Hey everyone!
We’ve been more than a bit busy around here and I just haven’t had a chance to sit down and write about anything… my brain has been in overdrive and my thoughts have been quite a mess but this morning we did have a small window of peace and quiet so I thought I’d sit down and give a little update.
Where oh where to start?
Well, the kids are all doing well. We have had a few doctor appointments but all has been well. We did get one of the kiddos started on a low dose of ADHD medication and what a difference we have seen this past week! It has definitely helped with the moodiness and frequent outbursts… hopefully, she can keep up the progress and not need anything stronger but we’ll deal with it one day at a time.
Little Miss Shyanne has been doing well and everyone is so pleased with the progress she has been making. She does have a referral for an ENT as she still has some fluid in one ear that has been there since birth. The fluid may be the cause of her moderate hearing loss in that ear but no one is certain if it is the cause or not so we will just have to wait and see what the doctor suggests.
The older kiddos have had some exciting news as well. We are in the midst of WEDDING planning for later this year… so much fun and so much to do around here to get ready! That’s not all though…
My oldest daughter and her husband are having a baby!! I’m gonna be a GRANDMA!!!! I can’t wait to meet this little person and I’m head over heels in love already… of course, this means we are also planning a BABY SHOWER!
With all these exciting events happening in the next couple of months we have some BIG and not-so-big projects planned and I have been so BUSY getting this house decluttered. First, we had to get the sheds in order as some of the things in the house needed a real home because they just always end up EVERYWHERE.
We moved the one shed from the little cabin closer to our current house and then organized it for hobbies and gardening. The other shed was organized for square dancing, homeschooling, extra books, and general house storage like extra clothes, etc.
Where can you reduce clutter in your life?
This was not EASY to do as everything had become quite disorganized and working with the CRAZY weather has been, well, CRAZY. We had to unload the first shed onto a trailer to bring it to the house. Then repack the shed in a semi-organized manner which took a couple of days so we had to cover things with a tarp. Then we took the things that needed to go to the other shed, put them on the trailer, and moved it in front of the second shed.
Then began the process of unpacking that shed and reorganizing it before we could move the items that needed to be in there while removing what no longer belonged. This didn’t happen overnight and we had frequent breaks for unexpected rain and some days it just got way TOO HOT. We kept chipping away at it a little at a time and getting rid of things that we just didn’t need. There are still a lot of things to get rid of but we’ll continue to peel back the layers a little at a time.
Now that the sheds are semi-organized we have been able to make space in the house for the items that were cluttering up our living spaces which has allowed us to declutter even more. We have donated and given away SO MUCH STUFF over the past month or two that it has been incredible. The feeling of relief has been AMAZING as well.
This past week or two I have been focused on the house… I started in the laundry room and gave it a good thorough cleaning and decluttering. It feels so much more open now and it is a refreshing sight when we come in from outside.
Get rid of the socks… not just the stinky ones!
Then we skipped to the Master Bathroom which had become quite the ‘catch-all’ room. The tub and shower do not function in here so they were a dumping ground for unused items. Now the room has storage for all the cleaning supplies, toiletries, and such. We also have a cloth diaper station set up in there as that is the bathroom where the baby usually goes.
The tub was cleared but these are some items that we may be using in our bedroom once we get it sorted and/or items that will be used in other rooms once we get them painted here shortly… and a few items for the upcoming celebrations that I haven’t carried out to the shed yet. I really like having all the cleaners in one place because I can lock them up and keep them away from curious little people.
We moved some furniture from the Living Room to the Master Bedroom and I went through my closet so that I could make storage for the sewing materials and machines in there. My clothing is pretty minimalist right now and it feels so GOOD! I thought about using the cubby storage method like I did for the kids but I ended up hanging the majority of my clothes and then used my nightstand drawers for PJS, Socks, and undies.
We did turn the little nook between our closets into an ‘overflow’ storage area which will be relocated later on. I just used two of the pantry cabinets that we had left over from rearranging things to be able to store items for our ‘Movie Nights’, Cricut, and extra kitchen items… not the prettiest thing but it is temporary until we get the actual pantry completed.
This little nook actually has a second door to our bedroom which opens into the living room where the two bookcases are. Shyanne had so much fun running in circles from our bedroom to the kitchen to the living room and back into the bedroom. We may end up opening this doorway back up in the future but I’m not sure yet… it would make a cool spot for a ‘secret door’ though!
The Dining Room was next as it also functions as the Homeschool Room. We moved some furniture around and took out all of the homeschool materials that we don’t actually use right now. We also swapped out some of the furniture pieces and moved the TV so that my plan for the ‘Pantry’ could be completed. Yes, I did rip up the kitchen floor because it was just a pain in the butt… we have picked out something to replace it although I haven’t ruled out the idea of just painting it for now as we plan to be making some changes in this area soon.
If you guessed that the Pantry was next then you would be correct. We moved some of the unused items to the ‘overflow area’ in our bedroom and I added some temporary doors so we don’t have to look at all of it. I then reconfigured some of the shelves and added another shelf to the area to make it a little prettier.
I also moved the refrigerator again because I just really hated where it was but this layout works out really well. Then I moved the microwave to where the refrigerator had been which is working out great! This area is still a work in progress but I do love how open it is now. We have plans to open the other kitchen wall to the great room and when we do that we may close off the dining room and convert it to a den/guest room space.
CHECK OUT OUR PREVIOUS PANTRY MAKEOVER HERE!
Then we tackled the Living Room/Great Room area. This area has always been my ‘problem child’ as we had ignored it for so long because we wanted to finish the walls, paint, and get the trim up before we actually put furniture in here but that didn’t happen because of other life events but now it finally feels a bit better. I would eventually like this area to be our Living/Dining area out with a BIG ole’ pool table in the middle it doesn’t quite work out for that yet... maybe in the future we can move the pool table to the ‘den’?
During this decluttering, we gave away a LOT of books… I think Mr. Awesome may have been a little worried about my mental state but I truly am feeling GREAT about sharing the love of reading with others. When we got rid of books we also got rid of some games and we put some in the shed for a game rotation. As we play the games we will go through them and get rid of any that are missing pieces and donate the ones we don’t really care for.
This allowed us to make room for the kids to hook up the Wii game that they have been asking for over and over again… we’ve had it in a box for a while but we just haven’t had the space to play them.
We still have a lot of books in the house and some in the shed but I have gotten rid of a ton. I’m not completely happy with my desk set up at the moment as the air vent is directly under my desk and blowing cold air on my feet and legs… BRRR… I’ll have to rethink this configuration before we get it finished but it is better than it was before 🙂
Read about Shyanne’s Story HERE.
During this process, we have gone back and forth with a few things and swapped furniture pieces out a few times but it is coming together and the whole house feels so much better. We aren’t finished with the decluttering but the majority of the items in the house are things that we use regularly and things that we love. The walls may look a little bare in some areas as we are going to be refinishing them and I just didn’t hang the stuff back up … it’s stored in my bathtub, lol.
Getting Organized by Color Coding Your Kids!
Yesterday, we tackled the boys’ room again as it had become quite a mess. We ended up getting rid of 5 or 6 trash bags full of things. We have also washed all the bedding and any clothes that were on the floor. We used the white cubbies for extra toy storage … toy rotations will be so much easier now. The black cubbies are being used for their shoes and fishing gear. We were able to move some of their hobby stuff out to the shed but they do like to go fishing almost every day so they kept their main fishing poles and tackle boxes in the room.
The girls really didn’t need much done to their room as they have been able to maintain it really easily… this encouraged the boys to declutter some things because they wanted to clean less and fish more! We did add one white bookshelf to their room as it fits really nicely without making the space feel cramped or cluttered.
We turned 2 bedrooms into 3… See the Bedroom Makeovers HERE.
Mr. W’s room had a thorough cleaning a week or so ago and it really wasn’t that bad either as it is so EASY for him to keep up with things. When things have a home that is easily accessible then he doesn’t have to move things around looking for other things… kind of makes sense and we have used this principle for little Miss and her toys as well.
We decluttered all the toys that were broken, missing pieces, or just not used. The favorite toys were kept on the shelf and others were placed into the white cubbies in the boys’ room so they can access them when they want and we can also rotate some of them out to the play area… having the toys consolidated to one main location really helps!
During this past month, we’ve also been dealing with other issues… I can’t even remember them all at the moment. One of the kids was playing with a ball outside and they accidentally kicked the ball into the pipe that supplies water to our house… we had a geyser for a moment but thankfully Mr. Awesome was able to fix it.
Then we had some plumbing issues that Mr. Awesome was able to take care of.
Then we had some Septic issues. We had the septic pumped last year and they checked the pump and said it was fine. Our alarm was faulty so they disconnected it. Well, the float went bad on the pump and we didn’t have an alarm to let us know that something was wrong so we ended up having some MAJOR issues. Thankfully, they have all been fixed now and all is working great.
The gardens have been doing well although we did have a bit of a dry season and it has been extremely HOT! A lot of plants gave up but we did put some new seeds in the ground… lots of flowers too as we do have some special celebrations coming up. We have had quite a bit of rain this past week so that has been a big BLESSING and the gardens are growing like CRAZY now. I’m hoping to be focusing more on them in the upcoming week as they have been a little neglected with me dealing with the house.
The gardens have been growing and so has the grass! A lot of the bare spots I’ve been working on are starting to fill in and so is the pasture area. We invested in a movable electric fence from Tractor Supply and it has been doing a great job. We have been able to do some rotational grazing with the goats and everyone is so HAPPY! It did have a little bit of a learning curve and we did have some escapes at first but now everyone is content and our yard is getting mowed a little a day. We used a leftover cattle panels, zip ties, a bit of clothesline, and a tarp to make the moveable shelter.
I also invested in a reel mower so the kids can help mow some areas of the yard where we can’t put the goats. We then give the clippings to chickens, turkeys, or geese. If we mow a lot in one day we also put some of them in the compost pile.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned our ‘Secret Garden’ or the boys’ favorite spot to fish… we’ve been cleaning up the pond banks some and the view from the house is AMAZING now… especially since we’ve opened up some of the spaces. I can actually see the pond from my bedroom now and it’s the first thing I see when I walk out of the bedroom in the morning… that view helps remind me that God has truly blessed us in so many ways!
I’ll have to make a post showing the new areas on the bank… I’ll try to do that soon!
I just want to encourage you to do what you can with what you have. During this whole process, I haven’t had to buy anything and I have been able to use things that we already had to make our whole house function better for EVERYONE. We did buy some new curtains to put up after we finish remodeling the room but they were a very good deal that wouldn’t be around later on.
We also didn’t do this in a day or a week. This MESS happened over the past 3-4 years so it will take a while to get it under control. Our lives were a little crazy, as were many others during the pandemic, and it has taken us a while to get completely back on track.
This was something that I had to buckle down and get done because my mental health was being affected by all the clutter and chaos of the disorganization… I just can’t function at my best when I’m surrounded by MESSIES... I literally felt like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown before I even started planning for the upcoming celebrations. Needless to say, we did take a short break from homeschooling to focus on the house but that counts as LIFE SKILLS, right?
Well, so much for the peace and quiet… I just heard a thump from the boys’ room and now someone is quite unhappy… I’ll be right back…
It seems that the tweenagers were play-fighting but it got a little carried away and someone got hurt… more like their feelings got hurt but it all feels the same. Everyone has calmed down and apologized on their own and now they are playing a quieter game of checkers… whew… it just never stops around here.
I’ve actually gotten to write more than I thought I would so I’ll go ahead and wrap this up for now but I’ll try to write more soon!
May God Bless You!
P.S. If you haven’t checked out our Perpetual Meal Plan for Summer you should do it right now! It has really been a lifesaver over the past few weeks!
Pollywog's Place Blog 
One thought on “Life Update – June 2024”