I can’t organize to save my life.

A little bit of honesty here. Because if you ever come to visit me and you see the state of my house (or if I get brave and post pictures of my home in its’ current condition…oh boy. I’m breaking out in hives just thinking about it.) you will look at it and think, ‘Why, in the name of Heloise, is she writing a blog on organizing/cleaning/de-cluttering?’ Nope. That’s not me. Make noooo mistake about it, my friends.

But that’s why I’m doing this blog. I can’t organize. If I could, I wouldn’t need to simplify my life. See how that works?

I grow weary of looking around my house and wishing that things were immaculate. Because, truth be told, I feel more peace and joy when things are tidy. I know it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. I get giddy when I can see large patches of uninterrupted floor. It blows my mind. I feel like a ’real’ grown-up (whatever that is).

I feel at peace when my house is clean. I’m not talking about floors mopped, surfaces dusted, no cobwebs or dust bunnies, nothing under the couch. I don’t really care about that stuff. I’m talking about stuff put away. A place for everything and everything in its’ place. When I look around, I’d like to see less chaos.

And yet, I am prone to chaos.

Now the Lord made me this way. He did not gift me in the areas of tidiness and organization. I’m great at getting down on my hands and knees and playing with my kids. I am, for all intents and purposes, a child. I love to be creative, I love to laugh and I love to be ridiculously silly. But this grown-up life of mine has got me doing less of those things these days. And I couldn’t figure out why. To me, those are the very reasons I stay home with my kiddos. If I love doing those things, then why am I actually doing them less often?

And the answer, my friends is in day-to-day life. It wears me down. There’s that ugly guilt that I suspect weighs a lot of us down. And I can’t do it anymore. This is not what I was made for…doing 27 loads of laundry a week, washing dishes 3 times a day, picking up the same toys over and over and over. And then feeling guilty that I’m not doing any of it well enough. As far I as I know, the last thing any of us needs is more guilt. I, for one, carry guilt like someone lugging blow-out deals around on Black Friday. Willingly, as though I need it all.

Once, for about a month, I kept the house immaculate. It was amazing. Everything was put away. No socks or toys laying in the living room. No books in the bathroom. Nothing was out of place. I could see floor for inch after uninterrupted inch. But my family was not happy. I was the grouchiest person. Unbearable. One could barely put a thing down and I would snatch it up and curse the person who left it there. Finally my husband asked if we could go back to a messy house. He said that he and the rest of the family were a little afraid.

And just like that, “Organized Jen” was voted off the island.

Then, it came to me, while I was reading Little House on the Prairie to my sweet kiddos. A Revelation. Maybe we were making life too complicated. Maybe I was taking on too many things…more things than God ever meant for me to take on at once. Here I was bringing home toys I knew my kiddos wanted, clothes I thought they needed, books that I knew they would like. And adding to my misery in the process.

I started to realize how I was burdening my kids with this, too. Yes, they are excited when I bring home new things for them. Yes, they love that I thought of them. Yes, they think it’s great that they have yet another book to read. And I feel good that I’m ‘blessing’ them.

But when I ask them to clean their room and they balk and cry and lay down on the floor, too overwhelmed to even know where to begin, I realize I’m not blessing them. I’m saddling them with that same feeling of guilt that I have. Because they don’t really realize that they have too much stuff. They just know their mom is telling them their room isn’t clean enough. And often times hearing they aren’t good enough.

So as this process begins, we talk about where we are headed, and what it all means. And they are excited about it too. Even my hubby is on board (3 bags of t-shirts tossed out this past weekend. All this from the man who never met a t-shirt he didn’t like, especially if it was free.) We all agree that we want more time and less duties to take up our day. And there is really no reason that it can’t be that way if we can make do with less.

Our first experiment will involve the laundry, a biggie in this house. We’re going to try to get by with 10-15 articles of clothing per person for a month. We will all pick out our stuff, put it in our own box (or drape it over the huge chair in my bedroom if you are me) and the rest of our clothing will stay in the dressers, not to be disturbed. I know this will mean washing clothes more often, but I think it will simplify things quite a bit in the way of how much laundry we do and the folding and putting away (which will become the sole responsibility of the owner. Can you hear it? My heart is rejoicing.)

If we like the new system, we will keep it. If we don’t, we will modify it or dump it and move on to the next experiment.

Other ideas that we have tossed around for month-long experiments:

- each person gets one set of dishes consisting of one bowl, plate, spoon, fork, knife and cup. The cleaning of said dishes is the sole responsibility of the owner. Hand washing only, the dishwasher will be taking a little vacation.

- no eating out for one month.

- no tv for a month. (yes, we will have to wait until after the NFL season.)

- no electricity after 5pm for a month. ( I don’t know…it seems Little House-ish, doesn’t it?)

- no buying anything that is not completely necessary for one month. (working on the definition of ‘completely necessary’.)

- no bathing for one month.

Ok, that last one was a joke. Really, I promise.

But if you have some ideas of some other things we could do, feel free to suggest. We are guinea pigs. Pleasant smelling, human guinea pigs.

So here we go, people. In the end I hope for peace and simplicity and more joy. My hubby and I playing with our kiddos, a new sense of freedom present in the room. It’s easier to watch a one act play (or seven…seriously, these kids are creative) without the guilt of a load laundry (or seven…they‘re also messy) hanging over my head. I am free to sit and enjoy them, a smile on my face and joy in my heart…at least in theory.

Guilt be gone.