And then there was the time I thought I'd get organized...

Or there were many times. Or something. I've tried a few things that have worked and a few things that haven't worked and I've drawn some conclusions and came to some realizations.

1. I know how to be tidy and organized and keep my home relatively clutter-free, I'm just not doing it for some reason. I keep going back to what I read in One Year To An Organized Life about how my house got to the state that it's in (a state that I'm not particularly happy with, but isn't atrocious) and keep reminding myself that instead of analysing it and agonizing over it to just DO something about it.

2. I did the 52 weeks of organizing challenge over at I'm an Organizing Junkie. Part way through I stopped blogging about it partly because life went sideways and partly because I figured that the time I spent fiddling around with pictures and writing was time that could be better spent decluttering, organizing or cleaning something. I've been keeping track of the list and I updated it last and I've managed to cross a bunch of things off. I might actually get to cross most of it off eventually.

3. When I first had J, a friend of mine told me about FlyLady stuff. It sounded like it might be a good way to get myself into a routine. Life was super different - I wasn't working and I was home with an infant all day. But FlyLady didn't work for me...it felt too rigid and too inflexible and too commercial (buy our special feather dusters etc). So I stopped doing it. And that was okay. It took me a bit to get to the "that was okay" part because I kept thinking I'd failed, except I hadn't. My house was clean, my family was fed, we had our own routine that didn't start with a shined sink and require shoes in the house. And really, I took some good stuff away from it. And we have a routine now. I just don't always remember to follow it.

4. We have too much stuff. We don't have enough space. I've been getting rid of stuff (go see...it's not all the way updated but I have now officially tossed,returned, given away or recycled over 250 things...) I know I can live with less stuff - I used to live in 500 square feet and I didn't have too much stuff, I just had better control of it, so I should be able to control stuff in 950 square feet. Maybe. I didn't have a preschooler with all the multitudes of things that preschoolers come with when I lived in the Hobbit Hole.

5. I discovered the UnFuck Your Habitat website. It's to the point, there's no excuses, there are before and afters, there are cleaning tips, there is no harassment about shoes in the house. It's awesome. I check it regularly. And the biggest thing I've taken away from UFYH is that small steps are good...20/10s and 45/15s are good. Marathons are BAD. MUST remember that.

So, we're in a week of doing little projects at our house. I'm hoping when I'm done the piles are gone (or at least noticeably smaller) and maybe we'll have some newly painted walls...We'll see...

So that time that I thought I'd get organized? It turns out it's not a one time task - it's ongoing and requires maintenance. Huh.

Progression: Pack Rat ---> Wanna be sort of minimalist

Okay, AndreaClaire is the inspiration for this post. I'd been tossing it around in my brain for a while and yesterday's post was the first part of that thought process. AndreaClaire said:

I need you to come over and teach me to toss sh!t out. Seriously. I could toss everything in my storage room right now without looking at it and I'd have no idea what I was missing! 

I was wondering how I went from needing to keep everything to feeling like I could let a whole lot of stuff go.





There were a few things that helped...Laura's week 4 post gave me a bunch of questions that I find very helpful (they also showed up in this week's post! Imagine that!).

1.  Can I afford, in terms of space, to keep this item?
2.  Could the space that this item takes up be put to better use?
3.  What am I saying NO to in order to say YES to this item?
4.  What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen if I get rid of this item?

I also thought about why I was keeping things, but I didn't really come up with anything. I have a list of questions from somewhere else (maybe FlyLady?) and one of them is something along the lines does this item make me feel guilty or unhappy. I'm better at identifying what I feel about things which has led me to feel better about getting rid of things.

Oh, and my little daydream that didn't go away for a few months about moving away to a far away land, that helps me decide...I ask myself if it's something I'd have to take with me if we moved and could only take a few things and if the answer is no, well, then it's gone.

And thinking that maybe everything in our storage unit was garbage and realizing that I don't care about much of it made me think that I might feel the same way about our other stuff. I've gotten rid of as much stuff this week as I usually do in about six weeks...it's unbelievable.

Maybe in a few weeks we'll notice a significant difference in our house...

Fingers crossed!

Out, damned stuff

I am a pack rat.

That isn't a secret I keep from anyone in real life or on this blog.

I keep stuff.

I keep too much stuff.

I know it. I'm trying to get better about getting rid of stuff, but it's a work in progress. That's why I decided to do the 52 Weeks of Organizing Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie is hosting and you'll also notice some organizing and purging items in my 101 in 1001 list.

I'm getting better at getting rid of stuff. I'm slowly teaching myself not to feel guilty about getting rid of things we never use or don't like. Because we're never going to use them. Really.

This weekend we discovered that we will be getting rid of a bunch of our stuff, whether we like it or not (it's a long, on-going story...everything is fine, nothing bad happened) and you know what, I've discovered I'm actually okay with that.

I did a quick mental survey of our house earlier and the only things I'd be sad to lose, that I felt were irreplaceable are some photos, my Pax Lodge books, and our Christmas decorations, but really, if something happened to our stuff and all I could take away was Alex and J, well, that would be fine too.

Somewhere in the past ten months something inside me has shifted. I'm not attached to stuff anymore. I've figured out that it's just stuff. Sure, I have a lovely blue-glass, mouth-blown vase that I got in Camden market and a handmade pottery water jug we received as a wedding gift and a Swarovski crystal butterfly Alex gave me years ago, but we can replace that stuff if we need to. Maybe not with identical things, but with something.

We've tossed a lot in the last few weeks (it will soon be showing up on the tossed out stuff website) and there is more to come. And I'm good with it.

I've noticed it's extending to other areas of my life too. I was horrible for archiving 90% of what came into my gmail and filing 95% of my work emails I received. I know what I need to keep for future reference and what I don't. Just because I have tons of space doesn't mean I need to keep every single email I get. I can delete the ones that say "thanks" or have the directions to a meeting that happened a month ago.

It's totally liberating. And I love it. I feel lighter. Hopefully there will be a marked improvement in our apartment soon too!

And so far, I haven't regretted a single things I've tossed or deleted. I haven't even missed them!

Kitchen Tweaks

I'm generally happy with how my kitchen is organized. I'd love to have more space, particularly a proper pantry, but as it is now, it will do. We're working on a solution for a pantry that involved our small storage closet, some shelving and the assistance of Alex's dad.






I can't really complain about my kitchen. It's small, but it works. I'd love new paint, a back splash, new counter tops, different flooring and different (or at least painted) cabinets, but those are cosmetic issues and they will eventually get changed. Eventually. One day.

There were two spots that were bugging me a bit - our miscellaneous drawer and a corner cupboard when I keep cutting boards, cookie sheets, muffins tins and other flat things.

The drawer wasn't too bad for a catch-all - there were many, many, many sets of take-out chopsticks (I'm not entirely sure when we had Japanese or Chinese take-out last), a bunch of ketchup and soy sauce packets and a few weirdo kitchen utensils that we tossed, but that's it. With the exception if the roast lifting fork things, the turkey baster and the rolling pin (they're in another drawer), everything is in here and sorted.

It's amazing what three small containers can do for one unruly drawer! Everything had a place before but the whisk attachments for the hand blender and the mixer kept getting crushed, the pastry cutter floated around and the eight bazillion chopsticks where just really annoying. We have beautiful, lacquered chopsticks a friend from Japan brought us and we usually use those. We ask for our takeout without chopsticks and that usually keeps the number of extra chopstick to a minimum. If we were ordering chopstick food and there were more than six people, we could just ask for chopsticks then. I've never heard of a chopstick emergency...

I also tackled the corner cupboard. I had read somewhere about using tension curtain rods to make a rack for cookies sheets and other flat kitchen things, but I had been unable to find ones that didn't need hooks to attach. I was out a few weeks ago at a discount department store (you know, the one that sells off stock from other stores...starts with a "W") and was looking for something else and I saw this. It was less than $15, so I figured it was worth a try.

Our pans were all leaning against one another in the corner cupboard - well, flat-ish stuff, not just pans. There was a roasting pan and rack (not pictured because it was in the oven cooking a turkey) three cookie sheet, a pizza sheet, a bunch of cutting boards, and some muffin tins. T Hat glass loaf pan you can see there sort of held them up, but not really. In reality everything just slid down until the loaf pan ran into something else and nothing moved.

It drove me nuts! The kitchen in the blue house had a funny narrow cupboard with wooden dividers just for stuff like that.

This is the result. And it's so nice. Nothing falls over. There's no avalanche of flat stuff every time we take something out of here. The rest of the things in this cupboard have more space. It's great.

Side note: Does anyone know why we have holes cut in the tops of the corner cupboard (like the one you can see in this picture)? Both corner cupboard have similar cutouts. Does it have something to do with installation?

I'm slowly getting back on track with my 52 weeks of organizing list, so I'm linking to I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Getting Rid of STUFF

We have lots of stuff. Too much stuff. I've been slowly but surely working my way through our apartment...I haven't posted recently because, well, the changes are small. Little. And I haven't been able to do as many as I'd hoped what with the mysterious illness and all... but I'll be posting some updates soon...mostly because most of my projects are huge will little goals that don't look like much, but end up being massive when they're added together.





Like my current project. J is away with her grandparents for a few days and so I decided to tackle her bedroom and her closet.

That's too big.

So I split her room into four zones and tackled each one of those. Then I decided to go box by box out of the closet. It's working well enough. Although when I left this morning, it looked pretty dismal in her room. The plan for tonight is to get the recycling and garage out to their bins. And then continue sorting. Because I have two partial evenings and one morning to get it done before she gets back. Which is why I did it box by box. So that I should be able to just close the closet if I don't get it finished...I'll be posting something about that when it's done...or as close to done as it's going to get this time.

But.

Three weeks ago Alex took all the stuff we wanted to give to the thrift shot (that I'd been storing in our bedroom) to the thrift shop. OHMYGOODNESS.

I didn't get a picture of the final load, but I think there were two more boxes, one more large bag and a pile of board games.

J and I were out when Alex did this and, disappointingly, when we got home, the masses of stuff in our place didn't look any smaller...but, I was bitten by the giveaway bug and there is plenty more slated for donation or giveaway very very soon!

I linked up to I'm an Organizing Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing Challenge.

I win!

Alex and I made a bet (of air apparently) that the bathroom would not stay in this state for two weeks.

Particularly the top photo. He figured that as I did laundry, it would again begin to accumulate on the counter top and very soon we'd be back to where we were before.

Did I show him or what?

Oh. Yeah. No photo. Ooops. But trust me, it looks pretty much like it did those pictures except maybe the drying clothing has changed. And the reason? It's a lot easier to fold the clothing right there, right off the rack, than to pile it up and do it all at once (and dig through the pile for a shirt or pair of pants that didn't get put away)

Dust is still an issue, but there's not as much...right now. We don't use the dryer all the time in the winter and I try to use it less in the summer...not only do the clothes smell better, fade less and generally last longer, it uses less electricity and doesn't add to the already too hot temperature of the house. We have two of those sturdy wooden racks and that means I can usually do two loads of laundry on a week night and four one a weekend day (in warm weather). In the winter, it's one load a night because it takes about a day and a half to dry...We're hoping to get a new washer and dryer in the fall - maybe an new, energy efficient one won't make as much dust??

And do you know what the unintended side effect of this was? The rest of my house has caught the stay clean bug. It's never really been that bad, overall, but the clean bathroom has inspired us to keep the kitchen tidier (hello, doing dishes every night...a clean kitchen in the morning is SO nice) and the dining room table clear.

J decided she wanted the shoes in the closet, so I helped her arrange the shoe rack so all our shoes would fit. She loves opening the door and getting the right pair of shoes for us when it's time to go out.

A much tidier house has made getting ready for work easier. The ease of getting ready for work means I get to work a little bit earlier which allows me a few minutes of alone time before that part of my day starts and that means I'm WAY more productive during the day. And that means I'm more relaxed when I go home, which means more fun stuff to do in the evenings with J. And I've been able to read a bit after J goes to bed and I still manage to go to bed earlier than I was. IT'S AWESOME being organized and I'm not even all the way there yet!

Hard to believe one tidy bathroom could have that much effect on my life! Thank goodness I found Laura's 52 weeks of organizing challenge. It gave me the kick in the pants that I needed!

Next up: the bedroom.

Week 25: Don't Just Think About it

Last week's challenge from Laura was to pick a spot that you were avoiding and just do it. She suggested we'd probably be surprised at how little time it took...






Our bathroom drives me nuts. J's bathroom is tidy all the time. Not ours. Our washer and dryer and hot water heater are in a closet in the bathroom. Which means our bathroom often doubles as a laundry room. You'd think that would motivate me to get the laundry put away, but it doesn't. Go figure. Because it's our laundry room as well, our drying rack is in here and stuff gets pulled off of it or out of the dryer and dumped on the counter. And then I get distracted and it stays there. Until it falls over or drives me nuts.

So on Sunday while J napped, I decided that I'd tackle the laundry. It took 15 minutes to move it to the bedroom, fold and sort it and put it away. And then something happened. I was inspired....

I'm not sure how I managed to get myself ready in the morning - all my face stuff and other things were underneath that massive pile of laundry.

This end of the counter isn't much better....

Some of that stuff should probably go in this drawer, but I can't even see what's in the drawer, let alone add to it!

And while I was at it, this cupboard could use some help...

And so could this one...

But not this one...this one is my husband's domain, so it's spotless! He is in charge of switching and washing towels and he does a great job...they never sit on the counter for longer than a few minutes! I didn't include my husband's drawer because the only things in there are a brush, a tube of toothpaste, the q-tips and one or two small things. It's already very well organized!

Less than two hours later, my bathroom looked like someone else's bathroom. While I make sure the bathroom gets cleaned at least once a week, I did give it a special deep cleaning - and it took less than two hours. With two not so helpful helpers helping me!

Look at that bathroom...it's so shiny and clutter free and yes there is still laundry on the rack but that's because it was still wet. When it dried and I took it off, I had a beautiful, flat, clutter-free counter to fold it on!

Still lots of stuff, but not as much (one day I hope we'll have an over-the-toilet cabinet to put a bunch of this stuff in)

And that drawer that you couldn't even see into? Well, when the toiletry bag was moved to a more appropriate home, there was lots of space in there. I repurposed a gift box (now empty of) of soap and hand cream to hold some of the smaller things.

I had a Groupon from the Body Shop a while ago and got about a year's worth of products all at once at a great price - they're in the clear box on the left (I will use them, they're all products I normally use). The wooden box is repurposed from some other bath products and now my face stuff is all in one place and I can get at it all once, but also put it all away together.

Under the sink is  much prettier - it didn't need a lot of help, just a few things needed to be moved or thrown away.

In the course of cleaning out the bathroom I found one bottle of expired Tylenol 3, two bottles containing a total of about 20 percocet, two bottles with some old antibiotics, a bottle of face toner that I know I bought when I lived in London TEN years ago, two empty Shout bottles and a bunch of junk. I discovered I need to take a lot of  baths and probably never have to buy shower gel again (okay, maybe in 2013). Alex took the expired drugs to the pharmacy. They were very happy he took them the narcotics. Apparently we could have sold them on the street for a couple of dollars each....

I applied the same idea to the dishes later on that night when all I really wanted to do was lie in bed and read. You know what, 11 minutes later I was draining the sink and heading to bed!

I do have a question though...because the laundry is in this room, everything gets covered by a thick layer of dust in no time at all. Other than dusting daily, is there anything I can do to minimize the dust?

If you need a gentle push to get your organizing project started or you need some inspiration or new ideas, visit Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie and check out the 52 week challenge.

Mega cross off

So, I get to cross items 5-17 off my organizing list for the 52 weeks of Organizing Challenge. Over a week and a bit I tackled the 13 shelves in our bedroom. We have a double closet and the Billy system from Ikea fit perfectly there. You can see them before we filled them here.



As a whole they looked pretty bad, but individually they turned out to be not as bad as I first thought….here they are in the order they appear on my list.


Okay, not too bad….


This one looks like it just needs straightening


This one isn’t bad except what’s with the take out box? Turns out a gift came in it and the gift has since been relocated to its proper home.


This shelf felt strangely empty…

Books, candles, blue boxes, a piggy bank…


More candles, random heart pillow

So many books!!!


J’s Christmas candy cane and her old shoes?!! The candy cane is on its way to the dump and the shoes have been stored with the rest of the baby gear.

This shelf wasn’t too bad for random stuff – just that squirt bottle of hand sanitizer and a photo envelope. Hand sanitizer is back in my purse where it belongs and the photos in the envelope went to my sister who sent the back framed.


This is where it started to get bad…this shelf is at arm level and apparently it attracts all kinds of orphaned stuff…batteries, exercise resistance bands, bags, receipts…


And it continues….more bags…


This shelf wasn’t too bad…mostly reference materials of some sort.


And my magazines with some books form Alex’s dad. You can read about my magazines here and we donated the books, maybe to BC Cancer…

I tossed a total of about 20 books. Guys, that’s so many books for me. I was pretty proud of myself. I found lots of things that didn’t belong on the shelves…and many things that did. I also discovered a few missing things that I think my be in either J’s closet or the basement…like my Dictionaries and thesaurus. I’ve gone on a dictionary hunt a few times since we moved and always given up and looked whatever it was up online.

The shelves aren’t quite organized the way I would like – but they’re getting there. It does bug me that two of the top shelves have books piled two deep. I ended up with one shelf of family books – references like the What to Expect series, the Health books from our government, a baby name book, a what to do now that you’re a mom book, some toddler activity books, parenting books…that kind of thing. There is an entire shelf of journals. Most of them have never been written in. I have two and a half shelves of books that I haven’t read and one and a half shelves of books I want to reread and then decide if I want to keep them or not…I have a lot of reading to do!

Here’s the after shots. I wish I’d done some panoramics of the before shots…



[clicking on the images, especially the horizontal one should give you a larger picture]

It looks so lovely that I lay in bed and stared at my books for a good 30 minutes last night!

Week 24: Finish what you started

Like maybe this post?

I started this on Friday and here it is Tuesday and I'm just finishing it...the story of my life!

So, this week Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie said she’d be hard on us. She shared a story of The Bearded Iris who is having trouble finishing her projects and asked “Can you relate?” That's the question.



The tips? Finish what you started. Break things down into manageable chunks. Reevaluate and, if necessary, rewrite the list of 52 projects.

Can I relate?

Oh yes, I certainly can and I do.

And then I took out my list. Which I’ve now revised because, really, some of the things on the list were just too big and I’d start doing them and not feel like I'd finished everything. Some of those things I've started many times, almost finished many times and then never got around to actually finishing and had to start all over again.

I realized as I redid the list, some of the things were getting done but the reason they weren't being crossed of was because the project was too big. You'll see the shelves in our bedroom are all listed one by one. That's because it takes 5-10 minutes to do a shelf and I have a toddler. Sometimes I can do three or four shelves at a time and sometimes I'm lucky to get through one. But part of the reward (for me) is crossing something off, so I gave each shelf its own line. (There will be a post on those shelves soon because I'm almost done!) There are more than 52 things on my list right now, but that's okay. Because I still think they're entirely doable!

I also really need to take note of Laura's tip to have a box for things that belong elsewhere and to put them back at the end. I did that this weekend and it really made a difference in how much time I took to do stuff! YAY! With summer here (I hope) I don't want to spend too much time organizing my house...I want to go outside and play with J!

So my little goal for myself is to try to finish one thing on my list during the week and one on the weekend. I know it's summer and that might not always work, but I'll try...and if by some amazing chance I complete more than one, then I'll do my happy dance!

Oh, and if I need any motivation, all I have to do is look at my house. It fell to ruins during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I was really, really busy with the very important task of cheering on the Canucks. Last week when the time came to restore some order to our abode, the spots that I've already organized (like this one) took mere minutes to tidy. I want my whole house to be like that!

Week 23: Command Centre Necessity

Okay, I’m not caught up, I think I’m at week 19, but I’m jumping ahead here…Maybe I’ll have time tomorrow to sort the rest out…



This week the 52 week challenge at I'm an Organizing Junkie was all about a command centre. I read about other people’s command centres ALL THE TIME and lament the fact that our house isn’t big enough to have one. Except. Um. Yeah. Here we go with the questions…I actually do have one!

Week twenty-three questions:

1. Do you currently have an area in your home for a command center?
YES! It surprised me! We do. It’s called the kitchen counter.
I cleaned it up back in February…before that it looked like this:


On good days it looks like this:


And it’s really our command centre. Over on the left are two binders (there are three now) – our kitchen book (which is really a manual for everything and anything to do with our home and our lives) and the recipe binder (now there are two recipe binders – one with everything we use and one of ideas to try). The basket holds phone and camera chargers, the letter opener, tape, scissors. The porcupine holds the pens and pencils. I have an idea of how I would really like this to look, but it involves using a piece of furniture we don’t yet own for the binders…so it will just have to wait a bit longer. I’m hoping by the end of the summer I will have done enough contract work that we can buy our wall unit...

2. Have you had any luck implementing any of the tips from my book, Clutter Rehab?

Maybe…I read it a long time ago and I’ve implemented a few things in it, so I think so…but I had to give it back to the library.

3. Have you been able to maintain the spaces you have already organized?

Yes. I just need to think about it and the maintenance doesn’t end up taking long. It’s so nice to get up to a more clutter-free home these days!

Week 19: No Mom Jeans or Expired Medications

Wow, those are some crazy mom jeans and some old drugs!

If you ever see me wear mom jeans, please tell me to get rid of them!


Week nineteen questions:

1. Tell me one thing from your purge pile this week that you just can’t believe you were hanging on to. You do have a purge pile don’t you? :)
My painting clothes from last summer. I could have sworn I tossed them when I was done painting. The pants had multiple holes in inappropriate places...

2. Do you have medication in your cabinet older than 1999? Anyone? Anyone?
I do keep coming across expired medication, but there's nothing as old as 1999. I moved back to Vancouver in 2002 after three years of wandering, so that would be the absolute oldest...I think 2007 is the oldest I've found recently. We moved in January and again in August of 2008, so anything old most likely went...

3. What is on your organizing list for this week?
See my post from earlier today...clothing...for sure! But it's a long weekend, so who knows what else I'll get in there. If it rains, maybe a few things. If it's nice, probably nothing.

Week 18: Functional vs Fabulous

Okay, so I'm trying to catch up in the Organizing Junkie Challenge before tomorrow...which is really week 20...I might be able to do it, but I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how today goes...



I don't usually look at magazines for inspiration for tidying up clutter and organizing my life...more often than not the images are too sanitized. I find personal blogs a better place to look for that kind of thing - the solutions they're showing are real. Sometime you even see a bit of a mess or clutter or something that isn't quite working in a blog. You don't see that in a magazine. I know my house is never going to be "perfect" but I don't want it that way. I'd much prefer my house looked lived in than like a magazine spread. I want people to feel comfortable and at home in my house, not like they're in a museum or visiting the Queen...and I know I'm never going to get rid of ALL of my clutter...or my kid's toys.

Week eighteen questions:

1. Do you sometimes use limited funds as an excuse not to get organized?
I'm trying not to. I have one piece of organizing furniture that I want to get and I know it will help our organizing issues a lot, but the car decided it needed to get some new parts. And the washer and dryer are loads away from retiring. So, I have to work with what I've got. Which is why I haven't done anything about it. You can see two of the pieces I'm replacing here and the third one is where the black wire think is in this picture. I've created a plan for what I want to put there and what will go in it once it's there...and I'm trying to work around it. I'm trying to get rid of things on these current pieces of furniture that won't be on the new piece and if they're things I want to keep, I'm trying to find homes for them...then when the day comes (I'm hoping by the end of the summer, earlier if possible) I'll be ready to do a quick switcheroo.

2. What’s on your list to organize this week?
I'm still working on the clothing problem in the bedroom. I'd like to get our bedroom sorted out...there's just so much STUFF in there...big black garbage bags and recycling bins, here I come!

3. What one task do you notice yourself continually putting off? Why do you think that is?
The clothing...because I hate folding and putting away clothes. HATE IT. But it always looks so wonderful when I'm done. You'd think the reward was worth it...apparently not!

Week 17: Seasonal clothes switch out

Remember the 52 weeks of organizing challenge? Remember that I started late and then caught up and then was really good at posting weekly? Yeah, I remember that too. And then life happened. We had some holidays. We went away. J got sick.

But I don't feel too bad because some of my good habits stuck. We had company on Sunday for brunch and it took me 20 minutes to get the house ready for them. That includes vacuuming, tidying J's room and cleaning the bathroom. So I'm obviously learning and keeping so good habits.



Week 17, back at the end of April was all about the changing season and switching around wardrobes...I have a bit of a hate-on for clothing at the moment, so I wasn't looking forward to this post [I wrote about needing new clothes over at Get Fit Chicks and when I went to get new clothes, I ended up in the predictable situation of being between sizes...anyway...] I've had some time to reflect and it's all good. I can do this.

Last night I was working in our bedroom *AT OUR DESK* gasp. Unbelievable. Normally the desk is hidden. But it wasn't last night. I needed to be able to take a conference call and use the computer. Usually I sit at the dining room table and J sits at her table and cuts up magazines and glues them back together while I do this work, but last night my sister had offered to take her to the park. I didn't want to be in the dining room when they got home.

Anyway, I just cleared the stuff off my desk and put it on the bed. After the call, I sat at the desk and looked at the room and realized that there are currently two clutter problems with our room. One is paper. The other is clothes. And I've been focusing on the wrong one. If I just dealt with the clothes, the paper would be much easier to sort out...clothes are easy. They're dirty or they're clean. If they're dirty, they go in the laundry. If they're clean they get put away in the (pretty much empty) closet or the drawers or they get put in the donation bag. So tonight, that's what I'm going to tackle. The clothes.

Week seventeen questions:
1. Do you rotate your seasonal clothing? If so, have you done it yet?
Not really. Our closet is big enough for winter stuff to hang at the back in the summer and vice versa. J's clothes are going to be rotated out, but that's partly because she's outgrowing hers like crazy right now.

2. Are you celebrating your accomplishments as you go? It’s so important no matter how big or small the task is you complete!
YES! Because even the small things make a difference.

3. What’s on your list for this next week?
The clothes in our bedroom. And if I get through that, the paper in our bedroom. It was so nice to work at my desk last night and look out at the city as it got dark...much nicer than the dining room table!

Clutter be gone

So it's no secret on this blog that I'm trying to get rid of all the clutter that is taking over our home...there are good days and bad days, productive weeks and unproductive weeks, but slowly but surely we are getting there. There being to a place where drawers close easily, where contents don't come flying out of closets when they are opened, where we only have enough of one item for our needs (ie we don't need three cheese graters, but we do need three cutting boards), where you could show up at our door RIGHT now and I'd be happy to let you in, not mentally ticking off all the things that should be tidied or put away.

We are getting there.

So it was timely that as I was munching on my coleslaw today at lunch, I happened across an article in the Globe and Mail about how much our clutter costs us. It made sense! We do not need to store junk in our place....They linked to a clutter assessment and I wandered over to take it, but I was a little scared of what it would tell me.

Not so bad. Apparently I'm a clutter victim.

Your total score is: 7.

Good news. You're a clutter victim. This may not sound like good news, but it means that you, like so many others, have fallen victim to the clutter buildup that's hard to avoid when you have a busy life, diverse interests, disposable income, family memorabilia and a steady influx of purchases and junk mail. Not to worry. With a reasonable amount of effort, you'll be able to get your clutter issues under control and keep them that way.

So there is hope for me and all the work I've been putting into our place since Christmas is going to pay off. I just wish there was a way to speed up the process (quitting my job would help, but there's that issue of needing to pay the bills and buy groceries)

Week 16: Getting those drawers under control

Drawers...we don't have many, thank goodness. They're much like closets in my opinion - easy places to hide things when they need to be hidden...


Week sixteen questions:
1. Have you got a drawer that needs a little organizing? Will you tackle it this week or something else?
My entire chest of drawers needs to be tackled...and my drawer in the bathroom. The kitchen drawers aren't so bad, but they probably could use a good sorting out.

2. Was last week an organizing success for you?
Yes...I got some things done, but it would have been nice to get more done!

3. Has the habit of just doing one thing at a time helping to keep you from feeling overwhelmed?
Ummm...yeeeeeeeees...except that I forget and get ahead of myself. It doesn't happen as often, so I'm getting better, but I still try to do too many things simultaneously!

Happy Easter! I don't think I'll be doing much organizing this weekend...maybe some chores that involve tools and the help of my dad who is visiting, but no sorting and tossing and organizing.