A Wondering: Gone in 60 seconds

I have never been a neat freak - or a cleaning fanatic.  Just ask my mom, she'll be straight up honest and tell you I would just shove everything under my bed on cleaning day as a kid (and I had TWO beds in my room, all the more space to shove things under!!!)  As a wife, I wanted the cute clean house, but honestly I simply evolved from shoving under the bed to making piles.  Piles upon piles.
As a Mother, not only do I now crave organization - I want things to be semi CLEAN!

So I have started looking for ways to really clean and organize my house.  The first way way to hire a cleaning person- Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my cleaners, I can not express what a joy it was to have the ENTIRE house clean on one day.  But sadly; small budget, less work due to maternity leave timing, and funding the needs of 3 kiddos, did not leave room for the cleaners to stay.  It was a glorious 10 months though!
Now, I search for cleaning blogs, home organization tips, and the knowledge of others to become a lean green cleaning machine.  There is tons of good advice out there, and a gazillion different ways of doing something - but through all of it I keep coming back to a magazine article I read 10 years ago in college.
Essentially it said if you can do something in 60 seconds or less, do it NOW!!! 
I doesn't sound that earth shattering, but WOW does it make a difference.  Instead of coming home from a photo shoot and piling my equipment on the table (where busy hands could potentially reach it), it goes straight into my newly organized Office closet.  Instead of junk mail getting thrown on the buffet, I scan it and toss it.  When making Saturday pancakes, I wash the batter bowl while the last pancake cooks - no more stuck on mess of pancake goo.  And so on and so forth, My house isn't crystal clean yet, and I still struggle not to make piles, but I am making progress.

So, what can you do in 60 seconds???  Tell me the most hellpful cleaning/organizing tip you have ever come across!

Here is the AFTER on my office closet - I could still use some small bins for organizing - but the 'before' was three feet deep of clutter over the whole surface of the closet floor!!! Vast improvememtn don't you think???

*Tip for cleaning out a closet - REMOVE THE DOORS!  It gives you better access to everything and can let you see the whole space at once. (the doors are now securely back in place!)

The right hand side is all my photography equipment and business paraphernalia. (those two huge bins hold all my baby props, hats, backdrops, etc...).  The left hand side is all of my party planning accouterments, some crafting supplies, and yes - that in the back is my wedding dress!   

And HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY from Baby girl!!!

A Wondering: Becoming the Octopus

I have to look at the past two years as a transition, a transformation of sorts, a veritable metamorphosis.  Ahhhh, remember Kafka's Metamorphosis, the classic story of a man who overnight changes into a bug and struggles and eventually fails to survive in his new form.

Well, becoming a mother is similar.  Over nine months you morph into this bulbous creature that moves in a rather creepy manor and certainly can not get up of its back - 'I've fallen and I can't get up!' You adapt to moving through the world in a different manor, to accepting help in forms you never expected, to being this new version of yourself.  But that isn't the metamorphosis, for all intent and purpose this is your chrysalis stage... what you truly are becoming still awaits.

And then your child is born, or in my case TWO.  Welcome into the world my tiny bundles of (food slinging, dirt eating, decibel beyond imagination screaming) joy.  They are my joy, but we had to struggle together, discover each other, and I had to CHANGE to become what they needed - a Mother.  Day by day I adapted to make this new self work in the world, to create a routine through which I could catch glimpses of my former self, to hold fast to the knowledge that I was still me - only more.

But my metamorphosis still was not complete - oh you thought that was it???  HA!

Five months after my boys were born I received the shock of the year - two pink lines.  Shock because the Drs had informed us that without medical intervention our chances were slim to none of having children (But that is a story for another time).  Let me just say that repeating the chrysalis stage from above while being a mother of two BABY boys was a challenge of physical, mental, and emotional pain that words can simply not paint a picture of.  I Wanted to change the first time - I wanted to transform into the difficult, awkward beauty that is Mother.  Then, I was willing to become a creature; to be sick for months and months and months, to watch my skin and muscles stretch and tear, to see my legs become tree trunks, because my desire for the end result overpowered it all.

But now I was MOTHER -I didn't want to change further.  I didn't WANT to, but I had to.
And then my baby girl was born, and something magical happened - my heart Multiplied.  Did you know that an Octopus has three hearts?  Suddenly I had a heart for each of my children - not a split love divided away to nothingness, but an individual all encompassing unique love for each of them -I became the octopus.

I wish I had come home from that hospital stay with 8 arms - it would make feeding two toddlers and a newborn while cleaning the house, doing laundry, editing photos, and trying to occasionally get a morsel of food into my own mouth so much easier.  I wish I could glide elegantly through these murky waters of child rearing without simply feeling that the water is over my head.  I wish I could camouflage myself and hide from the unending 'ma ma?!' - if only to get two minutes in the bathroom by myself.  But my final metamorphosis was one of the HEART - and I am so thankful for it!

 
(31 and 37 weeks pregnant w/ A&B)

(A&B one week old)

(A&B 1 Year Old)

(the moment of the miracle)

(Baby Girl 1 week old)

(35 weeks pregnant with Baby Girl)

(Baby Girl and Mama at One Month)