YAY!

There is talk on the E board of this getting going again. While I have no pics to show for it... I cleaned out some things from the playroom to "make room" for Christmas. Currently, they are being saved to cycle back through when the baby comes, but that is at least something. I'd still like to go through the playroom and clean it out, there is way too much in there.

I thought I'd maybe write some goals on here to help me get motivated again--- and anyone else can post their own goals too!

1. Take at least one more walk through the playroom and GET RID of anything the boys don't LOVE and play with often.
2. Recently, I totally cleaned out one hallway closet... one more to go. do it.
3. Baby's closet. Not even an option here. Must be done.
4. My closet (again).
5. kitchen cabinets. One at a time, clean them out/up.

That's a good place to start huh? Sort of big projects, but I don't have to tackle them all in one day.

Question

To those of us who have been purging and cleaning spaces and organizing... are the places you've cleaned, still clean? I have to say sadly, no. My closet is slowly crawling back to a disaster and my desk is over flowing and one cabinet is yet again a wreck. Why can't I keep things neat? I want them neat. I'm pleased when they are tidy...

any thoughts?

Lame Post

I suppose this does not go along the 'rules' of Our 10 Things since I didn't get rid of anything. It's just an organizing picture...and a boring one at that! But since I'm hard at work in the kitchen, I just thought I'd share general progress.

This is one of two cabinets in our kitchen island. We keep platters and service ware here. It just needed a little shifting around. I wish I had a better system for storing this stuff!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Earth shattering, huh?

garage sale 1 (pictureless)

Well folks, the date is set. Next Friday the 23rd I'm having a garage sale. Last night I pulled three boxes/bags down from the attic. Two just full of stuffed animals and one full of... yarn. Seriously. Just yarn. Stuffed full of yarn. I'm like wow. That's doing me soooo much good up there. So, off it goes. Since I haven't needed any since we moved in here nearly three years ago, it's gone. My storage room off the kitchen is barely able to contain any more. You can't walk through there be/c I keep throwing bags of "sale" items that way.

I also organized/purged Matthew's books and am selling a decent stack of them. There are some that are just too baby-ish and some that he just doesn't ever read, so they are going. I love books, he's got a great collection going, but no sense in holding some he doesn't want or we don't need.

Hodge Podge

I think we all have one (at least one!) of these. This is our cabinet where a variety of things land. It holds baking ingredients, oil, vinegar, plastic outside 'glassware', baby bottles and sippies, baby meds, etc.

I sorted through and threw away old, unused, and duplicates. I also bought ($4.99 at Homegoods) a couple of tiered organizers so I can more easily see what's on the shelves now in the hope to help reduce buying duplicates and just plain old use what I have!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I found a couple of unsused baskets in the attic to help conceal some of the bottle/sippee/baby chaos. I even was able to find a home for my new dessert dishes (mini trifle bowls) that I bought for our 4th of July party (all 20 of them).

This isn't a dramatic visual change, but now I know where everything is and everything is more accessible!

Spicing Things Up

Today's project was painless. I enjoyed a big glass of wine while I organized my spice drawer and it was done in less than 15 minutes. I'm a bit of a spice addict: I also have a spice cabinet....but we will get to that another time. Anyway, without much fanfare, here is my newly organized spice drawer (sorry, no before photo):

They are in alphabetical order (we'll see how long that lasts) and in one of my new beloved Williams-Sonoma semi-annual clearance sale drawer organizers.

There is something so satisfying about having things in order. I have found that in being more organized makes my life feels less chaotic. Still, soooo much to do!

Back From Outer Space...and Cleaning Drawers!

Kate, you inspired me! So....I'm back!

I have still been doing small projects here and there, but haven't documented anything and didn't think it would be too exciting for you to read about organizing my expense reports, product information, and promotional materials in my new file cabinet. I've also had a slew of guests (the blessing and curse of a beach house!), my husband has been away quite often, and I just threw a mega 4th of July party. But hey, that's life! And it gets in the way sometimes!

I also have another inspiration: My new kitchen drawer organizers!

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/mahogany-expandable-drawer-tray/?pkey=cdeckitdrw

I'm a sucker for the semi-annual sale at Williams Sonoma and snagged these last week at 50% off. I LOVE them!

Here they are in practical use:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

AFTER (I forgot to take a before):

BEFORE:


AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Nothing too exciting, but I get a sense of satisfaction every time I open one of these drawers!

Top o Dresser

So this is the top of the chest of drawers/hutch in our room. It's most commonly reffered to as the "jewelry station." Even though there is a jewelry box right there, most things don't make it IN the box after wearing. It's also the "I want to save that little scrap of something but I don't know where to store it station." Anyone else have one of those? Yah... that yellow towel on the top was my great grandpa's. It's been up there for the past 3 years be/c I wasn't sure if I wanted to use it or just save it. I had a come to Jesus talk about that towel though. I decided everything on this shelf either needed to be relocated for USE or PITCHED! And I was pleased to fill a whole shopping bag nearly full of just the trash! My jewelry box is now accessible! I even found buried was my piano music box, I had forgotten I had.

Before:

After:

PS: Where is everyone?

my own kitchen cabinets

After posting the massive cleaning I did in my mom's kitchen, here are pictures I took of my own pantry cabinets ( I don't have a real pantry ). This started be/c I needed the blue food coloring and it wasn't in the box with the green red and yellow... so, while looking for it, I ended up emptying out my cabinets on the counter and pitching a LOT of old crap. Easter candy, Halloween candy, several open boxes/bags of crumbs, trash, empty boxes or wrappers (how does that happen!?), old this and thats. It's not that drastic maybe, but I am pleased with the makeover!

the reason for the hunt: the found blue food coloring.

the before:

the after. not too bad, huh? I purged a LOT from that bottom shelf of candy!

second cabinet before-- this is a tricky shelf, as you can see from the straws, the rest of the shel is behind the wall and I can't reach or see what's back there. So it was time to pull it ALL out and take inventory. I trashed a ton of yuck.

after--I did not know I had so many drink mix-in boxes stuffed into the corner.

A battery powered blender, with small screwdriver inside and two batteries, never been opened. Since we also have the magic bullet, I'm thinking this will be added to the yard sale pile.

potholders drawer

My grams had given me new potholders that she made me and I couldn't jam them into the potholders drawer. So I took that as a sign to clean it out. I was pretty amazed with the amount of TRASH in this drawer. WHY was I holding on to trash in there?! Ugh.

I'm glad Bridget nudged us on the board today. Maybe we'll get back at it. I know I need to. It's been a long time and I am desperate to have a yard sale. So I as I purge the house for the sale, I'll be thinking about my ten things again now!

before, had to shove the drawer in.

the amount that came out of the drawer
(two of the power cords are for items we don't have anymore)

after!

Mom's Kitchen

When I was visiting my folks, I cleaned out my mom's fridge and pantry. Here's the before and after pics.

before left side of pantry
before right side

what was emptied from the right side

what was emptied from the left side

the crazy amount of crap that was expired

after right side

after left side (still a little crazy at the bottom,
but it's stuff I just didn't know what to do with so it stayed)

before

after (see the door mostly)

the stuff that was expired.

My latest

I haven't fallen off the earth nor have I gone lazy but ohhhhhhhhh does lazy sound nice. My house is taking a backseat for now. I am full blown in landscaping mode. I have pulled and planted and seeded and mulched like it's nobodies business. It's like my full time job outside of my full time job and my 2 kids. I have spent so many hours the last week working on my gardens. I WISH I had taken before and after pics. Nothing like 4 yards of mulch to kick your ass in gear!

Anyway, still have a lot more to do until I am done. I love this stuff. Inside has to wait.

Hello June!

I'm still on vacation and am itching to get back home to work on my 10 things projects. I just wanted to encourage the other posters! Everyone take time today and grab just ten things, even if it's just ten pieces of trash off the counter or something! It doesn't have to be a giant project, just pick up something. Okay, that's all.

I Have a Secret.

While my house has been getting in order, my work has been doing just the opposite. I've been spending so much time doing house stuff, that the organization of my work has suffered.

I work on my own for the most part. I'm in outside sales and my office is my car. I have A LOT of things to carry in my car (literature, samples, display boards, education materials, etc). I live out of my car and am on the road for most of the day. I'm pretty much a free bird, but every once in awhile, I have to work with my boss. This is the case for the next two days.

I desperately needed a big overhaul of my work life. So, my husband took over tonight by making dinner and putting the kids to bed. Thank the heavens for him! Here are the tasks I tackled tonight:

• Cleaned out my car
• Cleaned out two work bags
• Organized and printed reports to go over with my boss
• Organized my samples
• Organized my promotional/educational materials
• Organized my target list
  

I hate working with my boss. I always feel like it's so unnatural. At any rate, I wanted to make sure all of my ducks were in order. I'm not totally done, but at least I'll appear on top of my game tomorrow!

I'm Baaaaaaack.

No, I didn't fall off of the face of the earth! Nor did I forget about the Our 10 Things endeavor. My power cord simply went kaput on my personal computer and my work computer's firewalls wouldn't allow me to sign in and post. Problem solved: The new power cord has arrived!

We had our garage sale on Saturday. I forgot to take pictures. You've seen lots of the things I had collected from around the house. We made $400 and sent the rest to the thrift store that benefits the local/regional children's hospital.

I've also made good attic progress. I will post pictures.

Just a short post for now to say that I am back!

The cabinet

Last night I finally got the nerve to do the kitchen cabinet that holds my kids stuff. I anticipated this to take 1-2 hours. I was sick of thinking about how I had to do it, so I just did it last night. Here is the hot mess before. Here are the 2 bottom shelves aka an embarrassment to post! There are coloring books, crayons, paints, trash bags, plastic bags just everything thrown in there. In my defense I have cleaned out this cabinet many times before but it always ends up like this again. My kids are OK about putting stuff back, just not neatly. I need to stay on top of this!

So 40 minutes and 5 shelves later this is what we have.

Top shelf is all cups, 2nd shelf bowls & plates, 3rd is cards, paints, stickers, tattoo's etc., 4th is coloring books and crayons and 5th is playdoh & bags.

Here are some of the random papers I got rid of. This was mostly from the 4th shelf. Aye! I also got rid of some random playdoh holder that never gets played with.

Here is more stuff I got rid of. We have a million cups, I can afford to get rid of all of these, more papers, random spoons. I put the holiday plates in storage w/ the rest of the holiday stuff. I don't need to see them all year round!

and here is a close up of the bottom 2 shelves that were the worst. I love organization!

So my goal is to keep this as neat as it is now, not easy with a 3 and 5 year old but I have to check this often before it gets out of control like it was. It's SO NICE to have this project done. I am not good at the 10 things a day, but I'm good at bigger projects. I need to get them done and then maybe focus on the 10 a day. This project took less than an hour and I am so pleased with the results.

Next up is the hallway closet which will be my biggest embarrassment yet (even worse than my bedroom closet before!) That will be next weeks project and I know that will take awhile!

p.s. I made 60 bucks off e-bay last week, have more stuff to list and am selling books on amazon!! Yeah baby. My goal with this is to make enough spending money for vacation in July so we don't have to take it out of our own pockets.

happy house

My month of purging is still going well even though I have not written about it. I got sidetracked gather kid items to sell in the church re-sale. In one week over 100 items were ready to go out the door. Thanks to my BFF for all the help pricing them--I don't think I could have done it on my own. I did not make a ton of money, but that was not really the point. I got enough to cover the items I bought--mostly items I needed for the kids plus a few books--and have a little spending money left. I defintely sold more than I bought.

But the real point of this is to say I am loving my house now. Things are cleaner than they have been in a long time. I can walk into rooms and not immediately get upset. This keeps me going. We have been planting our first garden the last few days so purging has been put on the backburner. The fence is all that is left and I plan on making up for these lost days because I will have 300 items out of my house by the end of this month!

pictureless pantry

OMG. My mom said I could tackle a few projects for her... and I say that loosely, be/c actually it's like this: Mom, I'm cleaning out the pantry, kay? Mom there's no room in the fridge for the milk, I'm cleaning out the fridge later, kay? LOL But Anyhow, my almost brother-in-law and I cleaned out the pantry today. Oy. I can't upload the pictures just yet but I have before and afters. We had TWO big black garbage bags full of EXPIRED items. EW. A whole counter top of expired items. It was awful. It looks so much better now, it's insane the difference! I will post pictures when I can.

I Can't Believe I'm Showing This....

This is my shame: The attic. I was not going to post before or progress pictures until I was totally done because I am too embarrassed. I am embarrassed by the amount of STUFF. No one needs this many possessions. It's a battle I constantly fight. As you all know, I'm a sucker for a bargain. This is how my attic got this way. When I finally realized I had too many things, I made a conscious effort to buy less. I'm not perfect, but I have gotten much better. At any rate, since I'm turning over a new leaf in that respect, it's time to organize and purge this mess.

Without further adieu, my attic before (LEFT side):

(And yes, that's an Elvis on velvet on the left near the stairway.)

And where I stand as of this morning. (LEFT side) Before (RIGHT side):

Progress (RIGHT side):

I still have a long way to go, but I wanted show the progress I have made. This project is totally intimidating to me. Little by little, I'm getting there.....

Spice and Booze...

So I got motivated before I thought to take a picture. Oops. Okay, that might have been sorta kinda on purpose. I filled a tall kitchen bag with expired spices. Ew.

But here's the after. This is our spice/daily meds/alcoholic glassware cabinet.



And the winner of the oldest medication? Generic Target Robitussin. July 2007. Niiice.



I can now serve martinis for at least 10. And wine for...well, a lot. There are at least 14 other wineglasses in other cabinets in this house.

Who wants a drink?

Attic Progress

I've made the commitment to try to get our attic organized and purge some of the stuff up there. We are planning for a garage sale next Saturday, so there is some incentive to a) get it done in a timely manner, b) get rid of things. This is an ENORMOUS project and I don't expect to get it completely done any time soon (I'm aiming for the end of 2010).

Here is some of the loot I've gathered over the past two days:

Pillows, Christmas wreaths, a flower arrangement, a cardboard file cabinet (new in package), a picnic set, an electric caulking gun, a new Rowenta Iron, a bumper for a baby crib (new in package), drapes, and tons more.

I have one more week until the garage sale to purge. Working up in the attic is temperature dependent, so I'll see how much I can get done in that time!

My dresser is done!!!!

ahhhhhhhhh my dresser is done my dresser is done, ding dong the son of a bitch is done! (sorry for the cursing, let me know if it offends you, I'll do it more often, JK (sorta))
So anyway, the dresser is done!!! YEAH!! God this has been bugging me for a LONG time. If you remember, it's 6 drawers, 5 of them needed cleaning. My goal was to do one a night. Night one I started with the top drawer and got it done. I started my "I need to lose 10 pounds to fit into these" pile, my e-bay pile, my donate pile and my throw away pile. Day 2 came with the 2nd drawer aka the worst bitch in history. I didn't do before and after of every drawer because well frankly no one wants to see 10 pics of my clothes. So here is the drawer 2, the worst of them. This is the before, God help me. I have no idea what shirts are stuffed in this drawer. I feel like a 10 year old whose mother told her to put her clothes away and this is what I did. The pic doesn't do it justice on just how bad it was.
and here is the after shot of drawer #2....ahhhh nice. This drawer is mostly just fitted tee's (Go CUSE!!)

I took a pic of an after shot of drawer 3 because I like my workout clothes. I love buying them, like wearing them and think I should be hired to endorse Nike gear. p.s. see how good my reflection vest works!! I don't care how much of a dork I look like when I wear this, it works!

Here is pile #1 and #2, this is my I need to lose 10 pounds pile and my e-bay pile. This got switched around more after this pic. I gave up some of the I need to lose 10 pounds pile over to the e-bay pile because let's be honest, I need to lose more than 10 pounds for some of this stuff.

This is the donate pile and the trash pile.

I was SO happy about this project being done. I even cleaned out the 2 drawers in my nightstand so I could use them. I realized I had way too many bathing suits (who says fat girls don't like buying bathing suits??) and I didn't want to waste a whole drawer on them. I live in the northeast and am PLUMP. I don't wear them often, I don't want them in my main dresser. So they are in a drawer in my nightstand. I felt SO good when this project was done. It was weighing on me for awhile. I was so happy last night. I didn't anticipate doing this all. My goal was just drawer #2 which turned into the entire dresser, which turned into the night stand. It was a good night. One last pic because I was so happy I kept opening and closing drawers. These are some old tees I didn't want to get rid of because I still wear them around the house with my jeans. Jeans that fit me.

I can exhale. Some of the weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

Next 2 projects are also big ones. I write about it so I'll do it. First is the dreaded cabinet I've been talking about forever-the kids cabinet in my kitchen. I just need to devote 1-2 hours one night and get it done and shut up about it. This is my next project. After that is my hallway closet aka hottest mess ever in the world. It holds pictures and pictures and pictures and vases and door wreaths and easter eggs and other random crapola. Everytime I open this drawer I always kick something back in to get it shut again. AHHH. I dread when I start this project. But next up is the kids cabinet.

I also have to say that since this blog I have been really good about keeping up what I have cleaned out. It's very easy to just shove shit around again but I'm trying really hard to keep the things nice that I have cleaned out. Bye, sorry for the longest post ever!! YEAH it's clean!