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.

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.

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!

Slacker

I've been a major 10 things slacker lately. There are so many projects looming over my head too that I want to tackle so I need to get my butt in gear. Today I cleaned one of my kitchen drawers. This one holds measuring cups, oven mitts, pot holders and cutting boards. I needed to go through my cutting boards because I have some wood ones in there I never use because wood cutting boards skeeve me out. I got another plastic one this weekend to urge me to start this drawer. It was a quick and easy project. Before: everything shoved in there (are you surprised, this is me?!! I am shover!!!) I desperately need new oven mitts. I have non matching old ugly stained ones.
and the after. I can open and close it easily and don't have to push stuff down to close the drawer.

Stuff I threw away

1-2. Two wooden cutting boards

3. Louisiana pot holder I had forever

4. random mini spoon

5. clips for who knows what?? It's amazing I never stabbed myself with these!

6. random tupperware top

7. tiny measuring spoon I never use

8-11. LOL seriously. This wasn't in this drawer but I found these in a random drawer in my bathroom and they needed to go. It's tubes of vaseline from when my son was circumsized....um yeah he's FIVE. WHY are they in there still? WHY WHY WHY??

So in order to not be a slacker anymore this is my next goal-my bedroom dresser. AH. It gives me heebie jeebies thinking about it. It has 6 drawers, 5 of them need major work. Guess what??? All my clothes are shoved in all the drawers. God I thought I was semi neat before this blog! So my goal is one drawer a day for the next 5 days. I can and will do this. I want to get some of this stuff up on e-bay too or donate it. So now that I told you, hold me to it. I will start with drawer one tonight.

I am also listing 3 pairs of shoes on e-bay that I got rid of when I cleaned my closet a few weeks back. I gave them to my sister thinking they'd fit her and they don't. I can't wear them and the sandals are basically brand new so I will sell them. I'll be happy w/ the extra change in my pocket and to not have to look at them anymore.

11 minutes

11 minutes.

That is how long it took me to clean out and organize my freezer. Why did I wait so long to do this? I find myself asking this question again and again. Ok so here is the freezer. Story of my life, everything is crammed in there and when I get something new..I cram it in! Sorry for the photo quality in the first 2 pics, my kids were messing w/ my camera and got the lens dirty. I didn't realize it until after I emptied my freezer.
This is what I got rid of:
1. empty box of ice cream sandwiches. There were only 2 left, I didn't need the whole box in there.
2. freezer burned fries
3. freezer burned hashbrowns
4. freezer burned waffles
5. freezer burned stuffed shells
6. freezer burned chicken patties
7. freezer burned sausage links
I was out of stuff to throw away in the freezer so I grabbed 3 more things
8. old bacon that was in the fridge, lol luckily I have back up in my cleaned out freezer
9 & 10. Two chocolate bunnies. I don't need them, my kids get enough sugar and have more than enough candy in the house, they won't miss these.

and here is the after, and it's organized!!!!

p.s. mmmmm monkey bread

Ok I realize this pic below looks no different than the before, lol

All it took was 11 minutes this morning and I can finally exhale about my freezer!

I have two sorta big projects on my brain. Next to this fridge is a kid cabinet and it's a friggin mess. I need to get it done. I've talked about this before. I need to just do it. I also need to clean out my dresser. It's disgusting and guess what-everything is crammed into my drawers, surprising right? UGH. These are my next two things and if I put it out there that I have to do them, then maybe it will make me do them.

10 random things

I didn't have time for a major project yesterday so I threw away just 10 random things. No pics.

1-4. Old sippy cups of my daughter. She has been asking me to throw them away, why was I keeping them?
5-6. Two broken humidifers...again, why was I keeping them?
7. a random art pencil that only goes to one coloring pad, coloring pad is nowhere in site.
8. old pics my kids drew. I felt bad about this but I keep a lot of it, I just can't keep everything.
9. an expired bottle of Aleve
10. an empty box

The Cabinet

It's not hard to make me happy. Even small things get me really excited. Take my lastest project for example. This is a small cabinet in my kitchen. I never really had a "label" for this cabinet, I just stuck in there whatever I felt like. I knew this would be an easier task because of the size of the cabinet and after my 2 bigger projects, I needed something small! Here is the before pic. Nothing too outrageous but everything is once again, shoved in there (I'm noticing this pattern with myself) I didn't know if I woud be able to even find 10 things to get rid of here. I thought this was more of an organizing project rather than a throwing out project. Turns out, I can find things to throw out just about anywhere!
Here is my 10:
1. A box of generic Stuffing Mix. I have no idea why I bought it or even kept it for so long. My DH isn't a stuffing fan, especially boxed stuff, my kids won't eat it and I'm not even that much of a fan of it. So in the trash it goes.
2. A container of cupcake papers with one left over spongebob paper in there.
3. 3 boxes of Jell-O. Really, I buy the ones already made. They've been in there for a long long time, time to go.
4. an empty box of coffee filters
5. a very old container of green sprinkles, like 2 Christmas' old!
6. One lonely candle
7. an old container of icing gel
8. another old container of icing gel
9. A box of cocoa mix. It's old. There were only 2 left in there, I'm not making them anytime soon. In the trash it goes.

Ok so that is 9 things but techinically there are 3 boxes of Jell-O! I guess you can also count the dirt I got off the shelves as something that is gone too!
This project took about 10 minutes but I was still SO satisfied with the end result. A nice organized cabinet.

Little things do add up.

I kept opening and closing this cabinet last night, just to take a peek! It was nice. Simple things, they make me happy. Neat things, they make me happy.

I will say again that I never realized what a slob I am. When I first heard of this blog I was like Oh I don't even have 10 things to throw away. Bitch please! I have more and more projects that I keep coming up with. So here's to hoping we keep this blog going for a long time. My house needs it!!!

My next project

I think I know what will be next. This should be a quick one too. DH just called and asked if we had green food coloring. He decided he was going to try to make Shamrock Shakes, lol don't ask. So I told him we did and he asked where it was and I told him. He's like WHOA how do you find anything in this cabinet. AHHHH he's right. It's a small cabinet and not used for really anything specific. I keep boxed stuff in there and coffee and other random things. So tonight I will tackle all this randomness that is in there and clean it. It shouldn't take too long as I said, it's a small cabinet!

Clothes clothes and more clothes

My son has too many clothes. I'll be the first one to admit it. To gear up for the nicer weather, we got our kids a bunch of summer clothes. Great, right? Well turns out my son still fits in some of his stuff from last year. Ok, no problem there; we could always use the extra. Well then my dear dear sister in law comes over with a huge bag of hand me downs from her son, and you know what, they are still in great condition and really nice clothes. So I have way too many clothes for my son. Yeah, things could be worse but I need to get some organization with them and I need to get rid of the things I know he isn't going to be wearing.


My system in his room is to hang all his jeans, pants, sweats, long sleeves shirts, button ups, coats and short sleeve collared shirts. He has a good size closet so this all fits in there nicely. Because of the size of his closet we only got him one dresser. The dresser has 4 drawers. Top is undies and socks, 2nd is shorts, 3rd is tee shirts and 4th is pajamas. The dresser has just been stuffed to the brim with clothes, not including what we bought him and the clothes from my SIL. There is literally no room for me to put any of his newly acquired clothes away. So this was my main project this weekend. I was sick of seeing bags of clothes with nowhere to go. I just started emptying all the clothes knew he wasn't going to wear and putting them in a laundry basket. I filled it and bagged it and will give it to my cousin for his son....who then passes it on to another cousin with twin boys. We don't waste clothes in this family!!

Then after that I combined the new, the old and the hand me downs and folded them up and put them away. I put nicer stuff to one side of the drawer and the play stuff to the other. I still have anxiety over these drawers because they are packed. I can see clothes getting stuffed in there again. So my ultimate goal is to clean out the top shelves of his closet and put his nicer stuff in there where only dh or I could reach. I can’t see hanging his shorts and tee-shirts. So here are 3 of his drawers-shorts, tee’s and pajamas. I got rid of a lot of pajamas!!! Thank God!

(sorry I couldn't get the first pic to turn on blogger, I didn't load it in this way!!)

Then while my kids weren’t paying attention I decided to do 10 things from each of their rooms. I started with my sons. I got rid of 2 empty shoe boxes, a barrel of monkeys (OMG so annoying there are 10 in there and they never play w/ them there is just always monkeys laying around my house. He’s had this toy for like 4 years too and he could care less about them. I have no idea why I didn’t get rid of them sooner) a painting book that is filled up, an old place mat, a bag of straws lol, a stethoscope (we have more than one) a broken slinky, an old play phone and some random pieces of cardboard some w/ stickers on them.
I had a really annoying whistle that actually belongs to my DD in this pile……..but well she came up and stole it and started using it.
Next I went in my daughter’s room and looked for 10 things in there. When I tell you my kids have too many toys, I really mean they have too many toys. They have more than they know what to do with. 10 gone from each room is nothing so I didn’t feel too bad doing this!!! This is my daughters stuff-I got rid of an old boppy pillow-seriously, she is almost 3, why is this in her room? A drum she doesn’t use, 2 stuffed animals she doesn’t care about (actually she doesn’t care about any stuffed animals, these are just what I chose to get rid of because they are ugly and came from a dirty crane game) a pocket book she doesn’t play with along with a wand she doesn’t play with. A balloon I had popped, a random little top that goes with some doll, which doll it is or where she is I don’t know. A remote control car that doesn’t work. Finally there are 3 watch faces to a watch that she doesn’t care about and is lost somewhere in the world. I packed these up and threw them all in the trash before they had any idea

So that was my Sunday. Friday I recycled some magazines that have been sitting on a kitchen shelf for too long. We also have a wall size cabinet in our kitchen that is the kid’s cabinet. It has their cups, plates, crafts etc in there. It’s a big junk cabinet and I need to do something about it YET AGAIN. Things get thrown in there and it’s very unorganized. I took a tip from Morgaine and started small. I can’t imagine just sitting and doing the whole thing at once. So I picked one shelf and cleaned it out. I will do this a little at a time. One shelf down, 4 to go!

p.s. My husband cleaned out his side of the closet yesterday!! Organizing is contagious!

The closet

Reading this blog has inspired me so I felt motivated and decide my first project would be something that has been bugging me for awhile......my closet! I can't stand my closet. I can't find anything in there, I hate trying to shove things around to hang more clothes. I mainly use my closet for work clothes and zip up hoodies but it's been a hot mess lately. We have a decent sized closet but as you can see we have this big shelf thing in the middle where the tv is (DH's idea) and it has some drawers and shelves where you can put clothes (all dh's clothes.) So my clothes go in my side of the closet and in my dresser-that one is for another day!!!

Here is the before pic, and it makes me cringe that I am showing this!! The jeans are DH's freshly ironed jeans lol!!!




Here is a look at the bottom of my closet. I really don't even know what the hell happened here. I am guessing some clothes fell off the hanger and got lost down here.....and come to find out there is a bag of clothes sitting under them!
The top-seriously no clue what’s in that Nike box back there. Everything is just thrown on top of there with no sort of organization.

And here is where you can see all my clothes shoved in there.
This is what I hate!! I have no room! I need to get rid of my winter clothes so I have room to hang the clothes I am wearing now.

It took me a little over an hour. This is what my bed looked like at the half way point. I think I sneezed about 17 times.

And lo and behold-----the random Nike box had a new pair of shoes for me. I love me some Nike MaryJanes in the summer. This is my 3rd pair and I wear these all summer. DH must’ve gotten me 2 pairs of these last summer and I’m guessing I saved these for this year. Either way-score!!!

I got rid of a huge garbage bag filled with clothes and 6 pairs of shoes. I packed them up and left them right by the front door and the next morning donated them to the church so they are OUT OF HERE!!

And here is the end result. Top is nice and clean, new shoes stored away until I am ready for them, Uggs stored away, bags in their protective bags and stored away, shoes are nice and neat and there is ORDER in my closet!! The most important-I HAVE ROOM IN THERE! I can hang things and look through things! Dresses in the back, long sleeve shirts, pants, capris, short sleeves and zip ups. AHHHH I can breathe again. I packed up all my winter stuff and stored it in the basement so now I can hang everything I need to hang and have room for it all!

Now my DH says he wants to work on his side. I hope he does it!




The next morning I was so happy about this I decided I could do my counter really quick. It has become a charging area and we have a million chargers there. Not really sure what all these things even charge!

I had an empty box that I found in the bottom of my closet so I stored all the chargers in separate bags, labeled them and put them away.

If anything this is making me realize what I slob I actually am. I thought I was pretty neat and now am realizing just all the things I can organize and all this stuff that can be thrown away.