Serenity.

I have come to realize that being a MoM of twins means that chaos is normal. It is not uncommon to walk into my house and just see toys EVERYWHERE and things piled in places away from small hands. It is hard, very hard to stay organized when two tiny tornados are at your feet all day long, reaching into a cabinet or closet where you are trying to put away something in its proper place.

It is often necessary to just shove something in a cabinet quickly to get it away from the curious duo. And the result is chaos. Everything may have an intended place, but the intention is lost when twins are around and you need to move quickly.

Time to keep things in place is relegated to the off-hours: naptime and after-bedtime. But if you are like me, then you work during naptime and are exhausted at bedtime. So things get out of hand.

The last month of school definitely sent my house into a tailspin, and it was neglected. So I have dedicated the first two months of summer break to sticking close to home and getting things in order. Although my first spot was originally the office, where Big Girl likes to hang out on the computer and sometimes I like to work on my laptop, I actually ended up in another spot:

The master bedroom.

(And let's keep it real. I'm saying master bedroom because it's where hubby and I sleep. But it's no "master bedroom." It's a bedroom, with a small closet, and we all share a bathroom. No illusions of grandeur at The Peapod. We love our small home and are grateful for it!)

The bedroom had become a dumping ground of clothes which needed to be put away, hand-me-downs that needed to be handed down and books intended to read. It felt cramped and messy and I hated that. It's no fun to go to bed every night and feel guilty about a room needing some attention. I once read something a fellow MoM said about the master bedroom: She said that she always made the bed and kept the room neat, because at least if everywhere else in the house was chaotic and crazy, she knew she could walk in there and feel some peace. This thought kept sticking in my head so I decided that this one place would be the place I tackled first.

So one recent afternoon, when the twins ACTUALLY NAPPED (Hallelujah!) I started picking up things and tidying the closet to get ready for cleaning and organizing the room. And suddenly I just went into crazy mode, moving furniture and dusting and vacuuming under things and on top of things and it ended up as an all-out insane project that lasted hours.

Luckily, my mother called in the midst of it all and volunteered to come over and feed the twins and Big Girl some dinner so I could continue on my mission. I moved the bed, the dressers, the nightstands, etc., vacuumed and vacuumed and cleaned and cleaned, changed the quilt on the bed to a more "summer" one and made a pile of things that need to be put elsewhere. I moved around pictures on the wall and changed out a few things with items I found when cleaning another closet -- the frugal "use what you have" decorating rule. By nightfall, I was done, and exhausted, but thrilled that I had accomplished one major thing.

It's not complete -- I still have some things to purge/organize, and the put-elsewhere pile is still there -- but it's a major improvement. And it feels good to walk in there and have cleanliness and order once again.