And the purging continues!

After a month of decluttering and rampant purging, I find myself still strangely drawn to getting rid of things. :-) So, throughout this month, I've continued to go through craft boxes, deep dresser drawers and forgotten corners of the office. And I've continued to purge, heavily.

I got rid of 120+ things in January, and in February I managed to sort through our music collection. I LOVE music, but I had many cd's that I never listened to anymore, or music that was a gift from someone that I didn't particularly like (the music, not the someone), or random stuff that I am not sure how it ended up in our drawer. So I purged. I even convinced Lover to do some purging of his own collection. The end result was that we got rid of about 30 CDs, and our collection now fits much more nicely into our drawers.

I'm still continuing to purge through my scrapbooking boxes, random folders and boxes of cards. It is a good feeling to watch the rows and rows of random junk on shelves shrink down smaller and smaller. :-)

Have you continued purging after 111 things in 1/11?

111 Things in 1/11: Week 3

It's week 3 of our month long purge, and boy did I get the ball rolling this week! :-) I got rid of a total of 45 things, and let me tell you, I am psyched. I have to admit, I had a few doubts at the beginning of this challenge that I would not be able to find 111 things to get rid of. However, it has NOT been a problem! I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that. :-) Anyways, here's the pile I had,



and here's the list of stuff that I got rid of.

1. Broken suitcase

2. Broken hanger

3 - 7. Shirts

8. Pair of boots

9 - 21. 13 pairs of socks

22 and 23. 2 bottles acnefree

24. Shirt

25. Sweatpants

26 and 27. Two pairs of pants

28. Sweater

29. Button Down Shirt

30. Linen jacket

31. Scarf

32. Bag of shirts for rags

33 and 34. Two travel books from AAA

35. How to Build Your Barn

36 - 38. Three other books

39. Muffin Tin

40 - 42. Three candle paraphenelia

43. BB Gun

44. Calendar

45. Random glass jar

That's a total of 101 things to date! (Which also means that I only have to get rid of 10 things next week. Hee hee) Now link up and show me what you are getting rid of!

111 Things in 1/11: Week 2!

Hello friends! I'm back with my next set of 28 things that I'm getting rid of. This week was all about the Christmas decluttering (one of my goals for this month too. Yay for multitasking!). I got rid of a bunch of stuff, and turns out I now have some room in my Christmas bins for future stuff that I may find! Here's what my pile looked like,



and here's what I got rid of;

1.Two lily of the valley candles that were so pretty but smelled so awful. :-)

2. Small plastic container with snowflakes

3. Wreath One

4. Wreath Two

5. Stocking One

6. Stocking Two

7. Santa Hat

8. Christmas Candle Plate

9. Used up Yankee candle (Christmas Cookie - my favorite! But I have another :-)

10. Small loaf pan - super cute, but I won't use again

11. Ribbon ornament hangers in a terrible shade of gold

12. 13. and 14. Candles I decorated  last year - they melted in the attic and were unusable. Bummer!

15. 16. and 17. Three Christmas books I've never looked at.

18. and 19. A set of used up candles and their little candle plates.

20. and 21. Two broken stocking holders.

22. Glittery box that something came in years ago.

23 - 25. Small glittery tree candles that I've never burnt.

26. - 28. Glittered fruit.

So that's it! Those are my 28 things for this week, bringing my total list of purged items up to 56! I am psyched.  I can't wait to see what you got rid of this week. Link up and we'll all come visit!

111 Things in 1/11

Well, the holidays are quickly drawing to a close and all the festivities are coming to an end. Sadness! And I don't know about you, but we have a whole bunch of shiny new stuff to find new homes for - I got the greatest pair of furry gloves that I absolutely love! (amidst lots of other stuff) This got me thinking, I need to do another one of my semi-annual house purges where I go through every room, closet and drawer. It is so cathartic.

And then I figured, why not challenge myself and make it even more interesting by trying to get rid of 111 things in 1/11? Wouldn't that be fun? So I thought about it for a while, and decided that yes, it would be really fun. And then I thought, you know what would make this even more fun? If a bunch of my blogging buddies wanted to do this with me!

Here's the plan. This Friday the 31st I'll do a quick post showing some areas of my house that need some slimming down. (It is possible that I may just put up a picture of my whole house) :-) I'll have a Linky at the end so that you can link up and show us all where you'll be working too.

Then every Friday throughout January (there are four) we'll meet back here and report on our progress. We can show pictures, tell stories, cry about how hard it is to get rid of stuff or how fun it is to toss stuff. :-) Whichever you prefer. :-)

111 things divided by four weeks comes out to approximately 28 things a week. This breaks down to six things per work day. How easy is it to pull out six things Monday through Friday and throw them in the toss pile? Super easy.

So, would you like to join me? There are no rules. You can link up every week, or just once. You can do 111 things all at once, or over four weeks. Whichever you prefer. :-)

Let's get rid of 111 things in 1/11!!!

An Organized Linen Closet

Wendhurst Castle has been our home now for two and a half years. In that time we've fixed up a bunch of the rooms, and we're working on a bunch more of them. (Like always) So there is always renovation going on, but one of the less talked about things I am always doing in our house is finding ways to make it work better for us. I remember when we moved in, because we were working on so many rooms at once, we put all the boxes into the dining room. Then, after they were unpacked, and the items placed in their appropriate rooms, I lamented to Lover the fact that we actually had less storage in this new house than we had in our apartment. Lover looked at me like I was insane. To his credit, the house has 1,600 square feet plus a finished basement and attic, effectively making our square footage closer to 3,000. And our apartment had about 700 sq ft. So I do see his point. But, in my defense, the problem was I hadn't figured out how to use this new space efficiently. Yes, it had tons more room (especially storage room) but I hadn't yet figured out how to make it work for us.

That's a long winded way of telling you that I recently revamped our linen closet, and I love how it's working out.  It took me two and a half years to figure out how to best make it fit our needs, and while I am sure that I will continue to tweak it in the future, for right now it makes me absolutely happy.



One of my biggest hangups, oddly enough, is that it is called a linen closet. See, we have huge, deep builtin chests in the bedrooms that store all our extra sheets and blankets. But our bathroom is super duper small, so there's lots of extra stuff like toilet paper, hair dryers and extra soap that doesn't fit in the bathroom. Do you see where I am going with this? I needed to convert the linen closet into a simple storage closet.

(the before)

Now you might think that when I say "convert" I meant a massive construction overhaul. Actually, I didn't change anything about the way the closet is laid out. The shelves are exactly the same. I just changed how I stored things on the shelves, what I stored in there, and most importantly, how I thought of that little closet. I know, I am weird. Whatev. :-)

Okay. Back on task. A while back Jen from A Thousand Words suggested that I buy bins that were the depth of my very deep shelves and use those to corral everything inside them. This was a brilliant suggestion. I found the perfect blue and brown, lightweight ones at Lowes, and hauled them home to try them out. One corrals toilet paper, and the other wrangles all the unwieldy hair stuff - hair dryer, curling iron, clippers, etc.





The towel shelf got a makeover when I put our infrequently used beach towels behind our regular towels, so that now the ones we use regularly are front and center.

Toiletries are corralled into four smaller bins on the top shelf, and small toiletries like new razors and sundries are in two teeny baskets at the very top.



The bin at the very bottom holds some miscellaneous decorating supplies. I used to have a bin of decorating stuff for every season, but now I've pared down quite a bit, and I just have one for fall. So this one in the closet holds miscellaneous other decorating baubles. It's working out perfectly so far. :-)

So that's the story of how I managed to find a sliver of organization in this huge house that "has no storage" ;-) I know, I'm crazy, but I have to say, I love how this little closet is working out for us. Oh, and the best part? Somehow I managed to free up two vanity drawers during this overhaul. Who hoo! :o)

Organize and Save Time: The Timer

Today I am going to talk about one of the most useful tools that I use to keep a clean and organized home; the timer. I love to use a timer throughout my day because it helps me to stay focused and on task, particularly when that task is something I don't really feel like doing. (Oftentimes cleaning!) I use my timer for all sorts of things and I'm sharing a few of them here.



One of my favorite uses for the timer is the Five Minute Pick Up. I set the timer for five minutes, and I use those five minutes to get as much done in a room as I can. So let's say I am working in the living room. I use those five minutes to throw away any garbage, remove dishes and put books and magazines back in  their rightful homes. Then I fold blankets, straighten pillows, hang up stray coats and return shoes to their homes. If I have time left I will wipe down the coffee table and do a quick dusting over all the horizontal surfaces.  It's fun to try and get the whole room back into shape before the timer goes off. When it does, I move on to the next room regardless of whether or not I've finished in the first room.

I find that nearly every time I have managed to whip that room into shape before the buzzer. Then I'll move on to the next rooms, and continue until all the main living areas, the upstairs bathroom and the bedroom are done.  Five minutes in the bathroom is more than enough time to quickly swish the toilet, wipe down the sink and polish the mirror, door and fixtures, and sweep the floor. This means that in 25 minutes my house is picked up, and some light cleaning is done.

Racing the clock is usually all I need to get me motivated for the day, but if it is a day I am feeling particularly tired, I know that I can just do less than half an hour of work and my home is in ship shape.

Another use for the timer: Timing Tasks. I used to hate doing the dishes. I would let them pile up, I'd dread doing them, and then I would be annoyed by the enormous amount of time it took to get through that giant pile. But once I started timing myself and racing the timer (can I finish the dishes in half an hour?), I found that a normal size load of dishes typically took me no longer than fifteen minutes to get through.  Knowing that this less than pleasurable task was so short made it much easier to get through, and made the "pain" more bearable.

The other benefit to this timer trick is that I now know how long tasks take me,  so I can plan my day out better. If I need to head out early in the morning, I know that I have just enough time to make the bathroom sparkle and get the dishes out of the way.

Here are some of the tasks I've timed and been surprised by how quickly they are over:

• Dishes: Typically  15 minutes. And that's by hand people!


• Sweeping the Main Floor: Five minutes. This includes the hardwoods throughout the living room and dining room, as well as the kitchen and entryways.


• Bathroom: Five minutes is just enough time, as I've said, to keep the bathroom in top condition.


• Mopping: Ten minutes per room. Mopping is strenuous work, so it does make it easier to know that in a mere ten minutes the work will be over!


• Making the Bed: Two minutes. Seriously! Why would I ever NOT make the bed? I can always spare two minutes!


• Vacuuming the Stairs: Five minutes. We have wood stairs, so it is quite easy. I know when we had carpeted stairs in the basement it took much longer.


• Wiping Down Kitchen Cabinets: Fifteen minutes. I simply fill the sink with soapy water and use a rag, and the cabinets are all sparkly in mere minutes!

It's important to remember to take time to rest, just as it is to make time to clean. So I will often set the timer for half an hour of relaxation. That way I don't have to watch the clock, and the buzzer going off is an impartial voice telling me to get back to work. I don't know about you, but I can always find a way to reason with myself and tell myself that I don't need to get back to work!

When faced with a particularly daunting task, or a strenuous one, I will often set the timer. I do this a lot with gardening, because I will get caught up in the work and spend the whole day  in the garden, only to find that I cannot get out of bed the next morning. So I set the timer for an hour or so, and accomplish what I can in that time. Then the next day I do the same thing and accomplish a little bit more! This also works great for big projects like decluttering every room or spring cleaning.

Those are all the ways I can think of today to use your timer as a tool to manage your time. Do you have any others that you'd like to share with me? I'm always looking for new ideas!

Declutter your life! How to get rid of stuff.

credit

In the midst of the holiday frenzy, you may be wondering why I'm writing about decluttering. Well, my friends, Christmas, and the gift giving that goes with it, means that a whole new group of items will be making it into your home over the next month. If we don't take steps to fight it, it's very easy to end up with way too much junk filling up our houses. Here are my five rules for keeping a decluttered house.

credit

Rule Number One: Out with the old, in with the new.

I follow this rule with our paper filing system that I blogged about here. When we get a new credit card statement, I throw out the old one. But, it also applies to many other things. We just bought a new artificial Christmas tree in the Black Friday sales, so our old one will be going up in the free section on Craigslist. If I buy new coffee mugs, I'll take a second to inventory our current stash and get rid of one or two old ones we never use.

We all know people whose houses are absolutely stuffed to the rafters with the things they've held onto over the years. If you don't want to be prisoners of your stuff when you're 80, take the time to get rid of stuff now.

credit

Rule Number Two: The Sentimentality Trap

We tend to hold on to the things that are given to us by people we love. However, it is important to remember that it is the person that we love, not the stuff that we were given. Let go of the guilt and get rid of the tchotchkes. Bag it up for Goodwill, sell it in a garage sale, or just throw it away! If you are really struggling with getting rid of the item, take a picture of yourself with it and store the picture, not the item.

Follow this rule with your gift giving too. Don't give people a lot of useless junk that they in turn will just have to store or get rid of. Try to give things they can use or you know they need. Give experiences, like tickets to a show or dinner out together, instead of physical items that will take up room in their house.

Credit

Rule Number Three: Picture Perfect

We've come a long way from the time when a family photograph was an heirloom, and a once in a lifetime event. Now we have pictures of every birthday, every holiday, every vacation, the list goes on and on. We have hundreds of pictures from our weddings, our childhoods, and our own photographic adventures. How can we find order in this madness?

First of all, if you take or develop a bad picture, throw it away immediately. There's no reason to store a blurry picture of your son's soccer game. Allow only the best to make its way into the photo box or folder on your computer.

Next, create something with the pictures. If you're a scrapbooker, make pages commemorating your adventures as a family. Create a photo book online with any of the great sites that offer books. Choose your favorites and display them in a creative way. If you're not creative, choose your favorites and put them into albums.

Lastly, throw away or delete the photos that didn't make it into the scrapbook or album. If they're not important enough to include in your special book, they're not important. Period.

credit

Rule Number Four: Schedule time for Organizing and Decluttering

I schedule time at the end of spring and the beginning of fall to go through all of the dressers, closets, bins and boxes in my home and do some major decluttering. Schedule time for this on your calendar, and go through every room in the house. Sort through your clothes, your jewelry, your shoes, keeping only things in good condition that fit you well. Go through papers, cards and photos, following the guidelines above. Take fifteen minutes a day (or even a week) to go through your house and sort through the things that begin accumulating.

credit

Rule Number Five: Surround yourself with things you love.

My number one rule for things I keep is that it must make me smile. It is how I decide if I like a lamp or not, if I'll keep a book or not, and if I need to replace my comforter. I love the one I have, and it is still in good condition, so why would I buy another? Your goal should be that every item in your home has a purpose, and it should make you happy. If you're holding onto that blanket that you hate because Aunt Mabel gave it to you, give it away! Someone else will appreciate it much more than you, and you won't have to cringe every time you see it.

I hope my five rules for a decluttered home help you find some sanity in the midst of the busy holiday season. What rules do you have for keeping junk out of your home?

Paper Organization: How to organize your office

I can be a bit of a packrat at times. I used to be a terrible one, with multiple collections, mountains of school papers, old and new artwork, etc. So I guess it would be fair to say that I am a recovering packrat. Watching my grandparents get older and not be able to move because of the amount of stuff they have has really been a wakeup call for me. And of course, now we own our own home and I refuse to fill it the rafters with pointless junk. And overall I'd say I'm doing a pretty good job of getting rid of junk. Paperwork, however, is the bane of my existence. That's all changed though, thanks to 8+ hours spent during my fall cleaning in the office, organizing, throwing away, shredding and ruthless editing. Here's the proof that I was ruthless.

So here is the system I developed for managing the various types of paper that take up residence in our home.

Receipts: We have a beautiful antique dresser in our dining room with two small top drawers. The one of the right is the perfect size to hold receipts until I've had time to go through them. The ones I ultimately keep are guarantees from garden centers, as well as most of our Lowe's/Home Depot receipts because of our many house projects. I also need to keep receipts for my business, so they'll end up in a file folder up in the office once sorted through.

Coupons: I always have a bunch of coupons for craft stores, home improvement stores, Bed Bath and Beyond and others laying around. Placing them in the left drawer of the dresser means that I no longer have to constantly search for that $1.00 off Pantene hair products coupon.

Upstairs in the office, paperwork is contained in a few different places:

Paystub Box: I use a decorative photo box to toss all of the paystubs in every two weeks. Once we get our w-2's at the end of the year I'll shred the paystubs from 2009.

Fireproof Safe:

This small safe is the perfect size for the paperwork we'll need if there is a problem. It holds the following categories:

• Important papers like passports, marriage license, car titles and registration, copies of SS cards, college transcripts, birth certificates


• Auto insurance policy


• Homeowners insurance policy, receipts, mortgage info and other important house documents


• Jewelry insurance policy


• Life insurance policy


• Investment information I keep the most recent statements from retirement accounts and investments


• Taxes At the beginning on the year I begin a folder marked TAXES _year_ . I add to this throughout the year, with tax deductible info, tax receipts, and other information we'll need at tax time. It makes tax paperwork a breeze. The folders for previous years hold copies of our tax returns and W-2s.


• Loan information for school loan (only two years left!)

The safe also holds a digital copy of our wedding pictures, just in case!

File cabinet:

The file drawer holds what I call "burnable" paperwork. :-) These are the categories I use:

• Important receipts like vehicle registration payment, items with warranties (Lowe's) etc. marked Receipts _year_


• Medical Records: keeps relevant data like immunizations, hospital visits, etc.


• Manuals and Warranties: I go through this folder every so often to edit out old items we no longer have.


• Credit Cards: Just the most recent statement. When I receive a new statement, I replace the old one, and then shred it. (Disclaimer: this is what works for us. We carry no debt on our cards, so we aren't keeping track of anything with our statements. We only keep the most recent statement, as the balance is paid in full each month.)


• Utilities: Again, we replace the old statement with the new one when we receive them. Most of your utilities are public record anyway, so there's no need for YOU to keep them! Our one exception is our gas and electric bills because we have had a lot of trouble dealing with them, so we'd rather keep them all.


• Car repairs: We have old cars so we don't keep much information on this, but we do keep things that show lifetime warranties, etc. For a new car, it might be worth keeping a record of work done on the car.

Expandable File Folder: I use this specifically for house paperwork. We are constantly working on floorplans, getting estimates, picking up samples of flooring and grabbing paint chips. This little file folder holds everything in one place and makes it easy for me to find whatever I need.

The thing to remember when you're trying to control your paperwork is that you have to make your system work for you. I used to have a super detailed, uber organized filing system, but I never used it, so it was pointless. You may have different categories, or you may not have time to file every week. If that's the case, get some sort of a basket or folder that can hold your items "to be filed" until you get a chance. If the basket gets full, you'll know it's time to file!

I hope this helps you get organized! I know it has really given me peace of mind to feel like I finally have things under control in this area. :-)

Mission Complete!

I recently had a bit of an organization craze hit me. I went through the house and pulled out any and everything we could get rid of, making a big "garage sale" pile, and a Goodwill pile. Hopefully I will be able to do that garage sale before it gets too cold.

Then, still unsatisfied, and feeling like the house was overrun with clutter, I organized a few closets and cabinets. I started with the pantry in the kitchen.

This spice shelf wasn't working because I could never get to the spices that I wanted, and usually managed to knock some over in the process.

So I headed out to the workshop and found a scrap of wood that was the right depth for the organizational "gizmo" that I wanted to make. (I am very proud of this next part) Then I used Lover's cordless circular saw to cut the wood down to the right length. Here it is on the kitchen floor. Oh, and isn't our 70's linoleum beautiful? :-)

I wanted the board to be somewhat hygienic, so I covered the whole thing in a sheet of aluminum foil.

Next up I set the board in place in the cabinet (see the vintage contact paper too?)

And voila! My little spice rack was complete! Here's the finished and organized after:

Now I can easily spot what I am looking for. And, everything is organized to my little heart's content.

I didn't stop with the spice cabinet though. I also organized the tupperware drawer, going from this:

to this:

Ahh, so much better.

And the linen closet. This one was ok, but I was able to get rid of a bunch of old toiletries, and tidy everything else up.

Now I can sleep at night, knowing that behind closed doors, my need for order and organization is still satisfied. :-)

Check out the other transformations at Metamorphosis Monday and the other made-by-me creations at Make Your Monday.

How to make Weekly Meal Plans

Image taken from here

If you're anything like me, figuring out what to make for dinner each night can be quite the struggle. After a few years of "fulltime" cooking, I've come up with a pretty foolproof plan that eliminates the 4pm meltdown of "what's for dinner?"

There are a few things that make meal planning easier:

• Stocked pantry (items you regularly use in meals, such as cream of mushroom soup)


• Freezer large enough to stock up on meat (when meats go on sale)


• Crockpot (for those days when it is just too busy or too hot to cook)


• Grocery Database (to track sales and prices... it'll save you money!)

First, look at your calendar and determine how many meals you will need to make this week, as well as any notes about what those meals should be.

Image taken from here

For us, this week is a little busy, but we don't have anything major going on. Monday thru Wednesday we have an event at church every evening, so meals need to be quick and simple in order to make it on time. Thursday, Lover has a meeting over dinner, so he won't be home, and we may be going camping next weekend, which means that meals need to be campfire appropriate.

If we were having someone over for dinner, I would make a note of that, and if we had plans to go out to eat I'd put that into the plan as well.

Usually, I end up with 4-5 meals over a week's time, or 8-10 meals over a two week period. (which is how I usually make my meal plans)

Now I am going to take a look at my stocked meats and frozen foods. Do I have anything that needs to be used up? There's some beef in there that is nearing its expiration date, so I'll put that on the menu. Nothing else is reaching its past due point, so anything is fair game. (Get it? Fair game? Tee hee) I'll also look at sales this week for meat. Chicken is on sale for $1.79/lb at my local store, so I know I'll be stocking up on chicken. I make a note to include several chicken meals this week.

Next I will go through my recipes, noting any favorites that look appealing, as well as any new recipes that I've been wanting to give a try. This is where I also ask Lover if he has any "cravings" for the week. He usually answers "Mexican" so I'll include fajitas on one of my days this week.

Next I make up my grocery list, while consulting my pantry, freezer and fridge to determine what ingredients I'll need to make the meals this week. This is when I also write down items needed for lunches throughout the week.

Instead of assigning a meal to each specific day, I simply post a list of the "weekly meals" somewhere on the fridge. This allows me to choose whatever meal I am in the mood for on a particular day. My meals for this week are:

• Chicken Caesar Salad


• Fajitas


• Beef Burgandy (in the crockpot)


• Barbecue Chicken and Grilled Veggies


• Chicken Pasta Salad (my new recipe to try this week)

So, in conclusion, our steps are:

1. Check your calendar to see how your social activities will affect your meal plan.


2. Determine how many meals you will need to make.


3. Check stocked meats for expiration, and sales for bargain meat.


4. Go through recipes and decide on your required number of meals for the week.


5. Make shopping list, after checking pantry, fridge and freezer for supplies.


6. Go shopping


7. Assign a meal to each day, if you prefer.