Some Simple Changes

So I'm slowly learning (and I do mean slow - I've had this blog for over a year now), that I really need to schedule blog posts if I want them to done regularly. If I don't, I just end up with a gigantic pile up of pictures and notes about projects and then it becomes overwhelming to tackle. For now I'm going to jump right in with three simple things that I've done - two are organizational, one is decorative and was a fun way for me to put my Pinterest time to good use. :-)

My first little change was done after yet another attempt at cleaning out my beauty items. "When did I buy this?", "Did this always smell this way?", "I wonder how long is too long to keep foot cream?", etc, etc. So I found a list of the standard shelf life for common beauty items and printed it out (you can find it here at Real Simple). I then found a clear sleeve from an old binder, put the list in, put double sided tape on the back of the sleeve, and attached it to the inside of one of the cabinet doors under my sink. I also have begun writing down the month of purchase for each item so its easier to keep track of how long they've been in there. Easy peesy! And now I feel completely at ease rubbing lotion on my face because I know exactly how long I've owned it.

The second change required my hubby's help, but it took maybe an hour out of his day. I've always hated my spice cabinet. And when I say spice cabinet, I mean cabinet next to the stove with all of our spices tossed in. While I like the idea of a spice rack, I don't have that much counter space and any wall space that could be usable for a wall mounted one really can't be considered part of the kitchen. 

But then I realized that there was some space under the microwave. Hmm. So I had the hubs grab a piece of leftover wood from a former project, cut it the correct length, sand it, and paint a clear coat on it. Once it had dried for 24 hours or so, he screwed the board into the bottoms of the cabinets on either side. Viola! Little spice shelf. It's right there where I need it, I can find everything immediately, and dare I say that our food has become more flavorful ever since? Turns out being able to actually find the spices is pretty important if you want to use them. As the glass spice jars become empty, I've been cleaning them to peel the brand labels away. I am so excited to create clear labels for them all! It will be cute, clean, and standard - and my OCD will love it. 

Here's the third item and something that I had tons of fun doing. Maybe you've seen that DIY gigantic ruler on Pinterest? Not only is it a fun decor addition, but a great way to measure your kids' height and keep it forever. I decided to make one. Once again, I took a piece of board from a former project and had the hubby cut it into the right length (I chose 6 ft for mine), and then sand it down.

 There it is. Waiting to be turned into something fabulous.

I carefully measured out each inch (I did begin the measurements a little over 1 ft and then ended it a little over 6 ft, based upon where it was going to be hung on the wall), stenciled in the numbers, and then filled everything in with black craft paint. After it dried, the hubby used a stain that brought out the beauty and natural grain of the wood.

And there it is. I am happy knowing that I made that and it's a unique addition to our home decor.

The littlest things really can make a big difference.

Keeping it all Straight

For over a year now, I've been gathering ideas and thinking up ways to simplify, reorganize, and decorate every single area in our home. Obviously, I utilize Pinterest like a mad woman, so I can "store" various ideas there - even if I end up never using them or decide that they won't actually work for our home. But beyond that, I've been keeping all of my ideas and reminders for our home projects solely in my head. And it's taken me a year to realize that it doesn't work very well. I never remember what I wanted to do when I'm headed to Home Depot/Target/thrift store and I get frustrated. Also, my husband has no idea what I want done because he has nothing to reference.

So here's my plan: I am going around to each room of the house, armed with a notebook, a pen, and a camera. Each room will have their own page and on each page there are three headings: Maintenance, Organization, and Decoration. I will take a picture of each area of the room that I want to make changes to, so we have them on file for Before/After photos.

The Maintenance section will be mostly for my husband to reference. Organization will belong mostly to me, with an asterisk next to the items that both of us will need to be involved in (building, supplies, or large purchases). And Decoration will be solely my section, although I do occasionally have the hubby assist with decor projects that require woodworking.

So there's my project for this weekend. I'm excited about this. Not only because I will finally have everything written down for both of us to reference at any point, but I can add or take away from the lists as needed, keeping it flexible. And who knows? Maybe our projects will get done a little faster this way!

Renewed

I've been trying. Trying really hard to get this whole simple living thing down. And I feel like a massive failure. I was in tears the other night, feeling so overwhelmed and not understanding why, when I've done so much so far. But it is not where I want it to be. Not even close.

I picked up a book from the library yesterday called "The Money Saving Mom's Budget" by Crystal Paine. I read through the first couple of pages while I was waiting to pick up my youngest from preschool and it completely renewed my sense of hope for living simply. Not only to get a better grasp of our budget to pay down debt, but also to live with fewer things, fewer distractions. It was also a great reminder that projects like this - a complete life overhaul - don't happen quickly. It can take YEARS and I need to be prepared for that possibility.

I can do this. I will do this. And it will be worth every bead of sweat, every tear, and every frustrated tantrum that comes out in the process.

Well, Hello!

My last post was in July? Oh my goodness. Well, my excuse is that I was spending lots and lots of time with my kids before school started back up and blogging was last on my list. But now school has begun again (NOOO!!!) and I am back to trying to simplify things. It's now more important than ever. Why, you ask? A couple of reasons:

1. I am continuing my college education this fall and am only two credits away from being full time. Ick. Don't get me wrong - I really think I'm going to love my courses, but I fully expect to be bogged down with homework most of the time.

2. I have two kids in school this year. Granted, one is just two days a week in preschool, but it's still one more kid to get off to school two mornings a week. My other child is in 1st grade and in full day school for the first time, which means I have to keep up with the bag lunches every evening (along with my husband's, so two total). Plus, there's the expected increase in homework, which we'll need to keep organized and make sure it's completed on time.

3. The preschool is a co-op. I love the co-op system, but it requires more of me and especially so this year since it's our fourth year and I've agreed to a larger role on the school council. I will be spending many hours per month at the preschool, not to mention the preschool business that will be brought home with me for the school newsletter.

4. Both kids have requested at least one extracurricular activity for the school year. We haven't decided on what it is yet, but that will add to our weekly schedule. Most likely we will have swimming or wrestling twice per week and either piano or gymnastics once per week.

This doesn't even include all of the regular "life" stuff and extra events that happen throughout the year. Thank goodness I'm not working right now - I don't think I could handle it! As you can see, I'm going to need as much simplicity as possible. There's a part of me that liked giving up all schedule throughout the summer so we could focus on just having fun. But there's also a part of me who craves getting back onto an organized schedule into a very organized life.

I did spend part of the summer working on simplifying and re-organizing a few areas of the house and I am excited to share those projects with you. I am also beginning the strict weekly practice of meal planning and freezer cooking, which I totally lost throughout the summer. I'll do separate post on that because I certainly have quite a few thoughts about it!

There's just something about fall that makes me want to organize everything and get it all in order. I spent an hour thoroughly cleaning my vacuum this afternoon, for goodness sake! And for some reason, it made me feel like I'd really accomplished something.

Grocery Costs and Food Waste

I let the grocery budget go last month. Not really on purpose, although I was interested to see if sticking to a budget had changed any grocery shopping habits. It had not. In fact, I spent more than we had been last time I let the budget go a few months before that. I have noticed that costs have gone up on a few of our regular items, so I'm sure that was a factor. Also a factor: the boys have both been eating a lot due to growth spurts.   But whatever contributed to the extra costs, I was a little disappointed to see that I hadn't changed any shopping habits.


For June, I spent $677.04. That's $277.04 over my desired grocery budget. I do usually go over the budget to a certain extent each month and that's probably reasonable to expect. The USDA estimates that the standard "frugal" budget for a family of four in 2011 was between $523.70 and $603.10. What I spent for June was still under the "low cost" budget for a family of four. What I WANT to spend is standard for the frugal/low cost plan for a family of two. Want to know more? Check out: Official USDA Food Plans: US Average, 2011.

I'm changing the way I track my food budget, as I discovered that separating food and household basics was taking too long per receipt and making me procrastinate on entering all of the information. So, I'm just sticking to a single amount per month and not worry about what portion goes to food and what portion goes to household basics. The tracking for the first part of this month went a lot faster and looks more straightforward on my tracking page.

So far so good. We have 2 1/2 weeks left in the month and I have just over $300 left in the grocery budget. We're going to have to go shopping soon as we're getting darn close to eating fridge scraps, but there's nothing wrong with using what we have on hand. We throw out too much food. According to the US Dept of Agriculture, the average US family throws out 14% of their food purchases and as a country, we throw out between 25-50%, depending on what studies you read. You can read about it here: Scientific American: Waste Land.

Is this a problem for your family? Does it bother you to throw out the food that you've spent your hard earned money on? Join me in learning ways to reduce household food waste by starting here: EPA.gov: Household Food Waste.

Outdoor Simplicity

As much as we're trying to simplify everything indoors, our outdoors needed a lot of help too. Our entire property was overgrown when we bought it, and that included the small backyard (which is really more of a large patio). There was an ugly, moldy trellis overhang over the main patio portion, so that came down super fast. The backyard only gets light in the morning, so adding extra shade and darkness in back seemed like a confusing decision for the builders to make. Even though we actually took care of this part almost two years ago, I mention it because it's part of the big picture of fixing the backyard space. And it will come into play later because the pieces of it are still stacked in a huge nasty pile along the side of our house. I'm sure our neighbors love seeing that when they look out their kitchen window.

Here's one half of the backyard. See that tree at the end? It was pushing the fence apart so much that the fence started breaking. So the tree had to come out.

You never know how many branches and leaves are on a tree until it's laying in your backyard.

Here's another part of the backyard. The way the property is, we get a lot of rain runoff and erosion. Basically, the backyard was coated in a nice thick layer of mud and rock.

The goal here was to take it once small portion at a time and clear away all the mud and rock, replacing it with new river rock and actually have visible paving stones. It took me a few weekends with a pick axe, but I cleared it all away and made some nice grooves in between all of the paving stones in this section.

Then I took three bags of river rock, spread them all out, hosed it all down (since the river rock comes coated in dirt), and there it was. Simple, serene, dare I say...pretty?

It's slowly occurring to me that by attempting to simplify our home, I'm actually doing more work than before. I mean, why start a landscaping project when I'm trying to make my life easier? That's why it's a process, I guess. I have to work to get the simplicity that I want. I am seeing changes in our home and it doesn't feel as out of control as it did in the past. I'm hoping for the same for our outdoor areas. I want a relaxing, good looking space that our children can actually use for playtime. Our property has been a major source of stress because it's been so overgrown. I was embarrassed by it whenever we had people over. I look forward to the day when I can look out into my backyard and be happy with what I see.

Read It

Read this article from Yahoo! Even if you do nothing else today, read this.

Why clutter matters and decluttering is difficult

Trouble Zone

I have to say, without a doubt, that the biggest trouble zone in our home is the office. It's an entire room, not just an area, as the third bedroom is the office. It houses three desks, a filing cabinet, and two bookshelves. The closet is board game storage, along with some boxes of things we don't want to keep in the garage for temperature control reasons.

I don't want to spend a fortune on organizational systems for this room. I know that I'm going to have to buy a few things to get it organized, but I feel like we should be able to make it clean and functional with what we have. For the most part anyway.

There are two big issues with the office:
One is paperwork. There is lots of it and we're not great at filing things in a timely manner. This means that we end up with piles of paperwork on almost every surface. Obviously this is a behavioral thing on our part and we need to get into the habit of filing things at least once per week, if not every day. We also need to make it priority to clear out the filing cabinet once per year, or else we're going to end up with a decade's worth of utility bills shoved into an overflowing cabinet.
The other issue is that the office seems to be the catch-all room for things we don't know what to do with. I hear this complaint of office areas most often, so I know we're not alone. This is where needing a clear cut organized room comes in. If there's a place for everything, we should be able to put everything (and I mean everything) away at the end of the day.

The office can turn into a absolute mess. I'm talking hoarders kind of mess. It's disgusting, it stresses me out, and I'm ashamed of that room. I've been working on it ever so slowly, but it's nowhere near where it needs to be. I've purged some more things, threw out games that had broken or missing pieces, transferred some books to other bookshelves in the house, and removed some clunky "organizational" items that weren't actually helping.

Clean, organized, simple, pretty. That's what I'm going for. I don't know how long it will take me and I might rip some hair out in the process, but I'll get there.

Recommended

If you haven't done it yet, I fully recommend this post over on SimpleMom. If you've been feeling anything like I have lately, it will speak to your soul in just the way you need.

SimpleMom: When Simple Was Easy(er)

Linen Closet

Pardon my increasingly extended absence. School is kicking my rear this term, but it's been a huge reminder as to why I'm trying to simplify everything. It's also shown me that our home/lifestyle is not nearly as simplified as it needs to be. Of course, we did go and adopt another dog, which adds to the chaos a bit. But the temporary craziness that comes from training a new dog is well worth giving a shelter dog a home and the love and companionship that comes with it.

One of the big areas in which we continue to attempt to simplify is in our household organization. Now, as much as I love organization stores, it can end up being quite expensive. So when I went to re-organize my linen closet (which is a tiny little thing), I opted to not buy a bunch of fancy bins. The goal here was not to make it pretty, but to clear out what was unnecessary and to create a better functioning space.

Here's the before: 

 Um yeah, so there was one nicely folded pile of hand towels. Everything else was a jumbled mess.

I started by taking everything off of each shelf, one shelf at a time. What did we need to keep from that shelf? What did we no longer use? Half of the linen closet space was being taken up by baby blankets and hooded infant towels. Have I mentioned that my kids are 4 and 6? Out they went! My hubby took some of the old towels and washcloths to use for garage cleanup (paint thinner and things like that), the rest went to Goodwill. I decided which baby blankets were special to us and they were packed up in the garage with the few baby clothes I kept. The rest went to Goodwill or friends who wanted them.

Some of our sheet sets and towels were full of holes, so they were tossed. The remaining sheet sets were folded together and then placed inside one of that set's pillow cases. That way there aren't piles upon piles taking up room and I always know that I'll be able to find every portion of a sheet set when I need it.

I did have two larger baskets that I had gotten on deep clearance at my old job, so I used one of them for blanket storage and one for bulk toilet paper storage. I was also able to create enough room to store bulk paper towels.

Here's the after:

Paper towels on one shelf, all sheet sets (stored in pillow cases) on another, all towels on another, smaller blanket and sleeping bag storage on another, oversized blankets and guest bedding on another, and a basket of bulk toilet paper at the bottom. It's clean, I know where everything is, and there's not a bunch of unused and ratty towels and blankets taking up room. And the storage baskets were less than $10 for the both of them.

Inexpensive and organized. Just how I like it!

Sophistication

Tip of the Day

Vacuuming is one of the most basic household duties and yet most people never think to do this one very simple thing.

Clean Your Vacuum!

Admittedly this probably only applies to those of us with canister vacs, but it's so important. If you want to improve your vacuum's ability to get all the nasty stuff out of your carpet, take out the canisters and clean them thoroughly. Cut all the hair and carpet fibers out of the roller bar. If you have a vacuum with a removable filter like I do, clean the filter once per month. It will increase the lifespan of your vacuum and you'll be surprised at much extra dirt is getting sucked up once it's clean.

Grocery Update

I haven't posted about grocery costs in a while and one of the blogs I read regularly just had topic about doing a grocery audit, so it reminded me that I really needed to go over things again and see where we stood. To remind you, we have been attempting $300 per month on food and $100 on household items like tp, pet food, cleaning supplies, etc - $400 total. After a few months, we seem to be gravitating towards a natural spending amount of between $500-550 for food and household costs. This being said, some months, we are able to get around our goal amount.

I honestly don't know why we can make our goal amount some months and other months go $100+ over. Maybe it depends on how much I'm using coupons in a particular month (I'm not a big coupon user but will use one if I was going to buy that item anyway). Maybe some months we are able to cruise by on our pantry stockpile. I just have no idea.

This month, I'm attempting to do more freezer cooking, which I've been told will cut down on food costs big time once you get the hang of it. So far, I've spent half of our grocery budget for the month and have stocked up on bulk items at Costco. Once I get some more freezer cooking done and have outlined more meal plans for the month, I am hoping that it will enable me to successfully say that I was able to meet our food budget at the end of the month.

We have discussed raising our grocery budget by $50 to see if that gives us a little more wiggle room so we aren't stressing out about how much we've spent and aren't squeaking by on plain white rice and carrots for the last few meals of the month. But before we do that, I want to attempt a heavier freezer cooking rotation to see what difference, if any, it makes. I look forward to giving an update!

Before and Afters

Yes yes, I said I was going to post before and afters during spring break. Life tackled us again unexpectedly and then we went out of town. You think I would have learned by now that whenever I plan to catch up on things, we will all get sick.

Anyway, the first round of before and afters are not that amazing, I admit. But I chose to post them anyway to show that you can make little changes that will make things slightly easier and a little more attractive. Sometimes the very small things make all the difference.

A small area that had been bothering me was the top of the fridge. I had been setting all of my routinely used cleaning supplies on top of the fridge for easy accessibility, but it was making it look cluttered. And my minimalist mentality was losing it. So, I thought, I'll just move the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink. The only issue? Under the kitchen sink looked like this:

I was unaware that I had become a plastic grocery bag hoarder, but there must have been 300-400 plastic bags under there. It would take me a LONG time to use up all of those in our little trashcans, so I took most of them out and recycled them at the grocery store. Something to look into if you're overrun with plastic bags: Check if your grocery store as a plastic bag recycling depository (ours is at the entrance of the store with the shopping carts). Of course, we're lucky enough to live in super recycling land (aka Portlandia), so I realize not all states have widespread recycling availability.

So, I was going to have to tackle under the sink if I wanted to fix this:

Yuck. I hate clutter. Lucky for me, it takes less than a minute to clear off the top of fridge, so I had immediate satisfaction when I saw my minimalist decor.

Ah, no more cleaning supplies up there! And yes, the front of my fridge is a tad OCD, but I like having pictures of family and friends up there and they needed to be organized by size. I also have my weekly menu and my housecleaning list separated by daily, weekly, monthly, and annual lists. A tip: clear tape instead of magnets makes things look a lot cleaner and keeps them from moving all around.

So then I tackled under the sink. I got rid of 75% of the plastic bags. I left the ones in the plastic bag holder and one reusable bag full. The other three bags full of bags were recycled. I also took out some bulk supplies so we could keep our bulk items in one spot in the house (the laundry room) instead of some here and some there.

Again, this doesn't look super amazing, but it's better than it was. My reusable bags are finally easy to get to (I was having to dig around for them before, which is probably how we ended up with so many plastic bags - I didn't want to bother attempting to find them!). All the supplies are within immediate reach and there is nothing that I have to reach far back into the cabinet to get.

While it is better than it was, this is one area that is going to need a few more attempts before I'm totally happy with it. There's some suggestions floating around Pinterest suggesting tension rods for hanging cleaning supplies or small wire shelving. I was planning on doing that, but I found that due to how our piping is set up under the sink, there's no way to get shelving or tension rods to fit properly. So I'm still working on an alternative storage plan. Plus, as I finish using up our individual store bought cleaners, I'll be switching to using vinegar and baking soda for all my cleaning, which will drastically reduce the amount of space the cleaning supplies take up.

I am looking forward to figuring out a final solution and sharing it with you. Next up for before and afters, the linen closet!

Still chugging along!

Don't worry - I haven't forgotten about this blog! The past two weeks have been filled with lots of studying for my finals, so my blog time has been few and far between. Luckily, I've still been working on simplifying our house and I've been taking pictures, so there are going to be some before/after posts coming up next week (spring break).

Speaking of spring, it's time for SPRING CLEANING!! YAY!! I decided to do another round of purging. Um, how is it that we still have more stuff to get rid of? It really boggles my mind. We obviously didn't need all of this crud and it's been sitting here in our home, littering our lives and complicating things. We've been discovering that we can purge more as we update our storage systems throughout the house. It's been a great process. We are currently in the middle of a laundry room re-do (new shelves!!) and I am so excited for the finished product.

We also have successfully transitioned all three cats outside without losing any of them. They weren't too happy, but they seem to have adjusted and we've seen them prancing around the neighborhood over the past week. I had lots of guilt over it the past few weeks, but now that we know they are fine, it really has made my life so much easier to have them outside. I have my laundry room back, I can actually leave bath mats on the floor without a cat weeing on them, and I've sleeping much, much deeper since I no longer wake up six times a night to stop a cat from ripping the carpet up. The dog does seem to miss them, but I think he's adjusting. He just looks a little sad sometimes.

So that's where we sit right now. Once I get this finals week out of the way, I'll get those before/after blog posts out and hopefully that will encourage YOU to join me in simplifying. What have you got to lose??

Little

I wanted to share a quote that I found on Pinterest that sums up my feelings regarding simplicity perfectly:

"Very little is needed to make life happy."

-unknown

This is getting framed for our wall so we can remember why we're choosing to live simply.

Forget Supermom

After weeks of trying to hang on to the shreds of my sanity, I found a quote yesterday that really spoke to me.

"In attempting to tend to everyone else first - when inside we are falling apart - eventually, over time, 

we lose our capacity to be strong for anyone."

-Elizabeth Irvine from A Moment's Peace: A mom's guide to creating calm amidst chaos

It's true. I have not been doing a good job listening to my body. When I begin to feel overwhelmed, I need to stop. I need to make it a priority to take a time out. Obviously there are times when I can't just stop what I'm doing (I am a mom after all), but I'm driving myself into the ground each day and that needs to stop. I'm not doing anyone in this family any favors if doing one more load of laundry is going to push me over the edge and turn me into a crabby mess. All moms are guilty of this at one time or another, so I know I'm not alone. Maybe we'd all do ourselves a favor if we forgot about being Supermom every once in a while.

Does It Bring Me Joy?

As you could probably tell by my last post two weeks ago, it's been a bit of a struggle around here. I want to say that it hasn't changed much in the past two weeks, but that's not true. From struggle comes growth and we've definitely done some growing!

We knew that simplifying our lives would be a journey and that we'd have to learn from some mistakes along the way. Well, even though we have made some changes, things just weren't working. After weeks of feeling aggravated and stressed out - which ultimately ended up causing a combo panic/asthma attack one afternoon - I had to take a step back. This is not what I wanted. This is not what I was supposed to be feeling. It was time to stop, re-evaluate, and ask some questions.

What is the issue?
I am still feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by stuff. Overwhelmed by tasks. I feel like I'm doing so much with not much to show for it. Our family relationships are suffering because we're all stressed out and exhausted.

What do we want from this journey?
We want to live purposefully. We want everything that we do to bring us as much joy as possible. We want to enjoy life and not feel as though life is swallowing us whole.

How can we get there?
Eliminate, repair, or modify the things that are not bringing us joy.

Let me explain our "How can we get there" statement. We believe that everything we do or own requires a certain amount of work to keep it functional. Every item in our house requires work (yes, even the kid toys - you know all that work it takes to clean it up multiple times per day?). Every activity we do requires work. If the amount of work required for an activity or item is causing more stress than the amount of joy that it is bringing to us, then that activity or item is no longer functional for our family. Obviously there are the "no choice" things like doing laundry or dishes or going to a job or school, but there's still a certain amount of joy in each one of those. We enjoy wearing clean clothes and eating off of clean dishes. We enjoy the income a job brings and we enjoy the friends that we meet through school. But when the optional items are causing a problem, it's time to ask ourselves if it's worth it anymore.

We've had to apply that to our pets as well. We loved our guinea pigs, but when it came down to it, I was stressed out from the work required to maintain their cage and the money it was taking to purchase their food and bedding (close to $30 per month - that's $360 per year!). I was not getting much joy and that money could be used to pay down our mortgage or student loans. After some serious evaluation, we decided to re-home the guinea pigs. Thankfully we found a home quickly and there are four little girls who were very excited to welcome guinea pigs into their lives. We are happy that they are bringing joy to someone. We are currently having to evaluate the role our three cats play in our lives and deciding how to approach it. It's not easy, but when animals are causing actual damage to your home and relationships, then it's time to find a way to fix it. The animals deserve a better life than that too.

Training yourself to ask "Does it bring me joy?" whenever you are making a decision isn't easy, but well worth it. I'm finding that it's easier to purge our belongings when I ask myself that question. If the answer isn't a definite yes, then I don't need it in my life.

Overwhelmed and Trying

I started reading the book Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider over at Simple Mom.  It's amazing.  Everything she says hit the center of my soul and I knew I wanted to strive to create a life like that for us.  I didn't expect to get emotional reading about simplifying your life and home, but I did!  I think that means I really want it.

But simply wanting does not make it happen.  I've been feeling somewhat overwhelmed for the past few days.  I'm not sure why, but I feel like there's still too much stuff in my house.  We need to purge again but I'll get to that in a minute.  It's difficult because I'm ignoring certain areas of my house because I don't feel like I can do it by myself.  I get overwhelmed fast.  I need my husband to help, but he's not the organizational type and trying to make him do it anyway just stresses him out.  Especially since I'm pretty OCD about how I want things and he doesn't do it right.  And yes, by "right" I mean "the way I want him to do it".  The rooms in question?  The office (just thinking about it makes me twitch) and the laundry room.  Both of these rooms need massive organizational system makeovers, so it's not just that they need to be cleaned.  They need adequate storage for the things that we need in order to be truly simplified and not a gigantic mess.

Back to the purging.  I've gotten rid of SO much stuff, but there still seems to be more.  I need to work on better purging my closet.  I have clothes I never wear and way too many shoes.  But goodness knows I am not great with parting with things unless I really don't like it anymore or it's broken.  But I also hate clutter and things that are not organized.  Which is more important to me?  The stuff or the peace of mind that comes with simplifying my belongings?  I am determined to not be a slave to material items.  Not only is it stupid because they are JUST things, but it goes against my faith.  Even if faith isn't in aspect in this for you, simply keeping in mind what is more important to you (stuff or simplifying) will be a great place to be coming from.

You may have noticed that purging belongings is a big thing for me.  I'll tell you why.  My family never got rid of anything.  Everything was in some way in the "sentimental" or "we might need it" categories.  My mother never learned how to simplify belongings because her mother was a hoarder.  I've had my fair struggle with breaking free of those habits and I still have to work on it, but I am serious about simplifying.  We will not live that way.  There's a commercial that I just hate.  It's for a self-storage facility (luckily for them, I don't remember which one) and it shows a house full to the brim with things.  And I mean full like houses you see on the TV show Hoarders.  The person living in the house looks massively stressed out and then the voiceover says, "Too much stuff?  Get a storage unit!".  My husband knows when that commercial comes on TV because I start screaming "NO!!  NO!!" at the tube.  Storage units are fine and well when you NEED them, but if you're just getting one because you can't fit all your crap in your house and you don't want to get rid of anything?  That's a problem.  Why must we have so much stuff?  Simple answer: We don't have to.

Maybe this post hasn't been particularly helpful for you, but my goal with this blog was to document my frustrations and struggles along with the improvements we make.  Currently, I'm feeling frustrated, but I'll be honest and say that it may just be hormones.  I knew this journey would be full of ups and downs, and starts and stops.  But I know I can do it because others have done it.  And if you want to see a great example of what simplicity should look like, get Organized Simplicity and check out Simple Mom.

I'm Back!

Well, that was an interesting two weeks away from anything simple.  No, no vacation.  In the past two weeks, I went back to school, had oral surgery, spent a week recovering, promptly came down with a cold, and spent another week trying to get better.  Life just happens all at once sometimes.

I'm behind on homework just three weeks into the term and I spent the majority of my morning and the first part of my afternoon writing my first paper in goodness knows how many years.  I did get it done though and the kids only got into two massive fights.  But one of them at school all morning, so maybe I shouldn't be too proud of them.

I am currently ignoring the two weeks worth of housework that needs to be done and indulging myself with some cheesecake that's probably pushing it's shelf life.  Oh well.  Cheesecake is cheesecake.

But the housework does need to be done and I'll show you why.  Now, to be fair, my husband did an OK job keeping up with things while I was recovering from surgery.  It was once we all got sick that things went downhill.

Aahhgg!  My house!!

Yes, there is a bike in my dining room.  And the dog is climbing into the dishwasher.  And there's a random dining room chair with a jar of peanut butter on it sitting in front of the fridge.  You might not be able to see it, but there's also a razor scooter under the dining room table.  And this is just the kitchen.  You do not want to see upstairs.  <shudder>

Ok, so there's a bit of household recovery work to do.  And I really need to work on how to keep up with my house, my kids, and my husband while going back to school.  It's a definite adjustment for me, but I know I can figure out a way.  For now though, I think they'll all just be happy when they have clean underwear again.

Progress!

Today is a day I must remember.  If I ever feel like we're just floating along and not quite getting anywhere fast with our simplifying, I will look back on this day and be encouraged.

You see, I've been purging the house for a while now and have taken a few small trips to Goodwill and have sold some stuff, but there was still a very large pile of items in my garage that we didn't need anymore.  It was stuff from the house and stuff from random boxes stored in the garage.  Stuff we've been carrying around unnecessarily for years.  After having said pile sit in our garage for months with grand plans to sell it on craigslist or ebay or whatever, I made the decision to just get it out of our lives.  How long would it take me to go through, take pictures, decide on prices, post online, and wait for someone to MAYBE buy the items?  Too long and I didn't want to wait.  It was over-complicating our whole simplicity goal.  So without taking a second look to reminisce about what was in those boxes, I loaded them into my car.

When everything was finally loaded, I took a step back and what I saw was inspiring.  The back of my station wagon was literally filled to the roof with stuff.  There wasn't space for one more thing.  And my garage?  There was space....wide open free space in my garage.  It was so freeing.  We didn't need all that stuff.  We thought we needed that stuff, but it's been sitting in the garage for months and we hadn't missed a single item. And now it's gone from our lives and our home (and garage) is a better place because of it.

There is still a small pile of higher ticket items that we will try to sell (baby swing, high chair, etc), but the little space consuming, dust collecting knick-knacks are gone.  One more hour of work this weekend and we will finally be able to park a car in our garage.  Yes, it's THAT clean now!

I love results and I love feeling like we're doing something good for our household.  I am encouraged again.

Whoa!

Do you ever get so excited about something that you feel like you might burst?  I've found two new loves in the past few days that just get my organizing, simplifying mind all a-flutter.

First, a book (and their website).  The Stocked Kitchen.  Um, amazing.  An entire system on what to have in your pantry, freezer, and fridge at all times in order to always have something to cook.  Plus, most of the book is recipes.  Awesome!  I got it from the library yesterday, but WILL be buying this book.  It's just that good.  I don't remember how I heard about it - maybe it was a library suggestion because of other books I'd checked out - but I'm so glad I requested it.

Second, a blog.  IHeart Organizing.  My friend Leigh told me about it a few days ago and I can barely contain myself when I read the blog posts.  I actually squealed with excitement over today's post.  Hello, I'm Carrie and I have a problem.  I get crazy eyes when I read about organizing and I scare my family.

And now, my mind is overflowing with motivation and ideas.  Off I go to organize something!