Welcome to October 1st, the first day of our series 31 Days to a Less Messy Nest.  I hope you join me and the 7 other bloggers posting their very different 31 day series as often as you can.

I wanted to take this first day and explain why I decided to write about less messiness for 31 days here on a blog where I’m usually talking about more fun things like paint and fabric and hot glue.  It’s not because I felt like I had a plethora of information to share in this area.  It’s because I desperately needed a less messy home.  And I believe a less messy home is a more enjoyable, more beautiful home.

I’m not in search of the perfect formula that will guarantee perfectly organized spaces.

I just want to raise the bar a little and find some easy to implement ideas that will help keep me organized and ultimately  focused more on things that really matter.

We are messy people with stuff and a dog and a yard with a creek. We eat in the family room sometimes and sit our cups on a sock if we need a coaster.

We use and live in our house.  So over the past few months, I’ve been gathering information, thinking about what I do and don’t do that contributes to the chaos in our home.   I’ve been in the process of simplifying {resulting in our mega yard sale tomorrow} and really just trying to be aware of how we use our home.  It’s led me to get rid of stuff that is cute that I didn’t need, cut down the time needed to pack school lunches, and have a prettier more “come on in drop by neighbor-able” house.

I owe Leila from Like Mothers Like Daughters credit for inspiring this 31 challenge.  At the beginning of the  year she wrote a post called:: The Reasonably Clean, Fairly Neat, and Comfortably Tidy House. This Year. You can see all of her posts about keeping a reasonably clean house here.

Her words prompted me to think about my own home and as a result, I wanted to do a series that wasn’t as much about cleaning but, about tips and tricks that can help our home run more smoothly and make it prettier at the same time, all while acknowledging the fact that it’s ok to lower our expectations. Because family is more important than a pretty or clean house.

Join me and Chatting at the SkyBalancing Beauty and Bedlam, My First Kitchen, Life With My 3 Boybarians, Reluctant Entertainer, The Inspired Room, Remodeling This Life over the next 31 days.

{PS yard sale update, we are going to have the sale INSIDE my parent’s house, to the left of the empty lot if you are facing their house, look for the red arrows} 6116 Eisenhower Lane Lake Park, NC