Clutter doesn’t just occupy the house in which you live, it occupies your mind.

Avina Celeste

I would like to start this with saying… I am NOT a minimalist. I like the look of bare and neat, however I also love family photos on the wall and seasonal decorations around our home. It makes it feel cozy and lived in.

With that being said, my mental health was in some trouble. I have never really considered myself an anxious person, but boy did having kids bring out alllllll the things in my personality that I had no clue existed! I have come to terms with the fact that I am a free range mom who requires a schedule and a routine, and I need my house to be tidy. I’m basically a walking contradiction… When it is a mess I can physically feel it my soul. I get cranky and I rage clean, then I am exhausted and feel like a jerk. I know I’m not alone in this, so I thought I would share a few things I have been working on that are making a big difference in myself and my family.

Downsize

We moved into a smaller house, so not only was downsizing something I wanted to do, it was something I needed to do. We no longer have a basement for me to shove all of the extra stuff into and I have gotten very picky about the keepsakes that I save as well. We have been sorting things as we unpack and have made so many trips to the donation drop off. At first I was having some anxiety about it, and guilt of all things. Like I was throwing away our life, which looking back now is a little silly because once I made that first trip to Goodwill it was a life time of stress had been lifted off of me. It was empowering!

I came to terms with the fact that if we haven’t used it recently, we don’t need it. What made me come to terms with that was my storage unit. We got a storage unit because if you remember, there was quite the gap between when we sold our home and bought our forever home. This meant we needed a place to put toys, furniture, kitchen tools and dishes, etc. We have gone and gotten so much stuff out of that storage unit, however it is still about half full. Those things have been in there since June…JUNE! There are a few boxes that I still need, however I haven’t missed many of the things still in there and that tells me that I don’t need them. Someone else might, so off to the donation center of a local free group on Facebook they go.

Something else I have given myself permission for is leaving empty spaces in our home. I have always tried to fill every area of my house to make it “cozy”. All that accomplished was clutter and more things to dust haha! My current thought process is if we have empty spaces in our home, we will have more room to actually live in our home. You know… play, blocks, crawling around with the kids, living room forts, and family movie nights. Those are the things that sing to my soul these days, and I am on a mission to make more room for them.

Menu Planning

The clutter in my brain doesn’t just extend to the clutter of my house. I need a schedule and a plan always. I am ok with rearranging that schedule or plan, but I need the general outline to base my day off of. Menu planning has helped me more than I ever thought it would! I plan our our dinners one month at a time, then I go grocery shopping every 2 weeks based on what the upcoming dinners are.

Having a monthly plan for dinners keeps me on track with our grocery budget, keeps me from being caught off guard at 3:00 when I suddenly remember I have to feed my family, and honestly it’s one less thing that has to live in my bran all day.

I also choose several meals per week that are simple, and have easy clean up like Taco Casserole or Cheeseburger Macaroni. Both of these meals are kid friendly, easy, husband friendly dinners and have minimal prep or clean up.

Daily Cleaning Schedule

This is a big one for me and something I have recently started. I hate to clean my house. Like I would rather do anything else in the world to avoid having to clean. The problem with that, is I need my house to be clean. See the problem? I started following a stay at home home on TikTok (I know…. but I really love her vibe) and she cleans one room of her house each day for 1 hour max. I LOVE this idea!

The point behind the daily cleaning of one room is it’s only one hour per day and your done instead of having a massive all day cleaning. If you miss a day, it’s ok because life happens! You just do it the next day or wait until next week. That’s another perk of doing it every week- if it gets skipped one week it won’t get out of hand.

An example of my schedule is every Monday is bedroom day. I wash and change everyone’s sheets, tidy the girls’ rooms, and dust and wash windows in each room. Also on Mondays I mop my whole house. I will spot mop throughout the week if needed, but every Monday I mop the whole house (we have no carpet).

I love to start my cleaning schedule early in the day, usually right after Ada goes to school and David leaves for work. That way it’s done and I can enjoy the rest of my day!

Priorities

This is just a small glimpse of the things I am implementing to help with my mental health. I hope it’s helpful to others, as I thought I was the only one who felt crippled by the smallest tasks of being a mom and wife until I made a comment on social media and was flooded with others raising their hands and saying they felt the same. We can’t take care of our families if we aren’t taking care of ourselves, and that is the truth!

~Tara