{"id":4365,"date":"2014-05-12T08:28:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T12:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=4365"},"modified":"2016-01-18T19:14:30","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T00:14:30","slug":"8-weeks-to-a-happier-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/12\/8-weeks-to-a-happier-home\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Weeks to a Happier Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everything has been driving me crazy lately.\u00a0 I\u2019m frustrated with nearly every aspect of life and it\u2019s made me a little less than eager to do things, anything really.\u00a0 There is so much I COULD be doing, but instead I focus on just getting by: Are the kids fed?\u00a0 Are the kids clean?\u00a0 Am I fed?\u00a0 Am I clean?\u00a0 Is hubby fed?\u00a0 Is everyone where they need to be when they need to be?\u00a0 Is Honeybun\u2019s schoolwork done?\u00a0 Will child protective services deem my home \u201cclean enough\u201d?\u00a0 And in that order\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Well, enough is enough and I\u2019m ready to snap out of it.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t get rid of it, fix it, right?\u00a0 Things aren\u2019t changing as I\u2019ve hoped (or as quickly, anyway) so I might as well make the most of what is here and now.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been in our house nearly 2 years and have not yet done a lot with it.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done lots of little sweeps and cleans but never gone through EVERYTHING to purge and reorganize (truthfully, before by the 2 year mark we&#8217;ve been preparing to move!) \u00a0Add a tough pregnancy, another kid, starting work, starting school and you&#8217;ve got a mess! \u00a0So, I devised a plan: 8 Weeks to a Happier Home (#8w2aHaHo in all future posts)<\/p>\n<p>The plan is simple: clean, organize and better our home little by little over time.\u00a0 Why 8 weeks?\u00a0 Our house has basically 8 \u201czones\u201d:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Master Bedroom and Bath<\/li>\n<li>Dining Room and Entry Way<\/li>\n<li>Living Room<\/li>\n<li>Doodle\u2019s Room and Laundry Room<\/li>\n<li>Guest Room (and Honeybun\u2019s napping room) and Guest Bath<\/li>\n<li>Kitchen<\/li>\n<li>Play Room<\/li>\n<li>Girls\u2019 Room and Bath<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I figure by breaking it down, it will seem more manageable.\u00a0 And by giving myself a week for each zone, I won\u2019t have to give up my social life to get it done.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m realistic though and know it will probably become a cycle.\u00a0 When I finish with Zone 8, I\u2019m sure Zone 1 will need attending again but it shouldn\u2019t be so bad the next time around.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had this idea for a few days now and planned to start today but yesterday turned into an impromptu Garage Cleaning day (which wasn\u2019t one of my zones anyway!)\u00a0 As we&#8217;ve acquired more bikes and scooters (and a lawn mower), our third garage space \u00a0has become more and more chaotic, challenging and irritating (the first two spots have been and always will be reserved for cars&#8211;we live in hurricane country, I&#8217;m not leaving my cars out on the driveway!)\u00a0 It was time for a change.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t really purge anything (other than a few expired car seat bases) but were able to rearrange things to make the space more functional and give the kids more space for their stuff so they don\u2019t stack it on top of ours. \u00a0It was such a sudden decision to clean, I unfortunately didn\u2019t get a before picture, but here is the after (hoping to add a small bike stand for the girls&#8217; bikes to make them easier to store as well):<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4369 alignnone\" alt=\"SONY DSC\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01043-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01043-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01043-600x399.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01043-376x250.jpg 376w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01043-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01043-1000x664.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4370 alignnone\" style=\"font-size: 14px;\" alt=\"SONY DSC\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01045-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01045-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01045-600x399.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01045-376x250.jpg 376w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01045-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC01045-1000x664.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So that makes 1 area down, 8 Zones to go and 8 weeks to get it done! \u00a0Up first: Master Bedroom and Bath<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Watch my progress by following my board \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/beyondmommying\/8-weeks-to-a-happier-home\/\">8 Weeks to a Happier Home<\/a>\u201d on Pinterest. Want to join the movement?\u00a0 Zone out your home in whatever way and timeline suits you and begin cleaning, organizing and making your home happier!\u00a0 Simply follow the board and leave a comment on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/532269249683138274\/\">this pin<\/a> to be added as a contributor to the board and then pin your own before and after pictures!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everything has been driving me crazy lately.\u00a0 I\u2019m frustrated with nearly every aspect of life and it\u2019s made me a little less than eager to do things, anything really.\u00a0 There is so much I COULD be doing, but instead I focus on just getting by: Are the kids fed?\u00a0 Are the kids clean?\u00a0 Am I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[403,245,246,30],"class_list":["post-4365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mommy-diy","tag-8w2ahaho","tag-cleaning","tag-home","tag-organizing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4365"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4373,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365\/revisions\/4373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}