. I have a ton of ideas - some of them will go very, very wrong, I am sure! Time is limited. Between my three full-time jobs as a mommy, a wife and a scientist there is just about nothing left for personal hobbies. If I can spend an hour an evening on my pantry… or a closet… while doing jumping-jacks (aerobic workout!) and planning tomorrow’s experiments… Then I’ll be institutionalized by the end of the month. Multitasking is not my thing. As a friend’s daughter says, “I am multitasking if I am breathing and blinking at the same time”.
One thing a time, baby, one shelf at time J
