Third resolution

My third resolution is to create a peaceful home for me and my family. I have budding neat freak tendencies that never seem to flourish! LOL. I feel like I am ALWAYS cleaning, and while I have four children, several pets, and a husband, I still shouldn't have to spend as much time as I do just to keep my head above water. I have a vague outline of a plan, but I'm sure I'm going to figure it out as I go along. The first thing I am going to do is to get ruthless about what stays and what goes. I plan on going room to room and purging - a lot. Watch out Freecycle and ARC - you'll be getting a lot of donations! We've created a "chore chart" that has the things that are expected daily of the kids. It has helped some. I've had people tell me online to "just let it go," "you're just creating stress for your children," and "you'll regret the time you don't spend with them." Well, that all sounds great and utopian. The problem is that it is crap. When the house is chaotic, people's nerves are frayed, so I am not creating stress, the stress already exists - we're living in it. We have less quality time to spend together because we spend extra time looking for homework, tennis shoes, pencils, water bottles, etc. We spend more money because we have to replace things that we can't find or things get broken. And here is the big one that I am no longer willing to overlook - I am also an important person and a member of this family, and I deserve to live in a peaceful home. So, I am not quite sure how everything is going to happen yet, but it will happen. My goal for January is to get the upstairs completely decluttered, and I will go from there. If anybody has any great suggestions for me, please feel free to pass them on!