Tidy As You Go

I wanted to kick off the school season slowly on here because today I woke up feeling like I was DROWNING!! My husband and I just had a lovely few days in New York City sans kids and it was beautiful and wonderful and awesome! And my phone was blowing up with emails and texts about soccer and football practices and we still haven't really gotten ready for school, which starts in one week and I still have a birthday party for my teenager *gasp* to throw before that happens....and life hit hard this morning. The reality that I need to get us all back on a schedule and that's pretty much up to me because my husband will be traveling again this week for work and so here I am doing my thing of trying not to freak out about school starting and I'm just not ready!

So, after many deep breaths and realizing that I'll be able to get our house from the summer months back in order, I've decided to just do small posts the next few weeks. Many of these posts will probably tell you exactly what I'm doing that day to try and reclaim the parts of my house that have been taken over with creativity and crafts. Another deep breath. 

The first thing, is to realize a few points: it took us a few months to get to this point, I love when my kids are being creative and it really is fun to watch what they come up with. 
Step 1: be tidy throughout the day. I am generally really good at this, but I have conscientiously slipped some this summer, because running out the door to go swimming or hiking is way more important than having a perfect house all the time, imo. So, before I leave a room, I'll be going back to my habit of trying to tidy up something on my way to another part of the house. For instance, if something that needs to be returned to my room is sitting on the table, I don't stress about it and go there just for that one item, but when I am headed to my room, I pick up the bottle of lotion or pair of socks and return it to my room along with whatever other reason I was headed there. 
I tend to live along the lines of in the normal cycle of your day, don't stress about every little thing every minute of the day, but instead let it be part of your day and pick up as you go. This obviously doesn't apply to an actual cleaning day, when the point of the day is to tidy up and clean. Don't be on the crazy side of not letting anyone in the family be human and do not wait until the end of the day to put things away or you will find yourself ignoring huge piles of things. Live in the middle, Folks!