What you can expect from me this fall

Oh geesh

I’m trembling as I write this. Mostly from coming off from a screaming baby, who, as it turns out, thinks that me sitting next to her is not good enough. She must be held. So that’s what I did for a screaming thirty minutes. Now that we’ve miraculously found an incredible part-time nanny, it’s off to me land.

I’m SO nervous. I do hate using all caps, but that’s how I feel. A return to myself! And something new on the horizon…and it kind of feels like a curveball sharing it with you all. Eeek. Well, what do I have to lose?…😬 Ugh, that’s also not helpful. But, maybe a couple of you here will partake in this journey with me, which I realize, has not been so much about organization (spoiler) as it may have to do with my brain needing to create systems and a home environment that make sense, when the world often doesn’t.

I’ve gone downstairs and moved my husband’s laptop off my old desk—hello, old friend! I touched the rough side of the desk I had shaved off to push it into a space that it didn’t quite fit into. I have abided by my summer and two weeks rule: I don’t write over summer or the first and last two weeks of school because I am full on involved in family life. And now, it’s time to get back to routine. This kind of feels like a big phew! moment. We survived summer!! But also, I’m supposed to be sad and nostalgic for the dog days of summer. Which, I am, but if you knew an iota about the first 2/3rds of our trip to Scotland (which were still incredible!!!) you’d say, “Yeh Em, it’s time to get back to routine.”

Phew. Like I said.

I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s so hard to be honest and throw my vulnerabilities out into the void these days. The world feels like it’s a dangerous place right now, especially when I open up social media. So, I’ve actually gone private on many social media channels (as many as I could figure out how to go private on after putting the children to bed), and deleted them from my phone to limit the doom scrolling. It’s not that I don’t believe in being actively involved in political discourse or world news—I am very much in my own way—but I just need a mental break from all the noise and opinions outside of how I choose to receive my news right now. My husband, I believe, says it best: Social media is evil.

My heart and mind feel exhausted. I don’t know if this is because I live in the political capitol of the world and politics is like breathing air here (even though most people try and dance around this fact being the elephant in the room…pretty much always…) or I’m just aging and become a responsible adult in a very wild and insane feeling world.

How do we keep our heads on straight when everything, I mean everything, feels dizzying? So here I am, trying my best to sit down, and string something together that feels grounding and normal, and helpful or interesting for you all to follow along.

Since it’s back to school season, fall, and well…anytime in my house, I’m full on organizing and planning. I do believe I have a sickness of these two things, but for those of us who don’t run through lists like “How can I organize my son’s Pokemon cards when I don’t understand anything about the game?” when you lay down at night, I’m going to break down some of the things I do to organize our home and keep us a smidge—I’d like to think—saner, every week. I’ll share one thing I’m doing with you, and I hope you join along, trying to tame the chaos of life, and create some beautiful solutions and systems in your home.

In 2023 we bought a house with four stories. It exudes charm and she’s classic, unique, and beautiful, but she’s also presented many challenges keeping life organized with two children. (The four story living is truly the bane of my husband’s existence). I often feel like a mediator between the home and my husband, trying to make the relationship work. I vacillate between “we’re doing great, guys!” to “it’s an utter and total loss! Why am I putting any energy into this?” And I think this desire to try and make it work—to stay in this home, in this area—makes me feel like we still have time left here. And, that leads me head on into my obsession with systems and organization. If the home flows better, life flows better. And sometimes, I think, if you can remove all these niggling obstacles all around our lives, things just start to feel (and look! aesthetics are extremely important to me) better. And I think—lots of thinking here!—that sometimes, we’re all just trying to feel a little bit better. In our homes, our relationships, and in our health…

I’ve organized insane amounts of charging cord chaos—I fear I’ll never fully grasp this as a new cord comes home weekly, to labeling and storing kitchen and children’s items—yes, like a psycho but let me tell you my systems work!!!, to basket collection hacks that still look like your home has a semblance of aesthetic.

I kid you not, I had a top architect visit me today and he commented “This is fabulous! I love this!! Beautiful.” pointing to my wicker kubu stair basket I use to collect all the ugly things like pokemon cards, pink baby leggings, and library books. All of which I hope make it up the remainder of the stories—to the children’s room—before end of day, so we can start the next day with a fresh, organized, semi clean—depending on the day—home. I’m HOPING (caps again, really HOPING here), you’ll join me, or at least entertain my something-new-how-are-they-going-to-receive-it writing and sharing efforts. And who knows, maybe in our efforts together we can swap ideas, grow our arsenal of systems and organization, and protect our little home spaces for our families and everyone’s well-being.

My hope is by breaking it down week by week in this season’s Substack, that the projects are easy enough and affordable enough (please pick and choose) for all of us to do bit by bit—not overwhelming, which is what I feel pretty much all the time when I look at the always blooming mess of raising children. Sometimes the small wins of tidying up a little spot and getting a system or basket together to organize it better is just the weekly win I need in this season of life.

I suppose this all stems from my motherly and wifely love, to create a warm, organized home for my family to flourish in. I know moms have many roles, but I do feel like one of our big unseen roles is going around life, five steps ahead of the children and spouse, trying to make their lives just a little bit easier—better. The last of which I’ve done/am doing, is setting up a handsome tea station for my husband’s desk, which I’ve currently commandeered, with the anticipatory thinking— “Hmm, he could really use a tea spot here! No up and down the stairs…making positive habits easy to access…we’ve got an extra tea kettle, that’s an easy solution….”

And sometimes it’s as boring as organizing batteries. Sorry, but I told you I have a sickness!! It seems too late in this letter to tell you that I used to beg my mother to take me to The Container Store growing up—we had nary a spare penny to spend on all of those solutions, but just looking at things all in their right place made, and makes, me feel like the world is right. And everything will be more than okay.

All this to say, I’m cooking up some new content for you all and I do hope you’ll join me in some of the efforts. Please, PLEASE (had to), leave any of your own ideas in the comment section of my weekly letters on the Substack app. I love to hear from you and want to know which shares you like and how they’ve performed in your home.

Lastly, and I feel like it’s obligatory, but I will be sharing links to the items I’m writing about. Most of these links I’ll share do give me a very small percentage of sales commission. I’ll tell you which links I get a commission on, but for what it’s worth, none of the items I share are because they are commission based. (I think I can buy a postage stamp, if I’m lucky, with the commission from one purchase. I send out about 250 holiday cards so please, use those links when you shop). I’m brutal with my reviews, so, only the good stuff here.

Thanks for slogging it with me through this really long letter. I should have condensed it into five bullet points on ChatGPT to spare us all the headache of repeated all caps and embarrassing filler words. I’m sorry. And, thanks again!