Rural Simplicity

Consistency. Here is the hardest part of the whole plan. Once you have worked for hours upon hours creating the welcoming space you desire, the last thing you want to see is for it to all fall apart. This is the sixth and final post in our Organizing series. You can find the first five posts here. 1) Habit and Routine -  Read it here . 2) Finding Your Personal Space -  Read it here . 3) Taking Inventory  -  Read it here. 4) Questions to Ask When Purging -  Read it here. 5) It's Time to Organize - Read it here. Here are few keys to keeping a clean space - clean. Decide That You Will Keep it Clean. Sometimes you do all the work, but never mentally come to the decision to not let yourself do it again. Be severe with yourself, even if you are exhausted from doing all of the cleaning, make yourself decide to keep it clean.  2 Minute Rule If something takes 2 minutes or less do it right now. This rule alone will evaporate clutter. It takes l...

Step 5 to getting your house in order. Are you just joining us? Take a moment to look back over the previous steps. 1) Habit and Routine -  Read it here . 2) Finding Your Personal Space -  Read it here . 3) Taking Inventory  -  Read it here. 4) Questions to Ask When Purging - Read it here. You've worked so hard to get to this point. Don't stop now! Getting the stuff you don't use out of the house is the biggest battle. But, it won't feel very helpful if you don't take the time to organize what you are left with. Storage You should have made a list of ways this particular room is going to be used. Find it and refresh your memory. Now you need to think about storage options, and  possibly furniture rearranging (or many times in my case, furnitures stealing - from other rooms). Honestly many people have everything they need in their house to organize properly. Try shopping in your own house before purchasing anything new. Forever Homes If you wer...

This is part four of a six part series. If you haven't read the previous posts please start there. Habit and Routine -  Read it here . Finding Your Personal Space -  Read it here . Taking Inventory  - Read it here. So, purging... Some people love it, most cringe at the word. Let's break down it down some more and work our way through one step at a time. Yes, it might be a big job, but you can only complete one small task at a time, so lets only focus on one small task. You've already uncovered some great habits in your life and you've hopefully started integrating some new ones as well. You have also found a room, space, or corner to call your own. You've set up some boundaries and rules for that space and claimed it as your safe zone. Now you have chosen a room (hopefully your "personal space" room) and have created four piles as you worked your way through each item in the room. 1) Trash 2) Give Away/Sell 3) Keep -  this room 4) Keep - diffe...

This is part three of a six part series. If you haven't read the previous posts please start there. Habit and Routine - Read it here . Finding Your Personal Space - Read it here . You've done the brain work, and now it's time to do the muscle work. You will start with the room or space you have chosen as your "personal space". Once you work through posts 3-5 you will start again on the next room of your choice. It's going to get more messy before it gets beautiful.   In the room you have chosen (or if it's too full, in a nearby location) create four spots. This could be a section of the room, bins, trash bags, or paper signs marking an area.   - 1 - Trash - 2 - Give Away/Sell - 3 - Keep in this room - 4 - Keep in a different room  Start pulling things out of drawers, off of shelves, under beds, out of closets, off the floor, and put them into one of the four piles. Keep grouping like things together until you have the room cleaned o...

If you are reading this post and haven't checked out the previous (and first) post in this series, you can find it here - Habit and Routine . This series is about the 6 steps to a better organized house and life. Last time we found routines and habits that help us through the day, secretly hauling the heavy loads of decision for us. Today we are going to start by selecting a room and making it yours! If you are standing in the middle of your house seeing chaos in every corner you peer into, then this is  your next step. (Assuming you've read the previous post, I would start there ). If you are living off of wishes, long term goals and ideas, or Pinterest ideas you won't make it far in the world of organizing. You need a "next best step" approach. When you are ready to start getting things under control you can't start by picking up a little in each room, (your kids and housemates will fill in those holes before you even get a foot out of the room.) You w...

I read quite simply what I believe is one of the best books on parenting and I can't wait to share with you my thoughts on it. Once a month I do a post about books, and today's book is so good, that it is the only one I'm featuring. Stay tuned. First off I want to say, this is not a book about disciplining your children , this book is not Bible based, and you won't be needing to take any extra trips to the store for items suggested. I also firmly believe that the core truths of this book would do a wonder of good for anyone - not just parents. The book - "Simplicity Parenting" Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids." by Kim John Payne, M.Ed I am in no way receiving credit, funds, or any kind of payback for promoting this book. I was inspired by it's pages and want to pass along my great find!  Here it is, in all it's library stickered glory!  “When your child seems to deserve affecti...

Habit "For a habit is a delight in itself; poor human nature is conscious of the ease that it is to repeat the doing of anything without effort; and therefore, the formation of a habit, the gradually lessening sense of effort in a given act, is pleasurable."  ~ Charlotte Mason  Because of the age of this quote you might need to reread it a few times and mull it over in your brain. But once the lightbulb goes off, you will see why I felt the need to add it.  We make hundreds if not thousands of decisions in a day. If you do too many new things, say go on vacation, or visit a new place, you may feel tired at the end of the day from the overload of new decisions you needed to make. People complain of getting  stuck in a rut, but it's the ruts that carry us through, giving us familiarity and comfort, taking the majority of the load for us.  Why do we say we need a vacation from vacation? Why is it that a husband who offers to st...

Why? Why does everyone keep talking about simplifying? Maybe I like buying five pair of my favorite jeans at once, maybe I like every single one of my two dozen coffee mugs. My kids love their toys - yes, all of them! - so stop bothering me! But do you really? Simplifying life gives you more time to do the things you need and love. Simplifying isn't about a fad, or a look. It is about rhythm, sanity, and peace. Trash Can Let's start with a simple one. How many trash cans do you own? What rooms are they in?  The best places for trash cans are one large one in the kitchen and small ones in the  bathrooms. If you have a room that is an office, schoolroom, craft room or something of the sort you will want one there also, but that's all. One can in each place.  Toys Toys are overrated, in fact they are hard on your kids development. (we all know that kids like the box better than the present)  Go through the toys and throw away any items that are broke...

Slowly and surely I am getting rooms completed. Not necessarily to my perfect taste, but clean, livable, comfortable, and lovely all the same. The Living room is a 1/3 of the "grand room" you can see into the kitchen and dinning room in several of the pictures. It's open, bright, and airy...great for being together, having company, and keeping an eye on the over zealous 3 year old. The Living room feels a lot like a dollhouse with 3 sides and a roof, but one side cut away so you can see inside. We live in a double wide trailer so the ceiling even slants like a doll house! Even in small spaces you don't have to push the furniture up against the walls. Pushing the couch up close to the fireplace is cozy and convenient, because I need a wall for the piano.  Books are a passion of mine, so there isn't much room for cuteness on the shelves. I've discovered that where green life is, beauty is. So just adding a bit of fake greenery to my bookshelves has...

Sometimes in Mystery/Action novels the villain hides the item everyone is looking for right out in the open. It's disguised or simply unknown to the lookers. They search every hidden passage, crack, and crevice for the item, passing by the real things a hundred times. But because it's in plain sight there is no way that they will find it...it's too obvious! Decorating a home is a bit like an action adventure, keeping up with the needs, wants, children, and messes that come with it all. Sometimes hiding the uglies can be hard and sometimes it's best to just hide them in plain sight! 1) Laundry Room: the laundry room/closet/area is full of necessary yet messy things.  A) Buy an ironing board cover that matches the room decor  B) Buy baskets to place cleaning prodcuts, laundry detergents, etc... ( I found mine at Aldi!)  C) Add useful decor...laundry soap in a cute jar with a fun label. Fancy box to hold the lint etc...  D) Don't forget to decorate your laundr...

Every parent says it, but it's always true... I can't believe it already been ____ years since my baby was born! Check out our 3rd Birthday party staring Hello Kitty this year thanks to a great find at the Home Goods store!  I always have a Pinterest board for each party that I do. You can find me on Pinterest as Sarah Perry.  Feel free to follow, borrow ideas, or completely mirror my party! Sarah 

I love a good party! Today's theme is art/artist/crafty. I hope you get some great ideas to pull off your own Artist Party! I finally got my porch decor updated to some sunny yellow pansies and a red rainboot I found! The three little pots are mint - Spearmint, Peppermint, & Sweet mint. We have a enormous amount of spiders living on our porch and hope to help them find a new home! This particular party was set for 7-12 people. It was a highly involved party so I gave out invitations with RSVP's. We ate some great food, but I have to say I'm used to pulling the theme into the food and I couldn't find a healthy way to get artist into the food. Every artist party I saw was for children and involved a ridiculous amount of sugar. So we simply had a gourmet Artists' Luncheon... LUNCHEON: Drinks:  Chick-fil-A Lemonade, Ice-water (“Creative Juices”) Food:  Build your own bagel - bagel thins, deli meat, onion &chive cream cheese spre...