A Fresh Start - The Updates

Wow! It's been almost an entire year since I last posted in here. I'm getting a lot better at things, and having more space definitely helps! My friends and family have noticed as well, which has been nice!

But there's always room for improvement, and this is an area of my life I've been working at for 5+ years, and I started this blog with such high hopes for it!! So New Year, Old Resolution - I'm reviving my blog!!

Might as well start with a New Years update: The Biggest Helps and Hinders of 2012!

Helps:

• Schedules. As much as I hate to admit it, schedules help in this regard. With my eldest daughter in school now, we have set times that we NEED to be places. This helps keep distractions (mostly playdates) in line, as well as has been helping with naptimes for my youngest, which means more cleaning time for me too! 
• Space. SUCH a huge help! Everything (mostly) has a place, and when push comes to shove, we have space to "hide" things (the laundry room is perfect to stash that last pile of paperwork we didn't have time to sort through before company arrives)
• Hosting. We have a much better house for entertaining now - better layout, location, and much more room. We used to NEVER have people over to our old house - too much stuff in too little space. But in the year and a half we've been in this home, we've hosted birthday parties, Christmases, New Years Eve, dinners, and countless playdates. And each time it's getting easier and easier to tidy before people come over.
• The Kids. A help and hinder, both are of the age where they not only CAN help, but WANT to help. And it goes beyond picking up their toys and cleaning their rooms (Tobes LOVES to make his bed, and at 2 and a half, he does a pretty awesome job!) but they also love to help with the laundry, and wash the kitchen table and chairs!

Hinders:

• The Kids. Told you ;) While I would never otherwise refer to them as a hinder, they really do get in the way of cleaning. And not just because they make messes (because in the grand scheme of things, they don't make that many!) but because they have schedules and activities of their own that take time away. Starting next week, the kids have gymnastics on Tuesdays, music lessons on Thursdays, and Princess has dance on Tuesday nights and Wee Collage (Church school) on Wednesdays. This isn't including school, or playdates. And this is just their stuff...
• Distractions. Kids. Pinterest. Facebook. Phone dates. Play dates. It's SO easy for me to push cleaning aside for... anything else! I am going to do my very best to balance blogging and cleaning, and again - I hope this blog helps to hold me accountable more than anything else!