keeping it together

I pride myself on having a neat and organized living space.  I do a thorough cleaning about once every 7-10 days, but do upkeep/real-time straightening and light cleaning almost every day.   I live with four cats and have to maintain the level of cat hair, as well as their food area (which makes our kitchen floor pretty dirty) and their litter boxes.  But in addition to the cats, we have very little closet/storage space, so I also have to keep up with clutter, piles of mail, laundry and dishes.  I think of it as just a fact of life when you have a small, old home.

But over the last week I've been having a lot of issues with keeping up, because we are installing all new windows in the whole house.  So far the windows in the office, bathroom and one of the two in the kitchen have been done.  The bathroom is so small that we had to immediately clean up the space after installation, but the office is still a disaster zone (wood, insulation, sawdust, a shop-vac, two toolboxes, etc.) and the kitchen is practically unlivable.  The second kitchen window will be done today, but cooking lunch or dinner in there is impossible, so we're ordering delivery.  I just did the dishes, but there's no counter space because the kitchen table has been moved to access the window, and there's just... STUFF everywhere.  We still have cookies, cake and other food out from the holidays, the toaster and coffee maker are on top of the fridge, and it's just a big ol' mess in there.

This situation has made me consider how important an organized house is to me.  It's also made me realize how many problems I'd likely have with living in a house that was being remodeled. We are planning to expand/remodel our bathroom AND get new kitchen cabinets and counters this year.  I'm wondering how well I'll handle that, if it extends more than two weeks or so.  I really shouldn't be this annoyed by something that's only going on for a few days (a week at the most)... but I think it's that there are so many rooms in the house that are messy right now.  The only rooms with space to sit or stand are the living room and our bedroom - of course, those are the next rooms up for window installations (after the dining room).  Of course, we have to get rid of the Christmas tree before we can even consider starting in on the living room!  We are saving an enormous amount of money by installing the windows ourselves, and I believe it was the right decision.  But it has allowed us to drag out the process a little longer than is probably necessary.

So my coping strategy is to adapt my already-existing methods, but to smaller areas of the house.  I straightened up the kitchen counters and put all of the dishes away, which created a little bit of room.  I moved the cat food to the dining room, and took out the trash and recycling.  I took a big contractor bag into the office and filled it, took that outside, and dust-busted the floor.  Every little bit helps!  And it also is a huge benefit to have as much touch-down space as possible right now.

The other great thing that keeps me going is knowing how much warmer and quieter our house will be when the windows are all done - and how much money we'll save in heating and air-conditioning!