Seeking advice

Okay so since Luke was born our house has not been the same and by this I mean it is never clean. There are always dishes to do, clothes to wash and things strewn about the living room, covering the dining room table, kitchen countertops and our closets are exploding with "things". Toys, papers, books, bottles, clean clothes that need to be put away and dirty clothes that need to be washed are everywhere! It is driving me crazy. I work full-time (which I enjoy as I need the outlet and interaction, I am not made for staying home, which is good because we can't afford for me to anyway) and just never seem to have the time for any of it. John is very helpful but we both just seem to suck at this even though we have a combined goal of an organized-everthing-in-its-place home.

For the last 4 years we earned extra money cleaning the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce but recently gave it up as it was taking over our weekends and wasn't worth the gas money for John to drive down there everyday once he was working in Glens Falls full-time. The money was necessary those years and would be very helpful now, but it was becoming more of an annoying obstacle with a baby in tow...this morning John thought that maybe we suck at keeping our house clean because we cleaned other peoples crap up for 4 years and now we're rebelling. I disagree, this is our house, we should care about it alot more than someone else's office.

So moms, how do you do it? Or is it the kind of thing you have to learn to accept, that with kids comes clutter? Maybe we just need to purge the things we haven't used in awhile and use that space for the things we do. Our house is teeny tiny which in some ways I love, but another bedroom, a mudroom and a better kitchen and bath would help. This spring we are going to have a friend who frames houses come check out our digs to see what kind of an addition is possible. We really don't want to sell and move, this house has emotional ties that we are not ready to cut and would rather expand it than leave it behind. Hopefully the framer will have good ideas!

On a side note, how do you also find the time to workout? I can't seem to figure that out either.

Thanks for listening:)



clearly not being helpful now as he's supposed to be cleaning this...




and I should be picking up this clutter and puting away the clean laundry that is all over the couch



Clearly we are just lazy, tired, and unmotivated.