Tired of the Mess--Success!

Do you remember when I wrote months ago about being Tired of the Mess? Well, it took a while, but I finally did something about it. That is the reason why I've been pretty much absent from my blog for the last couple of weeks. With picking and preserving garden produce, preparing for school to start this week and taming the mess, I haven't had time to sit and write (although I have lots of ideas in my head!).

I started on taming that mess back in February when I first wrote about it, but got discouraged when I needed help moving some things and couldn't get my husband to help. Then I thought I was going to be getting some new shelving units so I thought I would wait until I got those. When the time came to get them, we realized they wouldn't fit in the room because they were 8 ft tall and since our ceilings are only 8 ft tall, there was no way to stand them up. I got discouraged, again.

I kept wanting to do something, but with lack of time because of the garden, the miscarriage, etc., I was great at making excuses as to why I couldn't do anything. Then, two weeks ago, I had finally had enough. We had moved out our chest freezer so I had extra space and it was a rainy day and I knew I wanted it done before school started so I set to work. It took a total three days to get it to this point (the first day was a full day and then two half days after that).

Of course, when I first started, the room began to look worse and worse. I had to move piles of stuff out of the way so I could move things around. We ended up taking out three bags of trash and a box of items to be donated. Of course, just a week before I started on the office, I had two boxes of books that I pulled out to sell (I'm now down to one box!) so that was helpful. I still can't fit all our books nicely on the shelves we have so I need to do a little more work and I still have a few files and drawers to go through, but for the most part I am done. I am working slowly on those other items and need my husband to go through his book collection and downsize as he has more shelves of books than I do (the English major, book-loving, book-reading fiend!). I think if I can get his seven shelves of books down to even five, we'll be good (I only have two shelves, the girls have four, school books have four, and reference books have four).

We also discovered we have a lot more room with the new format even though we brought in a bookcase to replace the space the freezer took. The placement of the desk give me a better view of the house and girls' school desk at the same time.

Are you ready to see pictures?!

Here is the view of the office from the main house.

The bookshelves still need a little work.

The "School Zone". Books, supplies, etc.

Looking at this picture I realize I need to clear off my bulletin board some more!

The girls' school desks (the blue board folds down for a desk). We can't get that printer to work, so we will be getting rid of it.

These are the  bookshelves that still need to be downsized.

Tired of the Mess Giveaway!

As I was working on de-cluttering the office, I came across three copies of Cross Country by Wyatt Howey. I love the music of Wyatt Howey. God definitely gifted him with a beautiful voice. Wyatt is very concerned with getting the message of Christ out to those who need to hear it and gives copies of his cd's away often. I  gave away some of his cd's before on here as well as just handing some out to friends and family.

Cross Country  includes songs such as: The Answer is Christ, Baptism, Three Wooden Crosses, Come to Jesus, Long Black Train, and more. It even includes a message from a Pastor.

You get to benefit from my needing to de-clutter! I will give away the three copies I found to three randomly drawn winners. I will draw the winners Monday morning.

To enter you need to be a follower of Gracious Daughter of the King blog and leave a comment telling me what area of your home or life you need to de-clutter.

You can earn extra entries by:

• "Like" Gracious Daughter of the King on Facebook. Leave a comment telling me you do.
• Share this giveaway on your blog and leave a comment telling me you did.
• Share this giveaway on Facebook and leave a comment telling me you did.

Tired of the Mess

 If you ask most people who know me well, they will tell you that I am a perfectionist or as my husband says—anal-retentive. I don’t disagree. I am not as bad as I used to be (you can’t be with nine children!), but I am still very much particular about where things go, how things are done, etc.

That being said, my house has been known to be a mess (and I don’t just mean because I have nine children!). We just have too much “stuff”. Before we built our addition, we looked like we were busting at the seams. I would often “declutter” things, but I never did enough. People say that if you don’t have a place for an item, then don’t bring it home. Well, that is something I should live by, but don’t.

I have finally come to a point where I am just tired of the mess. With more things in the house, the easier it is to make it messy. Our family loves watching Little House on the Prairie and I am often reminded of how little they actually have and yet they are happy.
Before you go off and say, “But that is just television”, remind yourself that the show is based on the books which are based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life. They truly didn’t have much, but they were happy. The few times they took things out on credit from the store, they learned that it wasn’t a smart thing to do and learned to do without until they had the cash to pay for it.

I am starting off by working in the office, the room of my house which has been a sore spot with me for years. I don’t know why it has taken so long for me to do something about it, but I am ready to tackle it. I began by going through books I have been keeping for home schooling and really thinking about whether or not I will actually use them. After coming up with a box to get rid of, I started listing things for sale on Ebay. Looking at my shelves that were starting to look nicer, I decided to tackle my other books—books I have already read or even those I am hoping to read some day. I came up with another stack for me to list on Ebay. While this is only the start of getting rid of the mess in the office, I feel good about it.

I can't believe I am going to do this, but I will post pictures of what our office/school room looks like right now. I am going to give myself a month to get it de-cluttered and organized and then hopefully I'll remember to post pictures. For some reason, one of the pictures I took didn't load. It was of three five-shelf bookcases that are overcrowded with books and other things stacked on top of them.