SOS Day

My first intention was to write a blog post about how my morning chaos sends a chain effect through the rest of my day, and by fixing my morning, I could fix my day. However, that post will have to wait because I have come to a crisis point - I just cannot take this mess and disorganization for one minute longer. Then I read about having an SOS Day*, which stands for Salvage Our Sanity. This is similar to a Home Economics Day or a Staff Development Day. Fortunately, we are coming up to our 1 week off of our "4 weeks of school then 1 week off" plan. So, make that a SOS Week.

No matter what name you call the day, the basic idea is to take off school to clean up the mess that has been accumulating while you have been homeschooling your children or just life happening in general. Have you been picking your clothes out of piles laundered clothes that never got put into your dresser? Have you misplaced bills or other important papers under stacks of clutter? Or even worse - are there piles of clutter that have no place to call home?

Not really quite sure if it was my husband's strokes or the arrival of number 3, or both happening simultaneously, but I have been fumbling my organizational skills ever since. Now that my husband is doing so well, and the baby is really no longer a baby(he is 3), I have begun to dig out of the chaos. However, when homeschooling, home life tends to spins out of control into a messy chaos because of the high level of work demanded of the homeschooling mom. My stubborn nature will not accept the "let it go, you are homeschooling, your home is just going to be messy" mentality. While it does not have to be picture perfect, home does need to be a functional place, a sanctuary for all members of the household - not a place of stressful mess.

But how is my home going to become organized? How am I going to get from here to there? The clutter and mess will be chipped away at with SOS Weeks, SOS Days, SOS Hours, and SOS Minutes. It is amazing what a string of 15 minutes cleaning raids can accomplish. It may be a reclaimed kitchen drawer or an extra piece of floor recovered by removing clutter. We have made a lot of improvements in the past year, but now it is time to take all I have learned from FlyLady** and the Duggars**, and put it in high gear. God has giving me patience all along, but I feel like He is saying now is the time to make some major headway. Now is the time to focus on the disorganized mess and DO IT. I do not need to read another organizing book, I just need to do it.

As a postscript, I would just like to say that I will schedule regular SOS blocks of time. This will not be my last SOS Week, I guarantee it. Life does not work that way. We all get behind, we all need margin. Hopefully by improving my habits, I would not have to always take a whole week to regain sanity. This week I will clean up as much clutter as I can, while I come up with a plan to fix my mornings - my first stop on my organizing mission.

* Homeschooling at the Speed of Life by Marilyn Rockett

**Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley(aka FlyLady)
The Duggars: 20 and Counting! by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar
Both are excellent books and I have learned a great deal from them, I highly recommend them.