Showing posts with label organizing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organizing. Show all posts

Monday, July 06, 2009

MAKING A HAPPY HOME MONDAY


I know I'm late.....and I'm sorry. Busy weekend, busy day......it never ends.

First an update. We did get the A/C fixed. Some insulation had gotten sucked up into something and was preventing the air from moving. We got it all taken care of and now it works better than ever....able to keep the temp at about 68....even when it's 105 outside. WOOT!

The dinner came off wonderfully....burgers. I'll share the recipe tomorrow....burgers, brats, kraut, chilies, queso, guacamole, devilled eggs, homemade ice cream, peach cobbler....YUM!!!

Yesterday after church, I took the boys to the Y for a swim. My 4 year old is so cute....thank goodness. He was floating around in his life vest snarling and baring his teeth pretending he was a shark. It was really cute until he swam up and bit a lady. I am not joking. Fortunately, he didn't draw blood.

Also, this past weekend, the same cute kid may, or may not, have broken his thumb. We will be getting it checked out.

OK....now time for Making a Happy Home Monday.

So much to post. So much I want to conquer. So much I want to take care of before the holidays start. (See sidebar for countdown to The Great State Fair of Texas....that is how much time I have.)

I am in the middle of a project right now.....bookshelves. I really should take pictures. I forgot to do a before, but I can do a middle and finished. There are a lot of books in DS #1's room that need to be put into #3's and #4's room. Then, I need go through MY classroom library, currently in the garage, and put some of those books in #1's room. During that time, I need to pull the books for #2 and put them in HIS room. Meanwhile, I am emptying the bookshelf in #3's and #4's room pulling the adult books (no...not adult as in XXX, just novels and such) and either donate, pack or put on my reading list. *sigh*

No...the pictures I want to share are of my kitchen cabinets. This, my friends, is hard for me to do. It's embarrassing. But, I think that sharing these will help me to work on this. They are terribly cluttered. I need a day, or three, of JUST ME working on these. My hubby has told me that sometime in the NEAR future, he will take all the kids out of the house for a day so that I may get stuff done. I look forward to it.

The goal is to organize. There are some items that I could get rid of, but for the most part, I don't think I will. There are a lot of things that I only use once or twice a year, but I NEED them once or twice a year....things like a cookie press, candy thermometer, certain cookie cutters....

The organization needs to go as far as the pantries and stockpile shelves.....a lot of what I keep on the counters (because I don't have room elsewhere) needs to be put out of sight. WISH ME LUCK!!!

Bottom 2 shelves of pantry
Top 2 shelves of pantry
cabinet with big stuff: trash bags, toaster, extra lunch boxes, dehydrator,)
Drinking classes, cups (it usually is a lot more cluttered, but a lot of cups were in dishwasher)
Casserole dishes, griddle, electric skillet, chopper
(UGH!) plastic storage containers
*hiding under a rock* box of cookie cuttters, BAKING CENTRAL (pie plates, cake pans, cake domes, cookie press, crock pot, spring form pans, big grill spatula and tongs)
another view of the above
crap....pitchers, thermos, the bottom has serving trays...not used often, but all used during holidays
plates, serving dishes, paper plates.....matches? money? glue? candles? I don't know.
"Pharmacy" ~ bug spray, sunscreen, nebulizer, allergy meds, box of OTC's, coffee mugs, coffee grinder
spices
Pots and pans, Food Saver
(um.....sorry), this is in my laundry area, which is in the entry way to my son's room....this is where I keep some stockpiled items and, quite obviously, more crap

Man....that was painful. As I was going through and labelling these pictures, I really saw the problem that I have. I hope to tackle this soon....I will post my progress as I get stuff done.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

MAKING A HAPPY HOME MONDAY

I'm back for Monday!

Welcome to another installment of Making a Happy Home Monday! I hope some of you will join me. If you are popping in as a result of the UBP, I REALLY hope you will join me :)

Let me tell you new readers about this blog carnival. I have hosted this for a few months. The point of this is to inspire and encourage women to choose an area of their homes that need some attention and love. If the area is dirty, cluttered or not efficient, then it is not happy. If it is not happy, the Momma isn't happy. And you know what they say? If Momma ain't happy....ain't NObody happy.

SO, pick a project...ANY project. Make it big. Make it small. Clean it. Paint it. Organize it. Do whatever you need to do to make that area happy. The goal is to do something....ANYTHING. Just one area a week to get your home on the path to happiness. I hope you will join me. Just link up on Mr. Linky. Post info about your task. I would love to see some before and after pics, too.

For my project, I chose to clean out the cabinets in the boys' bathroom. These shelves are used for some stockpile items, as well as all the boys' toiletry items. This cabinet was just gross....GROSS! Anytime I took something out, other things fell out behind it. It was hard to know what all (or how much) I had stored in there. Not only that, but I'm sure there were lots of things that needed to be thrown out.

Here is a before picture. This is embarrassing.....but as I'm trying to get YOU to do something around your home, I figure I need to be totally transparent on all of this. The top shelf isn't really that bad...neither is the middle shelf. But, the bottom? YIKES! The picture honestly does not do it justice.


BEHOLD!!! The contents of the bottom shelf only. OH MY!

OK....bottom shelf done. Filled up one plastic bag with junk that needed to be tossed...either expired, too empty, too gummy....do we REALLY need 5 contact lens cases?

I wanted a picture of the contents of the top shelf 'cause I was really wondering how many I had.


You're wondering too, right?
  • 8 shampoos
  • 8 conditioners
  • 6 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioners
  • 12 body washes

While I'm at it, I counted the other stockpile items from the 1st and 2nd shelves (not shown specifically)

  • 9 deodorants
  • 7 hand soaps
  • 15 tooth pastes
  • 14 toothbrushes
  • 5 (brand new, in the pkg) razors for both men and women

This doesn't count anything currently in use. And if you think I buy tons of one item....well, inspect the pictures a bit more closely. Out of the toothpastes, I probably have 5 different kinds. Shampoos? Well, we have Herbal Essence, Pantene, Garnier Fructise, Suave, Finesse.....body wash? Zest, Irish Spring, Soft soap (Spa line), and a few kid shampoo and bath items.

And here we go....the finished product. It only took me about 30 minutes. I emptied every shelf and wiped them down with Clorox wipes

SO.....there you have it. Sign on up! I would love to see what you're doing around the place.