Marriage + Organization = Divorce?

Hello Everyone!

Here it is - my first post as a married woman.  What have we been doing since the wedding you ask?  Well, fighting about how to organize our house.  Now, this isn't drag out, get your crap and get out kind of fighting - more loving, disagreement.  When we got home from the wedding day, I forgot the chaos that we left the house in.  It was as if 10 women had come in naked, did all their make-up, got dressed and left everything behind because the fire alarm went off or something.  Wait - that's almost what DID happen.  After that, we visited with all the out of town family and then packed to head off on our great honeymoon adventure.  Since then, it has been a bunch of travel for work and a whole lack of cleaning and organizing.

Well, we live in a small space and the two of us come with our own unique baggage - and it's not a matching set.  So what's a girl to do?  Well, for the academic like me - you buy a book and teach yourself how to do it.  Now I know, many of you haven't seen my office at work, but it's spotless - everything is labelled and in a place but here, in our house?  Not so much.  And that in itself, drives me crazy.  How can I be organized in a portion of my life and not in my entire life.  I'm pretty sure it's because I spend all day at work making lists, and putting things in their place and when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is keep organizing but this is the place it matters most.

I heard about this book: Organize Now by Jennifer Ford Berry.  It walks you through 52 weeks of step-by-step instructions on how to organize yourself and your life.  And so, today, October 24, 2011, I begin the journey.  I'm going to fast track this book a little.  I know HOW to organize, I just need to know what to do first.

Week 1: Organize Your Mind
The challenge for week one is to change your thoughts.  Check (see above).  Things to consider are making sure you get enough sleep and you make to-do lists of all the things you need to do each day.  This way, you don't keep yourself awake thinking those thoughts.  Additionally, taking control of your time and making sure that you aren't wasting it in front of the TV.  That's going to be a challenge for me.  I love coming home at the end of the day and letting my brain turn to mush in front of the TV.  Hey!  The days are stressful!  One of the suggestions is also making time for exercise.  AH!  The E word!  I like to think that my 3 hours of dance on Thursdays makes up for the lack of movement the rest of the week but apparently that is not true.  Does moving the spoon of ice cream from the container to my mouth count?

Ok... maybe this will be harder than I thought...