Sometimes, I need to listen to my own sermons.

I may have lots of issues right now, but one of them is staring me in the face: clutter.

Just the other night, speaking to the group in Maryland, I was reminding them how hard it is to be productive when you're having to work around junk. And junk doesn't necessarily mean trash...it might mean just the remains of undone or finished projects...things that need to be, ahem, filed...stacks of pictures waiting for frames...you know the kind of thing.

Well just about every category of junk you can think of is represented in my bedroom right now.

Now, my bedroom is not the same kind of bedroom most of you have. The challenges I've faced in the past five years have made it necessary to turn our room into a combination sleeping /library /lounging /office /craft /school /music /sewing space. This allows me to be productive in a small space and minimize the number of steps it takes to get from one task to another. But it also allows the space to accumulate LOTS of clutter. And though I have more of a tolerance for clutter than I did in the years before homeschooling (when was that again?), I still reach a tipping point at times when I absolutely cannot function until I get in the piles with a backhoe and clear away and start over.

So that's what's hit me today. Again, it's not my only hurdle right now, but I won't be able to see the other ones until I get rid of this one. I've now spent a good part of the day hacking away at all the surfaces and I'm far from finished, but it's a good feeling. And it's making me think that maybe, just maybe when I get the leftover manuals, tests, schedules, syllabi, and binders OUT of my room for a while, I'll be able to get in the mood to bring a few of them back in and think about '07-'08! (Either way, you'll be hearing about it again :-) )

Labels: Homemaking, Homeschooling