Organization - Our Story

Organization is not a strong point of our family.  It has grown to matter much more to me than to my husband.  In our first apartment everything was a disaster.  It looked like we belonged on an episode of Hoarders.  Just about everything was a hand-me-down and very few of those things were a true representation of us.  All the disorganization created a lot of stress and strife in our relationship.
As the Colonel was preparing to start his trucking career and go on the road, it was important to me (being left home with a toddler) that the apartment was manageable.  Unfortunately, the Colonel procrastinated and essentially when he left for training I was left with a very upset 18 month old and a disaster of an apartment.  For those of you about to go on the road, leaving your family in this situation is NOT a good idea on any level!  Leaving your family set up for success will give you more peace of mind on the road.
So I began to organize our apartment little by little.  I had finished every room except for our bedroom when our apartment burnt down. We were very fortunate to be given a lot and had a lot of things that were salvageable.  And so the process started all over again.
This time we began weeding out as well.  If it was not truly us or something we would use we got rid of it.  We all done having children (I had just had surgery to ensure this) so all the clothes Princess had outgrown that were not neutrals were donated or went to a consignment shop.  We had bits and pieces from at least 3 different dish sets.  We kept the most complete one for every day use and bought a complete set, donating all the rest.  We also learned to say no as nicely as possible to donations we did not need, even though a lot of people got very offended (we really did not need 5 playpens etc. and when you are dealing with all the fire clean up, putting your life back together, and taking care of two very young children all while your husband is gone because he still has to truck to provide for us you really don't have the time to figure out how to re-donate all the donations you don't need) This process continued as we prepared to move into a new apartment about 8 months after the fire.
Then it was back to a disaster of an apartment as we unpacked in our new home..  We worked very hard to go through, weed out, and make the most of our space.  Many of our ideas for the set up of our apartment came from the Nate Berkus Show.  Now we are finally at a point where we are organizing little areas and maintaining our organization system.  Mainly we are very careful what we bring into the apartment and we are very careful about what we ask for for birthdays and holidays.  If we have to much of something, we will put something like "No stuffed animals please, the kid's don't have any space for anymore" on their Christmas lists.  Our family and friends understand that we don't want our children living in all kinds of clutter with no space to play so they do not find it offensive.  We also go through the toys and clothes before birthdays and holidays to donate, consign or throw out anything our children no longer use or have outgrown.  Our kids even get involved because they love that they can give to another child in need and that that child will love their toys as much as they did.
(I apologize for our lack of pictures.  Many of our before pictures got destroyed in the fire)
How does all this relate to becoming debt free?  Find out in our next post Organization - Lessons Learned