Organizing updates

For some reason I am much more of a fall cleaner than a spring cleaner. With school starting and Myah's birthday coming up I like to clean things out to be ready for new things. We are working on her closet and under her bed, what a messy girl I have!

The upstairs living rooms was officially finished yesterday. Jason put up the trim, moved the internet cable connection so I moved the computer in there instead of the recroom. I got a new computer desk (with little desk space to pile things on, lol) and it looks great!

Once the trim and closet door goes up in the recroom we can get things back together but so many toys are not going back in there. I feel like my kids have so much they don't even know what to play with. A lot of things will move to their rooms and I have one medium sized closet and a book shelf to keep things on in the recroom.

Most of this stuff in in the basement, the one I so nicely cleaned out last year. I should take a pic, its awful again!

I feel like kickin Mr. Murphy's ass...

or my dogs! I came down Saturday morning to one giant pile of dog diarrhea and seven little ones ON THE NEW CARPET. I screamed and kicked the dog outside, I could tell she felt awful, she should!!! She is 12 years old and has never done this before, ugh, I guess she is getting old. There is now a gate across there at night, wish I would hav thought of that sooner ;)

I cried and scrubbed and just couldn't believe it. The carpet is from home depot and it came with 2 emergency cleaning a year, (thank goodness) I just called them to come out because I can still see the big spot. I didn't think I would be needing them this soon.

The carpet newness is gone :( but as I always do try to see the brighter side... now hubby, the kids and I don't have to worry about being the first one to spill on the carpet the dog already took care of that.

Heather meets Mr Murphy's Law

Yesterday we got beautiful carpet in the recroom and I LOVE it!! it looks and smells so new and wonderful. I am commmitted to only bringing half of what i had back into the room so it should be a bit better with the toys and clutter.

so I am happy with my newest home improvement and then last night at 4:15am we were all fast asleep "when from downstairs there arose such a clatter and I sprang from my bed to see what was that matter" Well to my great surprise half of my kitchen cupboard had broken away from the wall and was sitting on the counter. Food was sprawled across the kitchen floor and I was shocked. I didn't know what to do but go back to bed and deal with it in the morning. What a mess. Picture this - this is an upper cabinet with two doors beside my sink, the part attached to the side wall broke off, the top piece attached to the ceiling came off too, all the shelves and one door came off. So one cupboard door is just hanging there nice and straight all by itself. Freakin weird I tell ya.

In my hazy morning fog I started the clean up without remembering to take a picture. Well there you go my first kitchen cupboard has been cleaned out, not quite how I would have liked to have done it but hey can't be choosy.

I think maybe the kitchen was jealous, it was supposed to get new flooring but we cancelled it, it was screaming out for some of my attention. Jeesh! Hubby is home today, he was going to put on trim but the plans have changed...

Carpet

I think the best way to declutter is to get new carpet, it forces you to completely empty a room!

The Home Dept carpet installer come on August 7th, hooray, I am so excited to replace my hole-y and stained carpets. We have started the decluttering and moving things to the basement. We are going away on Sunday and won't be back until late monday so we have to be finished and ready for the installers when we leave on Sunday morning. We have swimming lessons every night this week so lets just say we are BUSY!!

I have taken some before pics which I will post shortly and then the AFTER!!! I plan on returning about 1/2 the stuff to the room, the rest is going to charity or somewhere else in the house. I have to promise myself that it doesn't stay boxed up in the basement, lol!

keeping it up

Flooring update - The laminate is finished in the living room (LOOKS AWESOME, great job hubby!!) and we are setting an install date for the carpet. We will have to take a trip to london to pick out different vinyl for the kitchen because the glueless type will not work with our current floor. I was hoping this would all be in by now but it will be in soon.

I am proud to say I have been keeping up with washing the dishes so I have a clean sink before I go to bed. One night I just had half clean because I didn't get to the pots and pans that I can't throw in the dishwasher, I did not let my self feel guilty about it though!! lol

I've been keeping the laundry mountain smaller than usual but putting it away is a bit of a challenge that I need to work on. My daughter was given 2 boxes of hand me downs and within 24 hours we had cleaned out her dresser and closet of things she no longer wears and put away all of the clothes!! I was so proud and she is enjoying finding "new" clothes and putting outfits together without having to dig through boxes.

This has been quite a challenge. I find that projects are the hardest for me to get to. I work all day and then it's kids all night, whew, it sure is a challenge.

more updates

What have I been up to

• I created a budget, more like a list of how much we spend each month. I have not been good at keeping it up. I have been paying off credit card debts which feels great
• Got a great day timer and have recently started meal planning
• The kids are using a chore tag system which is helping

Best of all I hired a cleaning company to come in every other week to scrub things down. I still have to do dishes, laundry, day-to-day pick up, cooking and all that. It forces me to have everything picked up (at least twice a month, lol) so they can come in and dust, vacuum, scrub & clean. It is the best money I have ever spent. I get to play with my kids so much more and at this age is so imporant especially since they are at day care all day.

time for a 2007 update..

Thanks to a reader who told me I do need an update!!

I have been working away at things, not as fast as I would like but two kids, a husband, a dog and a full-time job keep taking up the majority of my time! lol

I HATE our carpet, it has stains and tears so we went to home depot last weekend and bought

• laminate wood for the livingroom
• vinyl tiles for the kitchen
• grey textured burbur for the recroom

This project of course requires the rooms to be empty, what a great excuse to de-clutter. The living room is already done, (hubby did an awesome job installing it!!) and it looks wonderful. The bookshelf was the biggest job in there. I pledge to get rid of half my books! I work in a library, I can get whatever book I need, anytime!! We need to put on new trim and then put things back in. A lot less things than were there before!!

They are coming tonight to measure and set up the install date for the other two rooms so I MUST have them ready for the set date. I work best on a deadline anyway! I have dealt with a couple of closets, I'm getting there. It will nice to be rewared with new flooring for my efforts!!

now the budget

I am thinking of ordering some budgeting software online to help keep track of our spending. We definetly have more going out than coming in each month and I am REALLY sick of paying all this interest on credit cards, loans and lines of credit. Christmas time always brings this out in me.

Hubby & I had a big talk last night about money. I pay all the bills and keep track of everything but frankly I suck at it and he thinks he does too so he won't do it. I really don't want to live paycheck to paycheck. We are not living extravagently by any means but the day to day spending on things like take-out, coffee, smokes and booze (for him), magazines, movies and trips to the variety store, really add up.

We need to work out a plan to pay off our debt and start creating some savings. Maybe I should create a debt blog??

My New Years resolution

My resolution this year is to get my home and my finances organized. That small sentence requires some big work but it is time for me to get my act together. I think this will result in a lot less stress in the long term if I am able to accomplish this goal.

I just won this on an ebay auction.



It hold regular size 8 1/2 x 11 paper which is what I was looking for. This way I can type my lists and update them then just print and hole punch and not have to re-write things all the time. Now I will be able to keep lists of the things I near to clear out of my head. I am thinking of starting with:

• grocery list
• meal planner
• daily spending
• budget including a list of creditors & how much we owe :(
• Info sheet for each kid (babysitter info, health info, schedule of activities)
• phone/address/email list
• weekly planner
• passwords & codes to remember (there are so freakin many these days)
• Birthday & Anniversary list
• master to - do list (I'll print an extra for hubby!!)

One thing at a time but that is what I am wanting to keep in there. I have sent my payment and I'm really looking forward to getting started. I am trying to get hubby on board and paying more attention to these types of things, we'll see how that goes.

kids clothes

The day before Christmas Eve my parents kept my kids for a sleepover. I used my time well. I clean out their closets and dressers. They have sooo many clothes!! I find myself leaving a laundry basket of clean things in each of their rooms and working from that because they just don't all fit in the drawers.

Many items didn't fit so they were weeded out of course. I also got rid of anything they just don't like. My daughter is so picky about the comfort of her clothes so I got rid of anything scratchy, too tight or just plain annoying to her.

Two full green garbage bags of clothes are out of their rooms. Drew still had 15 bibs in one drawer, lots of infant socks and a bunch of onesies. Why of why did I still have these things, he is TWO for goodness sake.

The number of single socks was just frightening but now they are gone!!

Myah is even doing a great job of picking out her clothes in the morning now that she can find things and only they clothes she likes are left.

I am definitely back in the organizing mood.

plastic & wrapping and boxes, oh my

Well christmas has come and gone and so the stuff in my house has increased ten-fold. We have a very generous family and my children got sooooo many things!!! I am disturbed by the amount of packaging every toys comes in these days. I spentso much time, cutting tape and plastic, untwisting little metal ties and prying things apart so my kids could eventually play with their new toys!!

A specials thanks to the makers of LiteBrite Flash Art because it slide right out of the box with batteries pre-installed ready to play!! This was by far the most played with toy this year. Drew has really enjoyed seeing what else will spin on it. like a slipper, cars and a small soccer ball, much to his delight, lol.

We threw out bags of garbage and have tons to recycle but I am feeling a lot better about cleaning out the old toys now that they have many new things to enjoy. I have decided that they can have as many toys as fit on out large toy shelf and in the toy box. If it get full something has to go.

Each of the kids did get and "organizational" gift from me. A toy hammock for their rooms to put all those stuff animals in. Again they can only keep what fits. We will give all the extra stuff to out local women's shelter so they can see that they are going to a good place.