Welcome M.O.M. Friends!
I am Anne Marie.
Just like you I live in this chaotic world that brings me the greatest of joys and the lowest of lows.
My story is not unique. My hope is to show you how, through home management and organization, we can all live a life that aligns to our deepest goals and values.
M.O.M. is born.
I was raised with chaos. My dad regularly spent months in and out of the hospital.
My mom would come home, “Anne Marie, your dad is in the hospital.” Most of the time, I just went about my business. After a few hospital stays, I wasn’t that concerned. We’d spend the next few weeks going to the hospital on nights and weekends. I always enjoyed the free soda and snacks in the visiting room. .
And, then as I got older it became, “Anne Marie, your brother is in rehab. I have to have a second job to pay for it.” Again, we’d shlep to the rehab for family therapy and activities to help my brother reintegrate into the family and society.
Through all of the hospitals and rehab visits, I distinctly remember making my bed. I perfected bed making to an art. As a teenager, I’d spend my hard earned money on sheets and household items to craft my bedroom oasis. Essentially, I made this oasis wherein I could reduce the chaos of hospitals and rehab.
This is probably where M.O.M. was born.
M.O.M. gets real.
Fast forward to my early 20’s when I had my very first home. I remember it very clearly. I moved to NYC with two book bags and a duffle bag. When I first arrived I rented a fully furnished room, then I found my own apartment. After 20 years in NYC, I can tell you I did really well with that first apartment. I could afford it. It was huge, and it was in a quiet neighborhood. I remember walking into the kitchen. There was room for a small dining table and a desk. BUT. I had none of those things when I moved in.
I moved in with an air mattress, a bookcase, and a microwave. I was in graduate school at the time, and I remember sitting on that air mattress trying to do work. My books and pens sliding off the floor. (It took me a minute to realize that I lived in the best city in the world for coffee-shop studying.)
I slowly built the place up. First, I badgered the management company to do the floors. Then, I found my way to a local woodworking shop and purchased a bed. Finally, I purchased a used pull out couch. Those are the first home products I remember purchasing. These were the framework of my home. I soon began purchasing things like sheets and plates.
I embarked on organizing that apartment into a home with Martha Stewart at my side. At the time, she had this incredibly helpful weekly newsletter she sent with all sorts of tips and tricks about how to store sheets and how to manage kitchen utensils. You see, I didn’t learn this stuff at home. Life in my home as a child was chaotic. It was full of family in hospitals and rehab centers.
I got very methodical about discovering how to manage my home. It started with me cleaning all weekend. I’d do very little cleaning and managing during the work week, and then I’d spend the weekend in a cleaning fury. It worked – until I discovered that I could do a little each day, and then I’d have much more of my weekends free.
M.O.M. get systematic.
Eventually, I began to build systems that freed me from thinking about too much home management. Through self study and reflection, I learned all about my own patterns and habits.
The first instance of this happened well before I had kids and a partner. I lived in a one bedroom apartment. This apartment had a narrow galley kitchen right off the front door. In my quest to organize the apartment, I created a hook area for my keys in this narrow galley kitchen. It was a great system for me. I walked in, I saw the hook immediately, and I hooked my keys.
Well, about a year into having this perfect key system, I started dating this guy who was well over 6 feet tall and, I swear, like 5 feet wide (ok, not really). But he was a bit too wide to really enjoy my narrow galley kitchen, and when the key hooks were added into the equation, it got super annoying. He constantly knocked the keys off the hook. What was an organized girl like me supposed to do?
Nothing. That's right. This planned, organized, go-getting woman did nothing. It's difficult to do, but I've found in cases like this, it is the best thing to do.
I watched for about two weeks to see where my keys landed without that hook. I realized that the next spot I stopped at when I arrived home was a small table. I took a beautiful bowl that I had purchased in my world travels, and I put that bowl where I naturally put my keys. Voila. My new key storage system designed itself. And, after I observed my behavior, I realized that I naturally put my wallet and mail there. I began putting my wallet in that same bowl. I put a box under the table, and I started sorting my mail right there at the table. It became one of the more effective systems in my home. Additionally, my new boyfriend, the 5 foot wide one -- he began putting his keys and wallet there too. It became a natural place for these items.
It was through this kind of self study and mindfulness that I came to develop systems that worked for me. Yes, I had Martha as my guide, but I didn’t hold her words as gold. I used them as a starting point, and then I build a home system that worked for me.
Later, when my son was born, I wanted to perfectly file-fold his clothes. Here I had this perfect baby whose skin felt soft as silk and had absolutely no blemishes. I wanted everything to be perfect. Before he was born I spent hours folding all the beautiful gifts he'd received. And then, slowly, but surely, I couldn't keep up. I was so busy putting ointment on that perfect silky-soft skin and feeding his pea sized belly that I came to realize that there was no way I could spend time folding. Soon, I started just tossing his stuff in the drawer. I realized I needed a system that allowed me the freedom to toss stuff in the drawers, but that I also needed to have some way to find the different kinds of clothes he needed. Finally, I settled on using boxes to sort unfolded clothes. Rather than allowing myself to feel shame about not folding, I sat back and observed my own pattern, and created a system that worked for me. This gave me the time to feel that soft baby skin rather than spending those precious newborn days with my son’s clothes instead of him.
As a kid, the focus on a peaceful bedroom kept the chaotic world I lived in at bay. And, now, as an adult, a fully functioning home system keeps the chaotic world outside me at bay. And, even further, these systems have allowed me to spend more time on my goals. Having a chaotic (even traumatic) past can be incredibly distracting. Through lots of therapy and yoga practice, I discovered how that chaos and trauma can get played out in my current life. But if I am organized in a way that responds to my current situation and patterns, I am able to focus on my goals. My life is minimal and curated. I don’t own a lot, and where I do own a lot, it is not mindless. I’ve curated it like a museum. Thus, I can spend my day to day reaching for what I want.
I’d love to hear your story.
Home management and home organization dulls the chaotic out world. Let’s chat today about how we can best design a plan to set up a custom home organization system that matches your natural tendencies so you can stop stressing over mundane household activities, get out the door faster, and spend intentional time with your family.