Too Many Irons in the Fire

 Things in my life are really complicated right now.  I am always striving for calm and look forward to slowing down again, but times like these are the ebb and flow of life.

When life becomes too busy and seemingly overwhelming it is hard to keep things as organized, clean, and detailed as I would like because I am moving  quickly from one thing to another to what I feel needs my attention most.  We call it "too many irons in the fire".

I know this has happened by the condition of our home.  I am the one that primarily cleans and organizes our home and when things start looking less than nice, I know it's because I haven't been able to devote the time and and energy into things here at home that I would like.  I enjoy keeping a clean, well organized home.  When my surroundings are clean and organized I am at ease.  It's easy for myself and others to find what they are looking for and I don't feel stressed.  The way I feel is often times a direct reflection on how my home looks,not in a vain decorated way, but in a comfortable clean and organized way.  It's not an altogether uncommon feeling, as I have heard and discussed this with others.  I have often heard comments like, "The house and kitchen are such a mess, we just went out for dinner instead".  "I would have someone over, but it's been too messy, so we went out instead".  I feel like this too when I am too busy to keep the house and it is too messy.  I want to "get away" and go out as well.  It's not comfortable or relaxing.  This for me is not good, our home is our haven and of all places we should love and enjoy being in our homes.

 When I find myself in this position I have two options, drop what I have taken on that has left me feeling frustrated and too busy, or after assessing why and what I have going on, and how much longer it will remain so busy, keep pushing on until I can slow down again and bear the ebb and flow of life.  The later is true for me now.  I will be able to slow soon but at the moment I have no choice but to endure the busy.  When I find myself in this situation and I cannot organize and clean like I want.  I find myself cleaning small area's as they are needed.

Today as I was making dinner, I opened the spice cabinet and decided as I used and added seasoning I would fill and organize my spices.  It felt really good to get this small area in our kitchen cleaned out and in shape while I was making dinner.  When I was finished I had dinner in the oven and an organized spice cabinet.  It was just the pep in my step I needed in an otherwise stressful time period right now.  I felt happy to have accomplished something toward keeping our home clean and organized and it spurred  an energy boost to tackle another much needed task.

I see the calm just around the corner, and soon will be able to devote the time and energy into our home that I would like.  Until then, I am striving to keep life as simple as I can in my little corner of the world.  Enjoy your day :)

Little Goals

School will soon be starting, and we have been working very hard to declutter and clean. However because of the emotions involved, going through one small box or moving a few items here and there seem like a monumental task.  Sunday I woke up with a predetermined goal.  I wanted the garage cleaned out so I could even think about working on our family room.

Before I could even begin going through dad's things on the scale that I wanted, we had to first start by  cleaning out our own garage so that we could put anything away that goes out there and not have piles in front of the garage door waiting for the day we cleaned it out.   Usually we do this twice a year.  I set donations in the garage and random items end up in there that we aren't sure what to do with and before we know it, the garage is not user friendly for what we need.  Now we have everything at least on the shelves leaving the middle open.  The goal for the garage was to clear out the middle to set up the treadmill and park our bikes.  I am very happy that our goal was reached!  Now to keep it that way through the winter by donating items as we have them instead of setting them in the garage.

Yesterday, my goal when I woke up was to clear out our family room to start with.  I wanted to get our house back to our standard of normal as much as possible before school started.  Normal for us is clear, clean, clutter free surfaces.  With the exception of my sewing room/office because I am always working on a project in there.

When we brought my dad's things home after cleaning out his house, our house turned  into a literal storage facility.  I had paths and random items carried by hand from the truck ALL over my home.  Six hours of my time was spent going through paperwork of my dad's that were in huge drum liners and trash bags stacked randomly around my family room.  File boxes full of files, and cardboard boxes as well.

I have more work to do, but you can see the scope of the project below.  I hesitate to post these photo's because I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking that I have decluttered my own belongings etc.  This is from moving my dad's house into our house almost a month ago.

After about twelve hours later, our sofa and floor at least on one half of the room is clear and clean.  Sorting paperwork was a process that yielded small results but lifted a huge weight from me personally.  I knew that it would be a very time consuming process but so important.  Once those papers are gone they cannot be replaced.  It was just a matter of determining what was important to keep and what could be burned.  I only have a few small file boxes to sort through at a later time and that big job is done.

After some appointments today, I will return home to hopefully finish clearing things out in the family room and if I have time I will work on the dining room.  If I stop now, in my experience clutter is a magnet and more will grow and build on what is left.  It's getting there!

I hope everyone joining Rhonda's decluttering for August is able to reduce a few items here and there and are feeling relaxed and enjoying their space as they reduce what they do not need.  I enjoy open space very much and in a small home, open space is a luxury!

Celebrating with Friends

Yesterday we had an amazing evening celebrating the 4th with our friends.  The weather was absolutely beautiful and the food delicious.  We had a large buffet of  food, the children ran around and played and shot off fireworks, swam, boated, and had a great time.  The adults enjoyed the merriment and chit chatting.  The fireworks display was just fantastic.  I am so thankful that we were able to spend the evening with our friends.  They are wonderful hosts and we always have a great time.

 Though out of focus, I really love this distorted picture of some of the fireworks.  It really shows so many colors that are in the fireworks that our eye doesn't always detect.

Today, as I come back to reality :)  I have been sifting and sorting around my desk area.  I am usually very tidy and organized, but recently though I just feel overwhelmed with paperwork.  While it is important to save receipts and paperwork, there does come a time when it is necessary to shred what is no longer relevant and clean out the files a bit.  I am at that point.  Not only physically but electronically as well.  Yesterday before leaving  for the gathering, I spent over an hour sorting and deleting bookmarks, sorting blogs, and deleting information that was no longer relevant.  This is an important housekeeping process to stay organized and efficient as you manage your files at home.  I will continue to work on this project as I go about other chores today.  It will be nice to have this project done :)

 These are some gentle rolling hills along a highway that we travel a lot.  At one point along the highway I can see for many miles in several directions around our area.  It's very beautiful and rolling scenery.

Organizing the Junk Drawer

A part of my deep cleaning plan this week was to tackle a hidden spot in our home.  We have not one but two junk drawers.  We have old cabinets that have shallow drawers so their use is limited.  However they are perfect for small tools and pens and pencils and.....junk!

Our home is very tidy and clean, these drawers are very uncharacteristic messy, inefficient and well, actually embarrassing!  I had already removed and sorted onto the counter the items from the right drawer.  Oh my goodness!  It didn't grow to this over night.  As we brought things in from our work area to use in the house we would put them in the drawer to take back out "later".  When we came across small things we didn't know what to do with like a nail and screw or push pin we would drop it in the drawer.  Gradually it filled up to overflowing.  So I dug in and got to work.   I needed some drawer organizers so I looked around the house and found some nice sized boxes that I could cut down and use to organize the contents of the drawers.  I sorted the belongings and removed and placed everything that needed to go back out to the work area and took it out there.  Now all I have left to deal with is the items that do truly stay inside.

What a big difference!  Even though these drawers are out of sight it feels so good to know they are tidy and ready to use.  These drawers are now efficient and will benefit everyone in our home...and no, I had no idea we had THAT many ink pens!!! lol :)

Reducing Stress,Frustration, and Spending by Organizing

I have said many times that I like to have a place for everything in our home.  My reasoning stems from the fact that I don't like clutter.  I also have other reasons.  When I open a cabinet that is cluttered and disorganized I cannot properly see what I have in the cabinet and I also become frustrated searching for something that may not even be in the cabinet.  After thoroughly looking admittedly if I can't find it I will put it on my shopping list and purchase it again.  The bigger frustration is thinking you have what you need only to find an empty box when you finally get to it under the pile!  So if I start with an organized area I eliminate stress, frustration (stress again), and spending extra money that I don't need to!  While remodeling I did not have the time or energy to stop and deal with "problem" area's.  Now when I come across these area's I stop asses what needs done and fix it!  I can't tell you how many times I have opened this cabinet to get out plastic bags and wrap to have the pile fall over or remove the mixer and have them fall into what is supposed to be the space for the mixer.  No more!

This time when I opened the cabinet I stopped and assessed the problem and corrected it.

 Very simple shelving allowed me to organize the wraps and plastic bags, create room for paper towel storage AND see at a quick glance what we have or don't have.  How did I not have time to deal with this?  Including vacuuming the cabinet the whole project took no more than ten minutes and has been disorganized for at least three years!  This quick project eliminated stress, frustration, and extra spending.  A winning solution :)

Clean Garage Restored Normality

You might remember this horrid garage photo from last week.  I am so happy this chore is finished!  Before...

 and after...

I took it nice and slow and worked a bit here and there.  There was a LOT to organize and many tools from remodeling to put away.  I feel in a way that the remodeling chapter is now closed.  Yes, the work was finished a while ago, but is a project really over until the mess is cleaned up?  Not really in my book and now it is :)  What a joy it is to come into the garage and be able to quickly locate what I need, use it and have a place to return it to!!!  I feel like I am home!!!  I love it :)

Why am I sharing my dirty garage before and after pictures? Because, I am a normal person with normal messes and I want give encouragement to anyone  else who might open the garage door, peer in, put up their hands in exasperation because they just don't know where to start and shut the door again.  Just pick up that first item the rest is downhill and the rewards are worth it :)

The heat and air repair men came Tuesday afternoon as I was cleaning the garage and fixed the heater!  I was very appreciative and thankful.  They were both very nice.


and...Don't forget to enter my 150th post celebration give away!!!   

Busy as a Bee at the Pace of a Turtle

I have been making progress today on the garage.  Not fast progress but DD1 said she could tell I had gotten a lot done.  Coming from a teen that was a huge compliment :)  I am hoping to finish the organization of tools tomorrow.  I do not know if I will be able to paint the garage floor.  I might wait until spring for that.  I was thinking that perhaps that might be better suited for a hot weather project where the humidity off the floor will evaporate quickly and dry well after pressure washing the floor.  I'm afraid that with the cool in the air the floor will not dry properly and the paint may not adhere correctly.  I do not want that mess!

The heat and air workers came today and found the problem and have a part ordered and will call when it arrives to replace it.  We are closer to having the heat fixed and once again I am very thankful for both back up heating should we need it and mild weather.

For dinner we had a delicious pizza made at home.  This is not the finished pizza but I just loved how the pepperoni's looked like a big flower with many petals in the pain.

  I thought it was pretty in a food sort of way :)  DD1 thought it was a bit silly but I explained to her that life is short, find joy in the little things and that was my little bit of joy for the moment :)

Cleaning The Garage and Other Busy Work

The heater repair company has not yet contacted us so we are still without heat.  However the back up heater we are using is working more than sufficiently and thankfully it is not very cold here again.  Last night I actually turned the heater off because we were too warm and it was on low.  I am very thankful for mild weather right now again while the heater is broken and I am also thankful that we had a cold spell and discovered that it was broken before the real cold of winter sets in.

I have been really busy today.  I painted a project I will show you soon...  made quiche for dinner, and have been cleaning out the garage.  I decided to make dinner early because it can set, and if I got tired from cleaning out the garage dinner was done no matter what.  Before you think a garage shouldn't wear me out...

um, ya it's pretty bad!    We have tried to keep it organized but inevitably things get tossed in the garage and well it gets piled up pretty quickly.  I am slowly working on organizing tools today.  Remember I like a place for everything and things are not grouped together which makes finding tools to do things a pain.  It is frustrating to have things disorganized.  This is the last area that needs worked on in our house.  I'm taking it slow and steady.  My goal is to completely finish cleaning and paint the floor of the garage.  I think that a smooth painted surface will be much easier to sweep and keep clean.  Projects like this make me happy.  This is a very well used area for our house.  It is our only storage area aside from a small yard shed and very important to function well.  Wish me luck, this is a monster project to tackle by myself.  Usually DH and I work together on this but he is working and it needs done.  I can feel the cold of winter nipping on my heels as I work today! It's overcast and cool.  While I am working I have been smelling these delicious quiche's baking...

Oh I can't wait for dinner.  My DD2 has been asking for me to make quiche for a week.  She is going to be delighted :)

Mini Fabric Bolts

I would like to extend a warm welcome to those visiting from Sew Many Ways linking party!  It is very nice to have you here :)  

I really enjoy Karen's blog she has a wonderful sewing space that was very inspiring to me as I designed my own space and I love her projects, helps, and hints.  I encourage you to visit her blog.

I continued settling into my "new" sewing room today.  Oh what an absolute joy to have this space!  I began by focusing on my surfaces.  Remember I'm a clean surface girl :)  I have read in several places about mini bolts of fabric and decided that this was a perfect storage solution for me.  It is easy, tidy and very organized.  So this pile of yardage was what I tackled first.  Even neatly stacked it is easy to overlook a fabric in the stack.  Fabric is expensive and I don't want to purchase something twice if I don't need to.  Anything that is smaller than about 3/4 of a yard I fold up and put on the fat quarter shelf.  Everything else gets folded into mini bolts.
  
We purchased boards that are placed behind comic books as the board for the mini bolts for stability.  I used two the first time and after that only used one per bolt.  The ones I used are 6 3/4" X 10 1/2" there are 100 in a package and they were $6.99.  Start by laying out your fabric with the folded side at the top or furthest away from your body with the selvage next to your body.

 Fold the selvage edge up to the folded edge.  This is a good time to straighten fabric that is not folded very well.  Next place a board a little way in from the edge.  Fold the edge over on to the board and continue rolling up the fabric watching your bottom edge keeping it uniform while rolling up the fabric.

 
When you get to the end of the fabric simply fold the edge over and secure with a straight pin. 

 Now you have a finished mini bolt of fabric.

This is the same stack of messy yardage I started with.  I love how now they are all uniform and tidy and easy to organize and put away.

I shuffled some books that I don't read as often to the highest shelf and organized my new min bolts above  the scrap book supplies.  They are very easy to organize and it is also very easy to see what fabrics I have on hand for projects and inspiration for new projects!  Happy Organizing :)

Clearing Counter Clutter

Well that's fairly catchy if I do say so myself.  A bit of a tongue twister!  As I tidied up from breakfast I came back into the kitchen and this is what I saw.

It's not horrendous I know but the area pictured is my only counter-top workspace in the kitchen aside from our island.  I realized that not only were the counters unsightly and cluttered but a very large portion of space was being taken up.  I immediately set out to organize and store away items in a still convenient location just not in plain sight.  I was very pleased with my results.

So pleased in fact.... that I spent the remainder of my day sorting clearing and cleaning all the surfaces in the kitchen.  I am happy to say I am down to a very small miscellaneous pile to be finished in the morning and I am left with very wonderful clutter free counter tops in the kitchen!  As I head off to bed I do so with a huge sense of satisfaction because so much was accomplished today.  Good night :)

Life in the File Cabinet

I have been working steadily to catch up on laundry and have the last of it on the line drying.  It feels so good to be caught up.  When I am finished with a task I look around and see if there is anything else that I need to spend some extra time working on.  One task that needed my attention is the filing cabinet.  I have years of papers that needed sorting and disposed of.  A lot of the papers were irrrelevant and needed shredding as they had personal information on them.

A lot of the papers in the cabinet were older than ten years and as I sorted through the folders I was able to also go back in time to what we were doing in our lives at that time.  Both financially and physically.  I saw trends in our life when we were busy paying off debt and times when most if not all of our income was going toward remodeling a home.  I looked at the children's artwork and school papers and remembered what they were doing in school and the activities and certificates they received and I could see them proudly singing for a musical at school or receiving an award at their awards ceremony.  Our life was in that cabinet tucked away  here and there in different folders.  Above all was the common thread of family.  Everything was joined by our goals for our family and the work and effort to meet those goals and raise healthy happy children and to provide a nurturing and loving environment for our DD's.  Many goals have changed and evolved along the way as we are raising our DD's.  It was an interesting insight into our lives from the file cabinet.  I'm curious to see how our lives will change in the future.  I do know one thing, I will not be accumulating another ten years worth of papers in that cabinet!  Above all else, no matter what we are doing in our lives, no matter what our goal is, our family is the most important by far.

Productive Sunday

I didn't end up having time to learn to till the garden...but I did get a chance to purchase some seeds! I also was able to empty this cluttered pantry and go through each food item and check it's expiration date and if we needed or would use it and get rid of the clutter.  Before on the right and after on the left.  The other way around would make more sense if I could get the pictures to cooperate. I looked through each item as I removed it from the shelves, then gave it a thorough cleaning and wiped down the shelves. I really inspect all packages and food containers carefully.  I do not want to have a rodent problem or bug problem.  Foods that I think would have a problem due to packaging I place in containers to keep safe.  I also attend to any food spills right away and keep this area as clean as possible.  It is such a relief when I open the pantry door in search of ingredients and it is so clean and organized!  I am glad that I had a chance to clean the pantry before going to the supermarket today.  It made my job easier knowing exactly what was in the pantry and knowing what I needed to purchase as I wrote out the meals I was panning on cooking over the next several weeks.

 

I believe in yesterday's post I said I would try and include a picture of the yard and gardens to be able to visualize what I was describing.  This picture is the bare spot that I am thinking of putting gravel in.  I would surround it with rocks or something on the grass side.  This is somewhat of a high traffic area because of the porch swing that you can barely see on the far right side of the picture that is attached to the tree.  I love to sit outside and listen to the fountain tucked away in the garden and enjoy my beautiful garden.

At one time there was a cedar shrub growing in front of the porch and we pulled it out and I put in the flower gardens, however the grass does not want to grow here because it is very acidic aside from the foot traffic.  We could lay sod but that would be bumpy due to the tree roots.  I believe I could effectively put gravel in and around the roots and try to keep the top of the gravel at the same height as the top of the roots to prevent tripping and falls.  That is my hope.  I am also hoping that it will really clean this area up I think it is very unsightly. 

This is the new flowerbed my husband and I are working on around the sapling.  This tree  was a seedling when we moved from the other house I discovered it among the flowers in the wheel barrow.  We transplanted it here and it has thrived every since.  Another reminder in my landscape to grow where I am planted!

It all started with a jar

After digging around under the sink for dishwasher packets I decided that I wanted a large jar to hold them in. Not just for it's practicality, but because I like to open cabinets and have lovely jars or containers holding my every day supplies.  It brings a smile to my face...and so does the journey that started with the jar.

My husband helped me find this lovely 1950's era jar to hold my dishwasher packets of soap. I immediately loved the way it looked with the packets in the jar.  As I turned to place the jar under my sink I was disgusted at the condition of the cabinet that I use so many times a day.  I emptied it out, wiped the bottom down and went to the garage for paint.  This cabinet hadn't been painted in 30 yrs. and it needed something... I started by cleaning up spilled baking soda and wiping out the cabinet.

I selected a beautiful cranberry red and started in.  As the cabinet changed from powder blue to cranberry I liked it more and more.  I cleaned things up, reloaded my baking soda from a messy recycled container with a faulty lid to an old canning jar. I put my scrubbers in another glass jar and placed them all under the sink admiring the "new" space.  In less than thirty minutes I had transformed a dreadful cabinet to a lovely pleasant area that I use repeatedly during the day...and it all started with a jar!

All Settled In

 

For several weeks I have been working on transforming our home into more than just a living space.  We have lived here over five years and like many older homes it has needed it's fair share of repairs.  Slowly we are turning this house into our home.   This has happened following a change of heart which greatly helps the way you view your home!   I intentionally had chosen to not call this house my true home because I had no intentions of living here for very long from the moment it was purchased.  It was not purchased as a permanent home and I was becoming more and more steamed up about it the longer we lived here.  There is nothing wrong with the house, it's just that it is in town and I wanted to live the dream... in the country.  Instead of wishing away perfectly good time waiting for the dream I decided to live here and be happy and live the dream either in town or in the country.  Either way I was going to live.  So naturally along with that decision came changes and the first of which is color!  I am a visual person and have to have color in my life and the absence of color on the walls while we were working on the house needed to change immediately if I was going to call this house my home.  So it happened.  We did a room shuffle and painted and now I have a very functional and wonderful sewing room with plenty of room to teach my daughters how to sew, and host my cherished friends that come to sew as well each week.  There is even room for a dollhouse nestled away into the corner for my daughter.  There are plenty of shelving to hold books, and scrapbook supplies as well.

On this side of the room I have more shelving which holds fabric, notions, and project kits along the top shelf.  A small table for laying things out has machine covers and batting tucked away underneath.  And a large sturdy ironing board along the wall.  We usually have the machines set up on the table and do our cutting on the cutting mat moved to the kitchen island.  This frees up even more space in the sewing room.  Here I have the machines scooted around a bit to make a  few quick cuts.  Everything in this room is well organized and easy to access.  It is a pure joy to work in here.  And last but not least color on the walls!  Deep rich color in sort of a cranberry that provides stimulation and a cozy backdrop to the room I spend so much time in.  I have sewn more lately than I have for a long time.  I attribute this to my change of heart and the stimulation of color. One of the projects that I worked on last week was a baked potato bag which I will talk about tomorrow.  If you are not feeling at home in your house... think about what it is that is stopping you.  Mostly likely as in my case it is not all about the house...it might also have a bit to do with attitude.  For me a change of heart has changed my life, that and a bit of color!

Reducing Clutter

We have to work very hard around here to keep clutter to a minimum.  Currently I'm accepting a clutter challenge on a forum I belong to.  I've been dragging my feet about it all summer long.  With school about to start and chaos consuming the kids rooms I cannot put it off any longer!  There are a few things that really help when I am on a decluttering mission.  I have found that when I am cleaning a room and trying to clear clutter I keep a bag for trash, a bag to donate and one for clothing.  We donate clothing and misc. to two different places.  I wait about a week and go through that same room again.  When I am working on a room the first time through sometimes because I am removing so much I get soft or just worn out and don't get rid of as much as I should.  This is particularly when I am working in the kids rooms.  I am able to go back through and fine tune the room again the next week and get it worked down to a bare minimum.  I have found that if I skip the second round in a room, it collects clutter faster than if I just clean it once.  The other major thing that helps reduce clutter in our home is to not bring it in!  Simple I know but I have to ignore the impulse in me that thinks we might be able to use an object somewhere. After the last few garage sales I have realized that a lot of what I bring in I am turning around and selling or donating it because I really don't have a place for it anyway.  I also tend to stick to the same decorating style I have had for years.  So when I see things that don't "fit" my home I leave it there.  I also have no more room for anything else so if I bring it home I have to get rid of something else.  Guess what?  I have decided that I like everything I have and have stopped bringing more home!   It has to be really special to add to our home.

Lately I have realized and don't really want to know, just how many years of my time I have spent picking up and cleaning the same things over and over and over.  I don't even like a lot of these things.  It's time for them to go.  I have also stopped attaching sentiment to things.  Sure I have special pieces of furniture passed down, and other special things but not everything is special!  Yes, we have had items  since the kids were little but I can't possibly keep everything that we purchased for them since they were born.  Who am I keeping it for anyway?  I certainly wouldn't have wanted everything my mom had purchased for me.  So here's to you and yours as you go about your cleaning routines and those of you working on reducing clutter around your homes.  I hope a few of the things that have helped me are of help to you.  The biggest help will be the peace and calm you have when you walk through your newly decluttered home and feel the stress melt away.  I enjoy nothing more than the soothing feeling of a clean home.