A well organized home should also be a clean home. It is important to grasp that clearing clutter and removing dirt are not the same. For optimum results, tidy first then clean. No matter the size of your home, cleaning will overwhelm you if you approach it haphazardly. Determine what needs to be done daily, weekly, or monthly, then create a cleaning schedule. If you are fortunate to have household help, this approach makes your expectations clear. It is easy to rate the performance of a domestic employee if your housework requirements are reasonable and do not exceed that which you could do yourself. I plan for two days of heavy cleaning and three days that are less structured. Here is an abbreviated version of my weekly cleaning plan: Monday - Laundry (clothing), general tidying and dusting Tuesday - Kitchen deep cleaning Wednesday - Laundry (clothing), general tidying and dusting Thursday - Laundry (sheets and towels), Bathroom deep cleaning Friday - Laundry (clothing), g...

An overseas posting means free housing, utilities and home maintenance. A stateside posting means you are on your own and with less money because you no longer receive the allowances to which you have become accustomed. You are left to figure out where you can afford to live and what to do with all your stuff. Not just the stuff you accumulated while overseas but also all the stuff you placed in storage before you went overseas. Many of us cannot afford the square footage to accommodate all the stuff. So we purge ( click for tips on what to do with all the stuff ) or we go into debt and pay for comfort. Our 90 boxes in our old living/dining room Before making our most recent move we thought long and hard about what would work best for our family. We made the choice to forgo a house with a yard further out in favor of a small apartment with a short commute to work for my husband. It is important to us that the kids see Daddy before bed every night. We have also chosen to not o...