3.26.2011

True Story

Hubs: Hey hun?
Me: Yes?
Hubs: Let's have a date night tomorrow.
Me: Okay...
Hubs: But not like dinner out or anything. Just the good stuff. You know the stuff that happens after dinner.
Me: Haha. Okay.

Start Over

Sometimes you just need to start over

New Beginnings

I was hesitant to start a new blog but in the end I decided it was just what I had to do.
Life has brought me the chance for reflection and it's left me with a desire for some big changes.
I love that life allows us the opportunity to constantly reflect and evolve; to recreate ourselves.
I aim to have this blog for keeps and have it evolve with me.

But sometimes you just need to start over...

3.13.2011

52 Weeks of Organizing- Week 10

This week I didn't feel so much into documenting the "before and after" of my organizing. Partially because I was relying on my iPhone for pictures and partially because I was jumping around between lots of spaces and small projects. There wouldn't even be much "before and after" impact but I can tell how all the little things in the house are adding up to a more organized space overall.

Containerizing seemed to be a big theme for me this week!























From the top left:

First row: Black 12 x 12 box that now contains all larger than 8 x 10 paperwork. White photo box containing all things related to glue/tape/stickiness and an empty Oreo box waiting to be decorated and filled.
Cereal boxes turned magazine files waiting to be decorated. Extra magazines below and between the boxes.
Binders with some of our DVDs (will show this project when its complete!). Two photo boxes containing sewing essentials.
Second row: Under the bed containers with unfinished quilt/sewing items and wrapping paper/bags/contact paper/tissue paper, a mini wrapping station of sorts.
A plastic 12 x 12 scrapbook container now holds all my tea light candles and melting scents. Ignore the other stuff!
Two baskets full of candies and goodies. I even organized those into separate baggies which I'll show another time.
Bottom row: Soup in a cupboard all stacked nicely. This cupboard was filled mostly with the candy that is now in baskets and a couple pretty much empty bags of tortilla chips- yeesh!
A clean and organized freezer.

Nothing big and "wow what a transformation" to show but lots of little steps in the right direction!

Don't forget to check out everyone else's week 10 over at Organizing Junkie!

3.10.2011

Daily 5x7: #4

Mmmm so my "daily" 5x7s haven't been daily at this point but here's my latest one.

3.06.2011

52 Weeks of Organizing- Week 9

So, in case I didn't already know enough how badly I needed this organizing challenge, my inability to find my camera battery charger is a definite sign! I can't even begin to imagine which box it would be in. I think the preggers brain is finally kicking in. I'm usually one of those people who knows where things are even when they don't know where it is (does that make sense???) 

I haven't finished any major project this week. We picked up a few more containers at some really great prices which I'll be utilizing this week. I started organizing my current magazines but am stalled by the fact that the fabric to finish the magazine holders I've made is in the garage and there is about 8 billion feet of snow between me and that garage. 

It's been weeks upon weeks of -25 C (-13 F) and lower weather. With nearly constant snow. Ot's getting to me. 

On the bright side I've been on some sort of maniac scrapbooking kick. One of my 101 list items is to scrapbook all the pictures I have printed out. I would like to take a guess that I've done maybe 200 pages since Monday. I'm kind of excited to count them when its over and see. Granted I'm only putting the pictures on the page- no titles or journaling- but I still feel mega productive when I look at the pile of pages I've created. 

My "good enough" is currently just "better than it was before". However, the longer I do this challenge the more I'm finding my standards of "good enough" are changing. For the better of course. 

My parents came over this week and even though hubby and I feel that our house is a relative disaster zone we received a ton of compliments for how good it looked. My dad even used the word "organized" to describe our house!!! That was pretty great. They've lived through my years of tornado like messes (which I totally get from my dad!) so really any change seems much better. I definitely was lacking in the organizing/cleaning motivation this week but I'm really disliking the messy state my house gets in when I don't keep on top of it. 

I now make the bed every day which I can safely say that is a phenomenon that rarely occurred in my childhood bedroom, unless my mom did it for me. After seeing the made bed (we currently have no bedroom door) my mom said "You should have babies more often." 

When I manage to find my battery charger, or borrow my mothers, I'll show some progress pictures.

3.02.2011

101 List Update #2

It's that time again! It has already been a month since I did an update on my 101 in 1001 list!
I wasn't super focused on the list in February but I still managed to make some progress.

19. Decorate the kitchen. 
36. Finish 30 sewing projects (2/30).




















I made these curtains from some super cheap fabric I found at Ikea. Including the curtain rod it cost me $9 to make these babies. They aren't my dream curtains but they are so much better than the nasty brown velourish cat hair covered curtains that resided there before.

22. Cook one new recipe every month (5/33). 

I made peanut butter cookies, soft molasses cookies and Irish soda bread.



33. Scrapbook all printed out pictures. 




















I put this aside for a while but last night did 13 pages and am going to continue doing more today. I almost gave up on doing these but when I looked at my previous scrapbooks I decided it would be worth it. I don't do elaborate pages. Right now its just the photos on the pages. I will add titles later and possibly some journaling but that's probably it.

61. Drink more water. 


I've somehow gotten into this amazing habit of at least four big glasses of ice water a day. I don't think that I will fall out of this as I really notice when I'm not drinking enough. We will probably invest in a countertop ice maker soon because it seems to be the only way either of us will drink water- with lots of ice!!!

88. Make bed every day. 


Again I've just gotten into this habit during February and now I can't imagine not making the bed every day. It just makes the room look so much better and since we are currently doorless (except for the bathroom) it also makes the whole house look neater!

92. Create and maintain a filing system for papers. 


I did this as part of my 52 Weeks of Organizing. See the post here.

I'm pretty proud of myself as I've managed to cross 3 more things off my list completely and continue on the progress with many more.

Items completed: 13/101 (12.8% complete)
Items in progress: 23/101

Check out Rockstar Mommy's Day Zero Project  to see another great "101 in 1001 list". She organizes her's a bit different than mine and has a whole separate blog to keep track of it! She's pretty awesome :)