Paper plates used to be a must-have item in our house. Hubby would get nervous when we ran out. If he ever found what looked like it might be a grocery list lying around, he would jot down "paper plates, please." They were necessary for two reasons. First was as a last resort. When every single plate in the house was dirty and piled in the … [Read more...]
Decluttering
Decluttering is the foundation to transforming your home. But don't be afraid! We can start small.
A "Great" Cleaning Tip from a Slob
The Best Way to Clean this Play-Doh "Doolally": First, thank the mother of the child who gave it to your child. Then, allow your child to enjoy the "moment" and play with it to her heart's content. At clean up time, remove this tool and the other 15 parts of the toy and place them in a cabinet that looks something like this: Pile … [Read more...]
Painful Drawer Clean-out
Why painful, you ask? I cleaned out four, yes FOUR, kitchen drawers last night and today, and EVERY SINGLE one of them had tacks spilled in them. LOTS of tacks. Really? Is this some cruel joke I play on myself while sleepwalking? I have quite a few pictures I could show you. About 10 in fact. But I'm only going to show three since … [Read more...]
I’ll Declutter . . . But Do I Have to Give Up ALL my Dreams?
I worked some more in the kitchen today. As I've said before, finding a place for everything sounds nice, but it's a LOT of work. I began by looking for a place to put the Dollar Tree glasses that I washed yesterday. I ventured into an upper cabinet in a totally inconvenient place that I consistently forget exists. Good place for these … [Read more...]
Bringing Beauty Out of Hiding
I started doing some random decluttering this morning, and ended up very happy with big results. I began by moving some glass goblets that I had purchased at the Dollar Tree a while back because I "didn't have any nice glasses to use with my formal china." I learned this three Thanksgivings ago when we used our formal china for the first and … [Read more...]
Finding Places . . . . for EVERYthing?
Did I really say I would find a place for EVERYthing? In my house, everything is a lot of stuff. I guess that's the point. Thanks to my daily to-do list, I've been going through different hiding spots. Spots which at one point I thought were good places for those totally-random-items that don't have any other place to … [Read more...]
Daily Checklist – 1st Day of My New Chart
Today was the first day to use my new chart. For today, it was actually fun and very satisfying to make little blue Xs down the list. It definitely kept me on track and kept me from forgetting anything. We'll see how long it takes before I lose the list, can't find a pen, or just plain start ignoring it. Today I: Made bed. Emptied … [Read more...]
Being Realistic or Continuing the Problem?
I think that at this exact moment in time, all of my dishtowels and dishcloths are clean. A good thing, right? Hmmm. I don't know how to answer that exactly, because when they're all clean, the cute little basket where they're supposed to go . . . overflows and looks awful. I have a lot of them. And yet, somehow, there are many, many … [Read more...]
Projects vs. Progress – Adjusting my Thinking
I started this blog at the end of August, with the first post being on the first day of school. For moms, that's the real New Year. But here we are at the end of December and I'm getting the itch that it seems everyone is getting. Like I said yesterday, magazines and stores are pushing organizational products and ideas really hard. I think … [Read more...]