confessions of a clutterer: kitchen day two

Even the best laid plans....

I was going to focus on the table and island today, but then I thought maybe I should save that for last.  Let it collect the stuff off of everything else that needs to be sorted and removed or taken to where it belongs.  I thought maybe I should work on the metal shelving we have.  I started that and then I got sidetracked by the cabinets.  Yeah, it doesn't make sense.

So here's where we were in the beginning:

I didn't get too far with the shelving.  With all the snacks we had on this first section I realized we have snacks and food all over the kitchen without too much order to it.  So I started going through all the cabinets.  It was incredibly ridiculous.  I couldn't believe how much expired food we had in our cupboards.  But then there was so much of it.....

The 'bread' cupboard has bread and everything else in it.

The cabinet underneath the bread nook has a ton of canned foods & snacks.

An add on pantry-like cupboard.  Everything from oatmeals, chips, cookies, drinks & snacks were in here.

These are the pull out drawers in the island.  Teas and crystal light packets on the left and pastas and other dried goods, dressings in the right.  What I didn't take picture of are the drawers in between these cabinets.  Full of pastas, lentils, dried soup packets, candy, etc.  Above the cabinets is a junk drawer and my drawer of zip lock bags & parchment paper, wax paper, that kind of stuff.

Now, I didn't get through everything.  The junk drawer is a project in itself.  What I tried to do was go through all the food and get rid of the expired items.  I had stuff that expired in 2009!  One of the problems I found is that our cabinets are deep and we are lazy.  Rarely do I go through what we have already before I go grocery shopping.  So may boxes of Wheat Thins!  One of my hopes is that with all this cleaning I will keep a better working knowledge of what's in my kitchen so I can use it up instead of letting it go to waste.

I ended up with this:

For the first time ever I oiled the butcher block!  It looks so different now!  I thinned out the snacks and got rid of most of the baking stuff.  A lot of things I will never use (I'm not much of a baker so the basics is probably all I need).  What I do use, for not I put them in a cabinet that has other baking stuff in it.  Ray wants to move the bottom shelves up so the Roomba can get under there.  Once that's done I'll figure out how to use that shelf.

This looks so much better!  I put our bags of chips that were in the bread nook on the bottom shelf with some of the snacks that I eat.  Emma's snacks I kept on the metal shelving since that's easier for her to see and get to.  The canned foods and dressings, marinades are on the top shelf, but in a way that I can spin it and see everything clearly.

The bread nook has just bread in it!  Woo hoo!  Well, bread & tortillas.

Here's the right side pull out drawer.  I took my dried goods (oatmeal, red lentils, quinoa, barley, coconut flakes, chia seeds & wild rice) and put them in some of the canning jars I have.

Ahhhhhh pantry.  Did you know that chips only last a couple of months unopened?  I didn't.  Now I do.

My plan of getting areas done in chunks didn't go exactly as planned, but I did go through most of the food cabinets.  I can get behind that.  I've got to figure out what to do about our garbage though.  Monday was garbage day and by Monday evening our freshly emptied garbage can was filled up again.

Little by little we're getting there!

confessions of a clutterer: kitchen day one

Today is day two of my get out house de-cluttered project.  I've decided to start with the kitchen for a couple of reasons:

1. It's where I spend most of my time cleaning.  Every surface in the kitchen is covered.  We have the kitchen table, an island, a butcher block, shelves & my desk.  There's always stuff on them.  I'll clean them off and the 2 days later they're covered again.  I don't know how it happens.
2. It's the biggest project in the house.  Part of me worries that this will overwhelm me and I'll give up, but I feel like I'm determined in a whole new way and I'll finish what I started.
3. I could break it up into smaller sections so it wouldn't be so overwhelming - I hope.
4. The kitchen is the center of the house.  Everything happens in the kitchen and if we could get that under control everything would flow better.
5. Once I finish the kitchen I'll be able to do anything!!

I tackled the desk first.  It's been a mess pretty much since we moved it from my 'office' (which is now Olivia's room) to the kitchen.  Here's my before:

I did a really bad job of capturing the awfulness of this area!  It doesn't look that bad in this picture (but it does look pretty messy).  I have a cart next to the desk which I got to organize my paper and junk since the desk only has that one drawer.  The cart is full of everything that I didn't want on the table.  Also, underneath the desk is a shelf of sorts that you can kind of see at the bottom of the picture.  There's no reason to that madness.

Here's what it looks like now:

Soooooo much better!

I cleared everything off, either threw it away or filed it away.  I have two file boxes.  One for my Girl Scout troop stuff and one for my personal stuff.  In the cart I have paper, photo paper, envelopes, pens, pencils, markers & notebooks.

I love repurposing my stuff.  I use the tea tins for rubber bands and erasers (I use a lot of pencils).  The Glee card game was a gift from a friend, but no one could pay it with me because either they hadn't watched the first season or they just weren't Gleeks like me.  So I took the cards out and I'm using the tin for my furoshikis (Japanese fabric used for wrapping presents or food containers to take to a party, etc.).  And even though the Eclipse gum container is plastic and kind of plain, the top sticker has Edward, Bella & Jacob on it so I had to find something to do with it.  It carries my thumbtacks.  :)

Awhile ago Ray and I saw these sugar skull tequila bottles at Costco except they were MUCH bigger and kind of pricey for tequila I never tasted.  We were at BevMo looking for something and found two of them in small baby versions.  Score!  Ray went to another BevMo and found the third one so we have a complete set!  I also have my yummy smelling Orange Clove candle that was a gift from one of my GS Moms last year.  It takes me forever to burn them.  I'm pretty stingy with my candles.  I don't know why!

That's what I got done on day one.  Stay tuned for day two....cabinets!!

confessions of a clutterer

A month ago I got to reading more about a bunch of different ideas all centered around living better.  Everything from doing more yoga, eating whole, real foods and living a little more frugally.  It all started with all natural insect repellant (that I haven't tried yet).  I found that recipe and from there found another blog and another blog and another blog and so on.  It's been enlightening, to say the least.  Some are a little over the top for me.  A little too focused on religion or too strict or I get that underlying sense of judgement, but lots of bloggers out there are all about doing what you can and they'll help you get to wherever that may be.

The library has also been a great resource.  I've looked into raising chickens, soap making, green cleaning, whole food cooking & canning.  While I do love finding info online I also like having that book in my hand so I can quickly flip through while I'm in the process.  It's not quite the same 'flipping' through my iPad to find what I need.  There's lots of reviews on every book I've looked into and some people love them and some hate them so instead of spending hundreds of dollars on books that end up not being what I want I've been checking them out from the library when I can find them and then today I bought a couple that I really loved.

One of them is Green Clean by Linda Mason Hunter & Mikki Halpin It's a great little guide to cleaning.  Sounds simple enough, and it is, but I think it's fantastic.  The book itself is waterproof & stain resistant which means I can have it nearby while I'm spraying or mopping and not worry about ruining the book.  Inside you'll find a short explanation as to why we should try to use less chemicals and what's really in the brand name cleaning products we use without really thinking about it.

Then, they systematically go room by room with a scheduled check list for daily, weekly & monthly chores.  Here and there they've peppered the book with helpful tidbits on how to clean keep your dishwasher clean, houseplants that will purify your air quality the best, and what you can and can't recycle.

I don't mind cleaning.  In fact, I kind of enjoy it.  It's one of those things that you can immediately see the results.  There's an great feeling of accomplishment when you've gotten your house clean.  The thing that's difficult for me is that no matter how much cleaning I do, it seems like it's neverending.  I know there's always going to be dirty dishes and dirty clothes, but I'm talking about how there's just everything everywhere.  I can't keep up with it.

I guess the step that I missed was the 'getting rid of the clutter' step.

Now, I come from a long line of clutter collectors.  I wouldn't necessarily call us 'hoarders', but it's close.  We're sentimental and we all have collections of stuff.  Ticket stubs, t-shirts, baby toys, figurines, etc.  When Ray and I got married I had a lot of junk.  As the years have gone by I've whittled most of it down.  My parents dropped off crates of baby clothes, school work, yearbooks, toys and blankets a couple of years ago.  At one time they had the intention of buying us each a footlocker and keeping our mementos in there.  Of course, it spread to a few crates in addition to that footlocker.

After making sure my parents didn't care what I did with everything I got rid of most of it and only kept what could fit in the footlocker.  I have my mementos from bar crawling, Vegas trips, ticket stubs and stuff from when Ray and I were dating in a small box about double the size of a shoebox.  I have a book (School Years Memory Keeper) that I got at Costco that I keep a few things from each year of school for Emma and a birthday memory book where her birthday party memories go in.  So not too bad.

Of course, that's not it.  I have a crate of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV, not movie) and I have bookshelves cluttered with not only books, but Twilight junk, figurines and Legos.  So it's not completely under control!

But after reading Green Clean I'm determined to get everything under control.  I'd like to get rid of at least 75% of my clutter.  I feel like if I can do that across the board, linens, kitchen gear, paperwork, toys, clothes, etc. then cleaning will become a much more satisfying chore.

My plan for the next couple of weeks (although I'm hoping it takes only a week *fingers crossed*) is to get our house under control.  If I can get that done then I can focus on getting our meal plans done and get rid of the processed foods and move onto my other projects.....and work on convincing Ray we need to raise a couple of chickens.

All the advice says to start and finish one room - or section - at a time.  Here's my to-do list:

• Kitchen/Dining Room
1. My desk
2. Dining room table & kitchen island
3. Kitchen cabinets
4. Refrigerators - inside & top
5. Kitchen shelves

• Living Room
1. Baby's toys
2. Bookshelves/cabinets

• Hallway
1. Linen closet
2. Bookshelf
3. Coat closet

• Master Bedroom
1. Night stand
2. 6' Bookshelves
3. Short bookshelf
4. Closet
5. Dresser

• Master Bathroom
1. Sink Cabinet
2. Above the toilet cabinet
3. Shower

• Guest Bathroom
1. Sink Cabinet
2. Above the toilet cabinet

• Emma's Room
1. Closet
2. Bookshelf
3. Toy Bins
4. Dresser

• Olivia's Room
1. Bookshelf
2. Wardrobe
3. Crib drawer
4. Changing table
5. Closet

It sounds like a lot now that I've typed it all up.  Ugh.  Some it's not going to be take too long.  I can probably do both bathrooms & the hallway closets in an hour.  And Emma's room has been de-cluttered so I just have to make sure we haven't gotten out of control there again.  Olivia's closet is going to be somewhat of a nightmare because it's basically full of stuff of mine.  Olivia's room used to be my office and when we cleaned out her room I never got to the closet.  *sigh*

I've taken 'before' pictures and I'll post them as I finish.  It's pretty embarrassing, but I'm going to show you anyway!  I worked on my desk today, but I'll post about that tomorrow since this has turned into a 70 page post already!

Here we go!

probably not such a good idea, but...

I usually don't do New Year's Resolutions because I NEVER follow through.  Never.  But this year I think it's time I really attempt to complete some resolutions.  I mean, I'm a grown up with kids now.  I should be able to follow through with these things!  I'm going to keep it fairly simple though.  Let's not go crazy.

1.  I'm going to Wreck This Journal.  Completely.

2.  I'm going to restart my general 365 project and I'm not going to freak out and quit if I miss a day.  I'll just tack on a day at the end.  The project will be 365 pictures, not 365 consecutive pictures.

3.  I'm going to try reallllly hard to lose at least 10 pounds.  I'm actually 3 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight (from Olivia, not Emma, let's not be silly) so I'm pretty darn stoked about that.  If I can come down another 10-15 pounds I'll be really happy.

And that's it.  Because the rest of it, keeping my house clean, being the best wife & mother I can be, etc., etc., those things aren't resolutions.  Those are the ongoing goals I have and will always be working on.

race to the end

Up until about October I was way ahead of schedule for my 2011 reading goal of 200.  So much so I figured I'd hit 250 by the end of the year.

I was soooooo wrong.

And I can't really blame the new baby.  Staying up at night with her I could be reading while she's hanging out, but instead I'm playing games on the iPad.  Or playing LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7.  Or Zelda Skyward Sword that I actually hate right now, but because I love Zelda so much I must finish it, still holding out hope it will get better.

Reading has fallen to the wayside and it's not because the books I'm reading are sub par.  Right now I'm about 1/3 of the way through Worth Dying For by Lee Child, 2/3 of the way through Bonnie by Iris Johansen, 2/3 of the way through Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens and 2/3 of the way through Miss. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  With the exception of Bonnie I'm really into all the books.

Don't ask me about Bonnie right now.  I'll discuss my irritation later.

So now I've got to finish at least 11 books this month to reach 200.  Normally I would say 'no problem!' because I could put away 6 books a week, but with Christmas coming and Emma being off school for a week and a half and all the birthday parties and festivities who knows!

Plus, I still have that laundry to do...

whaaaaaaaaat???

I realized the other day that being a stay at home mom sometimes blows for little reasons.  Like, not going out to lunch with friends/co-workers to a place that isn't kid friendly.  Or maybe having drinks after work at a bar that definitely isn't kid friendly.  But those really aren't important things and granted, if I wanted to I could go meet some friends for drinks one night and now that Emma is in school I could dart over to meet them for lunch at a non-kid establishment.

This time, being pregnant I realized with the utmost clarity yesterday that I will not get maternity leave. 

Whaaaaat?? 

Every day I have something going on, whether it be appointments or getting Emma to school or a play date.  When I was pregnant with Emma I took one or two (I can't quite remember) weeks off before my due date because they paid me to and it was great.  I sat around the house since everything was ready and waiting for Emma to get here and watched TV.  I mostly watched A Baby Story on TLC until I started really getting freaked out.  That show is better watched AFTER baby arrives.

Well, she was 2.5 weeks late so my pre-birth maternity leave lasted almost a month and it was glorious (though uncomfortable).  My work environment was unpredictable and unhappy so to have that time away from all the drama and angst was wonderful.

I'm at the point in this pregnancy where it is incredibly uncomfortable to do most regular things.  Getting up off the sofa is actually painful and when the baby moves around, though I am always relieved she is moving, it hurts every time.  I would like to spend a day laying in bed on my side because honestly, that's the only time I am comfortable.  Until my arm falls asleep.  Then I roll over to my other side (which takes me about 3 minutes to do).

Though I realize how incredibly lucky I am to be able to stay at home with my kids there are times when I wish I could go back to that first pregnancy when everything was all about me.  How selfish does that sound?!?!  But I mean it more in the sense that I just had to worry about me.  What I was eating, what time I got out of bed, picking up dinner instead of making it ... all that stuff. 

So maybe a day goes like this:

• Get up & check my glucose
• Get Emma up and dressed, teeth brushed
• Fight her to get her to eat some breakfast
• Make her lunch
• Eat my breakfast
• Get on our bikes and head to school
• Come home & check glucose again
• Head out to a doctor's appointment
• Run some miscellaneous errands (library, Target, grocery store, etc.)
• Get some lunch
• Get on my bike and pick up the munchkin
• Check my glucose
• Get her home and either finish the lunch she didn't eat or get her a snack
• Get her working on her homework
• Make dinner

Once dinner is made there's a breather.  Then we eat, I try to clean up the kitchen as I cook so I don't have a mess on my hands.  I check my glucose one more time and space out my pills.  Force myself to eat that last snack of the day and take my last pill and go to sleep.

Granted, not every day is like this.  I only have doctor's appointments twice a week and usually Thursdays (today) I have little going on so I can sit here for hours while Emma's at school and do nothing important.  But still, if someone offered maternity leave I don't think I'd turn them down!

so close i can almost taste it

I started out this year deciding that I would try to read all the books I currently have on my bookshelves that I haven’t read yet.

I have not been very successful there.  I’m always tempted by new authors or new books by favorite authors.  So I’ve pretty much given up that goal.  Right now I’ve read 158 books.  If you’ve seen my to be read list for this month you’ll notice I have 20 books set to read this month.  That means that I could possibly reach my goal of 200 books by the end of next month!  That would give me 3 months to read another 50 books and up my goal to 250.  Of course, I’ll have a new baby to contend with so it is more than slightly doubtful I’ll do that.

But my goal within the goal for the next couple of months is to finish off some of the series that I’ve started.  Get ready for it … it’s a list!  These are the series that I’m going to try to finish in the next couple of months.

1. The Jack Reacher series.  I’m currently reading book 10 of 16.
2. The Temperance Brennan series.  I’m currently reading book 11 of 14.
3. The Eve Duncan series.  I’m currently reading book 8 of 13.
4. The Morganville Vampire series.  I’ve read 1 of 11.
5. The Sleepy Hollow trilogy.  I’m currently reading book 2 of 3.
6. The Aurora Teagarden series.  I’ve read 3 out of 8.
7. The Vampire Academy series.  I’m reading book 4 of 6.
8. The Bone Island Trilogy.  I’m currently reading book 2 of 3 and a half.
9. The Divine Trilogy.  I’ve read 1 of 3 and a half.

That’s my plan so far.  I have a few more that I should probably get through, but for now this is what I’ve got going on.  For the books I don’t have I’ve put requests in at the library and I noticed today that they’re all in transit so I’d better get to reading!

RT Booklover’s Convention

What do you think?  Is it worth it to drive 6 hours down to LA to spend 3 hours wandering around checking out 400 authors and their books?

I kind of think it is.

Saturday, April 9th the RT Booklovers’ Convention meets up at the Westin Bonaventure.  There’s workshops and panels, like Comic-Con, but for book enthusiasts only.  Really though, I just want to go to the book fair part that goes on from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.  But Ray definitely doesn’t want to go with me.

Booooooo.

Check out the lineup for the YA authors!  Richelle Mead, Cassandra Clare, Kelley Armstrong, Melissa Marr…nuts and crazy man, nuts and crazy.

You can get scheduling info here.  Let me know if you’re interesting in taking a road trip with me!

the great bookshelf swap

We decided to move the bookshelves out of the extra bedroom and put them in the living room.  I’m constantly bummed that we have no places to put junk in the living room.  I’d like some shelves for picture frames and knick knacks and to kind of make the room look more like we live there.

So we went to Ikea which was a trip much better than I expected it to be.  Did you know that if you are planning on spending $100 or more on furniture Ikea will buy you lunch?  They do.  You go and get a bunch of food from the cafeteria then when you pay for your furniture you hand them your food receipt and they deduct it from your furniture purchase.  Very cool.  And the meatballs ARE delicious!

We bought three giant Billy bookshelves for our bedroom and a tall dresser.  We decided it’s time to start transitioning Emma into big girl furniture.  If anyone knows her in real life you will know that my kid is GIANT.  She’s a little over 3 and a half feet tall.  She just keeps growing lengthwise and remains about the same weight she was when she was two. 

Sometimes you read those horrifying stories about police discovering a two year old who only weighed 20 pounds.  When I see those stories there’s always this little voice in the back of my mind that was worried because in two years Emma has grown about 5 or 6 inches and has only gained about 5 pounds.  She’s skinny like a beanpole, but thankfully at her check ups the doctor tells me she’s a healthy weight.  I’ll go with that.

Anyhoo … she’s in one of those toddler beds that uses the crib mattress.  Pretty much every night I hear her thump something on the wall because her lanky little limbs cannot be contained by crib mattress alone.  When we brought up the exciting news of getting a big girl bed she quickly vetoed that idea.  My mom offered the trundle bed she has in her extra room.  That’s the bed that Emma sleeps in whenever she spends the night at Ba-Chan & Ji-Chan’s house.  She was much more amendable to that idea since she loves that bed.  So done and done. 

Now onto the books.

I moved all the books off of one bookshelf in the extra bedroom.  This is what that looked like.

ugh.

Ray spent the better part of the day building the bookshelves and moving them into the bedroom.  I got one filled.

So now, the day after this was taken they pretty much look the same except there are some clothes piled up on the nearly empty one.  Ray did laundry and I haven’t organized the dresser yet so I needed a place to put clothes and voila.  I promise that I will finish this tomorrow.

I love organizing my books.  Sometimes I do it alphabetical, sometimes by size, but most of the time it’s by author and then publication date.  The thing that’s been depressing me about this whole ordeal?  There are at least 3 full shelves on one bookshelf full of books I haven’t read yet.  So many.

So why all the furniture moving?  That’ll be a post for another day!

Blah

I have the blahs.

Boooooo. 

I am completely unmotivated to do anything except clean my kitchen, which is a good thing.  Smells really get to me and I HATE the kitchen smelling like something from The Walking Dead.  But I really need to get other crap done.

We’re moving the bookshelves out of my office and into the living room.  That requires a lot of motivation on my part.  I need to take all the books off.  All. Of. Them.  Unfun.  I need to thin out some of Emma’s 700 toys.  Her room looks like a tornado hit it everyday, no matter how much she ‘cleans’.  It would also be nice to wash all the blankets and sheets today as I’ve put it off for way too long.  The floors need to be cleaned, carpets vacuumed. 

I also have this project I started a year ago.  I have tons of food magazines so I thought I would cut out the recipes and such I wanted to keep and put them in little plastic sleeves then put them all in a binder.  I have gotten as far as buying the stuff.  Meanwhile, the magazines are slowly taking over my bookshelves in the bedroom.  Agh.

But on the bright side I have my St. Patrick’s Day socks on.

And the corned beef is in the crock pot!  Woohoo!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!  Go out and pinch someone!