I Get all Giddy for Organizing

I'm very interested in organizing these days. I follow a few excellent organizing blogs, like I'm an Organizing Junkie and Creative Organizing, and I frequently find them incredibly helpful in helping me maintain a sane and clutter-free life.

Why the heck do I care about organizing at all?

Let's see . . . I have 3 Things, each of whom comes with an array of little *stuff* including such paraphernalia as diapers, toys, clothing, gadgets, books, backpacks and sippy cups. Their stuff is everywhere. As of Monday morning, I will also welcome into my humble abode a fourth little Thing, who will spend each day with us, and who will arrive like clockwork in the morning with his own conglomeration of *stuff*.

And you all know Thing 4, aka The Thing's Cocker Spaniel. Yeah, he has a bunch of stuff too. Dog food, leashes, and other pet necessities.

The cherry on top of this very lovely and multi-tiered ice cream sundae is the fact that we all live in an extremely small house. A bungalow, to be precise. And with the housing market and the economy in the current state it is . . . well, clearly we're not "movin' on up" anytime soon.

Instead? We make do with what we have. We organize and prioritize our Things (and things) and, for the most part, life is able to chug along pretty smoothly. We make so with a small space, everything has its place, and that's exactly where it should go.

So, imagine my surprise when I was checking some recipes on marvelous Martha's website and stumbled across her Organizing Tip of the Day! Fantastic! And I can have this little gem signed, sealed, and delivered right to my very own inbox each day. My organizational little heart was oozing over Tuesday the 13th's tip to stash entire sheet sets inside one of its pillowcases inside your linen closet.

GENIUS, Martha. Pure GENIUS.

I'm re-folding and sorting as I type.

I found my gleaming eye also wandering to the section on Organizing an Entryway, and found this awesome Basket Rack How-To. I am still needing to re-vamp my teeny-tiny entryway - more than ever - now that it's January in Ottawa. I need to aleviate stress and chaos when we (and by "we" I mean me and my traveling pack of Things) enter or exit the house. Each child has a snow suit which consists of either one or two pieces, one scarf, one pair of mitts, one hat, one pair of wet, slushy boots, and one backpack. The gear needs to fall nicely into place as we embark or disembark, and thus this has now shifted its weight on the list of priorities and is one of my goals for the next month or two.

And maybe, just maybe, my dream of a beautiful and completely handy mudroom will one day materialize.