About Me

I am a part-time working mum of two. I'm not your typical organiser (not yet anyway) in that my house is normally a tip. Maybe that's not so abnormal. Or maybe as I progress in this "journey" (sorry... very cliche) I will become one of those people who always has a lovely tidy house.

I'm married to my husband Ben (married for 13 years this year and together for another 3 or 4 before that). Our kids (Lala - actual name Alara, and JJ - Joshua) are just over 3 and 18 months (at time of writing, in Feb 2012). We have two dogs - Toby and Tia, a snake and 3 chickens. We have a habit of collecting creatures that are injured, old or just in need of a home. You can include in this ex-Lodger and best friend Lisa, the chicken that spent 2 weeks living in my husband's office after being attacked by a fox... and no sooner had this position been vacated (she got better and joined her chicken friends in the chicken coop) than we found an injured pigeon pottering around in the front garden - took a bit of chasing to catch that fellow I can assure you. So taking all this into consideration it is no wonder that my house is a tip.

We also have a tendency to hoard. I love to hoard boxes (plastic ones, wicker baskets, you name it, if you can put something in it, I will want to keep it.... just in case... it might be useful one day), while my husband can't bear to just throw a lot of things out without making a money back on them so we have piles of things that need to be ebay'd "next free listing day" GRRRRR.

So lately, maybe as a way of fighting back at the ensuing chaos, I have really got into organising. When I say really I mean REALLY REALLY. I've not just been tidying a few cupboards. I've been RESEARCHING HOW to tidy cupboards (and reading lots of blogs and websites by other obsessive organisers). I find it really interesting to see how other people manage THEIR chaos and getting ideas of how I can make things work in MY house. Its given me a new-found love of my home, a feeling of control over my surroundings - never mind that the sitting room is strewn with the kids toys and dog bones (my latest bugbear). At least I have a nice "control central" folder and basket on top of the bread bin and my wardrobe now has beautiful pink velvet hangers in it and my dressing table has been tidied and my jewellery box moved into prime position instead of skulking at the back behind a small TV that we were given that I'm not even sure we're going to use now! Oh I also created a shoe/hat/glove station by the front door - big basket for shoes, smaller basket for hats, even smaller one for gloves. There are also low hooks for the kids coats and scarves. Its so much easier than trying to dig through a cloth bag hanging on a hook where everything was previously dumped.

I've decided to start this blog because I need an outlet to vent all this stuff and I feel like I want to share my "adventures" (honestly, sad as it is, that's how it feels I get such a buzz out of it) outside of just my facebook friends. And I'm considering the idea of becoming (sometime in the future) a professional organiser... Several friends have seen my posts and pictures and said something along those lines. So why not. I'll start here. Thank you for reading. :) Happy organising.