Quite often, we as women, wives, and mothers feel like we're over worked and under appreciated. Through conversations I've had and comments I've heard, I've come to the conclusion that often, we do it to ourselves. I know you're thinking it's not my fault that my husband comes home from work and plops himself on the couch all evening or that my kids are lazy and refuse to help with household chores, but I'm going to tell you that it is, to an extent. Now, before you all start throwing tomatoes at me, let me explain. First off, I know that everyone is different and in different situations, and I know that we can't FORCE anyone to help us out, but most of us can probably be doing more to help those around us WANT to help us more. The first comment that got me thinking about this was made in Relief Society a few weeks ago. Our lesson was on Work, and the comment was made that its a lazy mom who doesn't make her kids do chores. Like many of you, my first thought was, "I'm doing ALL the work, how does that make ME lazy?" But think about it, if you're doing everything, that means you're taking the easy way out. You're not teaching your kids to work. It's hard to teach kids, especially little ones, how to work. It takes time and patience as you help them do it over and over until they get it right. For me, part of the problem was my way of thinking. I always knew I'd give J chores. . . when she was older. I thought what could a 3 yr old do that would be of any help. We've always had J put away her toys, and occasionally put away her clean clothes or put her dirty dishes in the sink. But on weeks like this one when I don't get clothes folded until after she's gone to bed I've just put her clothes away for her, and her dinner plate is still on the kitchen table because I was feeding the boys when she got done eating and I didn't remind her to take care of it. I'm going to try harder to leave her chores for her to do and to figure other age appropriate household chores for her to do. This will be trying for me because it means leaving her folded clothes sitting out until she gets home from school tomorrow and not getting all the cleaning done while she's at school or during quiet time. It means accepting thing as she does them even if it's not "my way" of doing them (as long as it's clean, right?). That leads me to a conversation I over heard at play group today. These two women were talking about how they wished their husbands/ older kids would help out more around the house. These women also acknowledged that it was partially their fault that they weren't getting the help they wanted. We as women sometimes get into a habit of doing our chores a certain way and we start to expect others to do them that exact same way. I too am guilty of this. Erik hates to fold clothes because t-shirts and towels have to be folded a certain way. It's taken a few years, but I can now let him fill the dish washer with out stressing out that he did it "wrong". One of these ladies commented that she didn't want to become like her mother, who was so obsessed about how things were done around the house that her father did nothing and it had been like this for as long as she could remember and now that her parents were getting older, her mother was resentful that her father did nothing to help. She found herself falling into the same patterned and was trying to change it. I sometimes wonder if this was just the social norm of those days - the man did his work outside the home and the home was the woman's domain - and that we 'inherited' these traits from our mothers. I know that growing up we had to fold and refold towels until we got them exactly how my mom wanted and I can recall times that she'd go behind us after we had filled the dishwasher and rearrange it. These two women found themselves doing similar things and as a result they found that their husbands and older children were more hesitant to do things around the house. I mean why even try only to have someone go behind you and do it again. I understand having kids do a chore again if they didn't do it correctly - but not because they didn't do it they way you (we) would have done it. I know its going to take some work on my part to let J's chores wait until she gets home from school or to let Erik clean things his way but 10 years down the road, I don't want a lazy family because I was too lazy to teach them today.
I actually didn't organize anything this week (gasp). The weather here in Texas has started to warm up so Erik and I started reclaiming the garden from the weeds that took over last year. 
That took a few days because let me tell you, we are good at growing weeds, and because in true Z family fashion, we had to stop the progress to repair the sprinkler pipe that we broke in the process of tilling the dirt (happened last year as well). So we deweeded, tilled and
shoveled in 4yds of garden soil and then we were ready to plant. We've always had luck with strawberries, tomatoes, squash and zucchini so we planted those again (and lots of them) we also planted a raspberry bush, avocado tree, 3 types of peppers, and cucumbers. 
We also marked off a small section of the garden for J to plant some left over seeds from last year (peas, green beans, carrots, and radishes - things we didn't have much luck with and weren't going to plant again). We also tried moving the boys to their cribs (they've been sleeping in a co-sleeper in our room), but after 3 really rough nights I decided it wasn't worth it and moved them back to our room. We'll try again later. In the process to get the nursery ready for the boys to move in, I had to move all of our junk out. I'd been storing all the stuff we're going to get rid of in the boys' room until we get enough to have a yard sale. 
As I was moving the stuff out I got to thinking that it's amazing how quickly some things go from things we need to junk that's just taking up space. It's also amazing how much others who live outside our home contribute to the clutter inside of it. A majority of stuff in my pile is stuff that others have given us. Stuff that may have been helpful if we didn't already have it (I'm grateful for my friends and family and their willingness to help us out with the twins, but after the second play mat, the rest of them become clutter). Stuff that people think is cute and our kids NEED it (then again, what kid really needs 3 rocking chairs?), and sadly some of it is junk that other people didn't want at their house so they dropped it off at ours in case we might need it one day. I'm all for being prepared for the future and saving things that you WILL use again or that there is a HIGH chance of you using soon, but if the chance of you using it again is slim or several years down the road, then no thanks, I'll just buy a new one at that later date IF by chance I do need it again. I'm also not very sentimental about other peoples things. Both sets of parents are empty nesters and are at the point in their lives where they're starting to scale down and give things to the kids. I struggle with this one a lot. We were given Erik's grandmother's china, it's in good shape and I love it. I also have a miniature tea set that was my great grandma's, it's missing a few pieces and there's a few cracks in it, but again I love it. However, the plastic flower arrangement that Erik bought his mom at the school store when he was 8 - I'm glad you love it, but no thanks. The bottle that my siblings and I glued plastic beads on for my mom when we were little - again no thanks. I don't even keep the pictures J brings home from church each week, they get filed into the permanent filing cabinet (aka the trash) as soon as we get home from church. My mom kept every piece of paper that we brought home from school, I've got most of J's in a binder right now, but as soon as the school year is over I plan on taking pictures of the ones we like best and making a photo book out of them and then trashing everything. I think that's one of the hardest parts of fighting the clutter battle, keeping other's clutter out of our homes. We're afraid to hurt feelings and ruin relationships, but is it worth the stress and resentment we feel for keeping it? I've come to learn that keeping me and my little family happy and healthy is #1 in my book and if I can keep friends and family happy in the process great, if not I'm sorry.
We had this toy shelf that Erik built to fit in a nook in our old house, but it stuck out like a sore thumb in this house and the toys seemed to be constantly overflowing onto the floor. 
We had no where to store all of J's soft animals and the placement of things was just odd. Another problem was J's books. 
We had this little bookshelf that was over flowing and J couldn't get the books back on it once she took them off so the floor in front of the bookcase was constantly littered with books. So, over the course of the year, Erik and I have tried to come up with a plan that would work for this room. We finally decided on a built in so I designed what I wanted and he turned my design into a reality. 
We bought pre-made cabinets from our local hardware store and he made the top bookshelves from scratch. Now most of J's toys fit in the cupboards - the ones that don't will be rotated in every few months - her soft animals all fit under the window seat and there's plenty of room for her books. {we go through the toys every year right before Christmas and all the girl toys J doesn't play with anymore get donated and the neutral ones - that the boys will play with when they get bigger - get put in the storage room} To help keep the books tidy, we're running it like a "library". She has a basket of books that sits on the window seat and each week we will swap the books out that way she can easily but the books away when she's done reading. The bench that was next to the railing in the original picture is a toy box that my Grandpa W. made when I was a little girl. It now sits in our entryway so we have a place to sit when taking our shoes off and it holds extra blankets for downstairs. The small bench that we previously had downstairs to hold blankets is now upstairs where J's old bookcase was and it holds her extra blankets and her doll blankets. 
linen closet,
powder room medicine cabinet, 
game closet
and my fabric. I just realized I don't have an 'after' picture of the fabric because it's in my daughters closet and she's asleep so I'll have to add that later. 
It's still in the space saver totes, but it's now sorted by types of fabric and the totes are labeled and stacked neatly.
I also 
I also sorted out my felt and put it in a box on top of the scrap drawers (this box is an empty hanging file folder box leftover from 
