Home organising and rhythm setting

There is something about my personality and life experience which means I need a sense of rhythm to my life. Since becoming  a parent, that need has become acute. I have tried to push it aside and live by 'going with the flow', but it hasn't worked for me, especially with the demands of a growing creative business.

So I declared 2011 to be my Year of Living Rhythmically. My year of finding a pace to life that feels more realistic and respectful of where I am at in my stage of life (with two young children to nurture,  a family home to maintain and 'art' calling me). A way of running my life so that it feels more balanced rather than being so deep in one area of life that I  neglect the rest. A way of living that decreases stress and increases calm. A pattern to life that respects my need to know where I am at and what I am to give my attention to at a given moment rather than feeling that I have to deal with / develop / achieve everything right now (recipe for overwhelm if there ever was one).

I have tons I want to say about what rhythmical living means and does not mean to me but for now, let me tell you how I have begun:

1. By clearing the physical space in my life
2. By developing a way to intuitively plan my use of time.

On the latter, I have invented a 'tool' to do this (its taken me 4 weeks to 'make'!) and I am going to start using it tomorrow. For those of you interested, I will report back and tell you all about it in a month (once I know if it works for me or not).

As for clearing the space...oh my! I have done my best over the last 5 years since having children to keep some sort of home organisation going. But, truth be told,  many, many corners of the home have been filled with things tidily shoved away. Seeing these hot spots of neglect have left me frequently hyperventilating (you know that feeling, when you can't find what you need or you open the cupboard door and things tumble out?)

So, in my quest to clear the metaphorical dance floor of my life so that I can dance my rhythm without tripping, I have spent the last 10 weeks sorting, de-cluttering and tidying. So far I have tackled:

• the kitchen cupboards (happily, in good preparation for this course on Vegan living that start tomorrow)
• the utensils draws in the kitchen (yay! The draw has not got stuck once since!)
• the understairs cuboard (including using the genius system from my friend Kate, for organising medicine into two boxes - 'internal' and 'external')
• all our paperwork and filing has been gone through and stuff chucked, organised or archived. I feel like I need an enourmous round of applause for this as its over 5 years worth - phew! I think that we may now be able to actually find a piece of paper when we need it!
• I have sorted my jewelry and made this display frame from a beautiful piece of lace  (hand-made and given to me by a dear lady in Finland) which I have mounted on a wooden frame.

I adapted this idea from Heather at Beauty that Moves who showed how she used a small bit of lace in an embroidery hoop for hanging earrings. It's so lovely seeing all the various sparkly bits (many with feelings attached) on display - it is like using all your jewelry to make a work of art!

• my artists studio has been thoroughly cleared out and I have nearly finished sorting all my tiles (will post pics of the inside when I do)
• kids toys have been thinned out, sorted and tidied including all the girly nick nacks (how many bracelets and necklaces can a little girl have? Mmm...about as many as her mummy maybe?)
• our hat gallery is back!

• my sewing area is finally cleared, sorted and set up and I will finish our family snuggle quilt for the living room by next winter...

Still many house projects to tackle but it feels sooo good to have made such headway, particularly as I have a busy time coming up with my art in the next few months (some exciting news to share soon!).

PS. The picture above my sewing desk is by Nikki McClure , an inspiring self-taught artist and children's author who makes the most beautiful paper-cut art. The picture was a 40th birthday present from friend, blogger and fellow Tooting creative Gillian. When she gave it to me, it literally choked me up - there is something in the picture that touches me deeply.