Organize 365... She Draws Near


Organize


Our inspiration comes from many places.  For me, as a mother, a huge river of help, support, inspiration, friendship and every good mother thing I can think up has flowed from one of my Besties.  She is full of Light, Ideas, Birthday Mud Camo Parties, LOVE and Fun.  I call her my Ethel and like Lucy and Ethel...we get a lot of fun and harebrained ideas.  So I am grateful when I reached out to her a few days ago about doing a JOY Sister post, she agreed, maybe somewhat reluctantly, but she agreed.  

When we got a little time together over Christmas break I asked her what her One Little Word was for 2018.  (we have shared and encouraged each other in our one little word for years).  She paused... hesitated, and then said she wasn't sure she was picking a word.  That was immediately followed with a rush of words flowing from her mouth that she almost couldn't stop, but I got the feeling, didn't want to let escape.  "I think I might do something with ORGANIZE 365!  I don't know!"

I immediately understood her hesitation.  Committing to anything for 365 days seems to have the stench of failure written all over it before you even leave the gate.  But I KNOW her, I know she was being prompted.  I also KNEW she could do it.  That is not what you say though.  I said, "That sounds interesting". It has been an amazing month following her on Instagram @shedrawsnear.  Here is her story for January.  But I know even more goodness and yummy lessons are coming in the months that follow.  So I hope she will write some more for us in the future.  Maybe I can even convince her to share a post each month.  But I won't push it... today I am grateful for THIS! ~Christine L.

My OLW is Organize.  
This year I was inspired to make my OLW a 365 project.  
Every day for the entire year I was going to work on organizing something.  
(What? Seriously? Yep!  Scary!)
Whether it be actually organizing my house or in a broader definition organizing my body, mind, spirit, etc.  I set up an Instagram account to log my daily organizing in the hope that it would keep me accountable to my goal.  I’m proud to say that I’m on Day 31.
(And Thanks to Dina, I am proud to say her efforts are contagious, and my husband is grateful! C.L.)

After a month of organizing something everyday, I thought today, on Day 31, I’d organize my thoughts on how I’m doing as I look back over the month of January.  

I tackled some big organization projects like cleaning & organizing my daughter’s room and my kitchen cupboards.  But I think the hardest project I tackled this month was going through all my books.  I’ve been home schooling my children for the past 16 years.  Yes, you read that right!!! and I have collected a lot of books.  

All my kids are attending school outside of the home this year and I knew I had tons of books, delicious books, entertaining books, educational books, but books we just don’t need cluttering up our living spaces.  So, I gathered all the books in the entire house into the living room and I held each book to see if we needed it or if it brought joy to me.   This was a difficult process because I LOVE books!  I mean REALLY Love them.  I went into it hoping to at least fill one box.  I did more than fill one box, I filled 8 boxes!  Some were donated to my daughter’s elementary school library. Others were donated to Deseret Industries.  But my favorite part, was watching the majority of my books go to two amazing home school families. It felt great to let them all go.  Well, except one…I was lying in my bed ready for a good nights sleep when one of the books kept popping into my mind.  I felt like it needed to stay but I knew for a fact it was in the to-go pile.  So I ran downstairs, moved it to my bookshelf and went back to bed.  All was right after that. 

Besides physically organizing my spaces, I also organized my spirit on Sundays.  

I call Sunday my “temple” day.  
It’s the day I put aside all the worldly comings and goings.  
It’s my day to renew and refresh from my week.  
I attend church and I study about God.  
This year I’m determined to not just sit in my house on the Sabbath but get out and serve as Jesus did when He was here.  
Comfort those that stand of need of comfort, lift, serve and visit the weary, sick and afflicted.  This first month my organize posts on Sundays have been something that I learned that day or something that inspired me.

Now, to be honest, there were days I didn’t want to organize anything especially while I was sick for 4 days.  I made myself get up and do something, even it was tiny.  One day I hung up a gift I had received and called it good.  Another day I cleaned my bathroom counter, realized I needed a shelf and wrote myself a note to go get one when I was feeling better.  Then a friend pointed out that when I’m sick, I need to take time to heal and in so doing I am organizing my body toward health.  After this wise friend pointed this out, I had an even broader vision of what organize really means.  This is going to be very helpful in the coming months because my house is pretty much organized so now I’m going to have to get creative.  It should be interesting to see where my OLW Organize takes me this year.  

She Draws Near
Dina L.


I included some of her amazing before and afters.
I hope they inspire you as they inspired me!
Thank you Dina for REACHing out of your comfort zone
and helping us grow too! ~C.L.

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