21 day - day 11

Today I organized the front entry. I'm not really happy with it, honestly. There is a lot of stuff that lives there that really doesn't have a home.

Like our cloth totes for groceries. We never freaking use them. Ok we'll we use the library bags, three of them. Kaeley's books, mommy and daddy's books, and the return bag. I'm sure Connor will have his own soon enough.

The problem is that I'm cheap, so I do my grocery shopping at super Walmart. They won't use cloth bags. Even if you buy one if theirs. If you want to use them, you have to bag yourself. But I buy 2-3 weeks of groceries at a time. With 1-2 children in tow. I need extra arms.

I'll probably keep one bag for the veggie market and give the rest to my mom.

My big achievement is the shoe rack. Typically my husbeast tosses all the shoes into a pile when he "cleans". The rack should help with that.

I need to go through the mail bin still.

Tomorrow is my craft bins, that will take more time and have a ton of pictures!

21 day - day 10

well, yesterday i discovered that my closet door is broken. we have mirrored sliding doors on all the closets in the house (i have hated them for 16 years....) personally i'd love to replace the ones in ours and the kids rooms with wood, maybe faux barn doors. but i don't see it happening. my mom (the landlord dum dum duuuuuuuuuuum) feels they make the rooms look bigger. i argue that, no, the vaulted ceilings do that. but whatev.

so i didn't get to organize my closets. it's going to have to wait until the fix-it man (my stepdad) gets here. he was supposed to come today, but i made a trip to storage (and the awesome 99c thrift shop!!)

i also got a really great purple leather purse at Ross. because i needed another bag like i needed another hole in my head. (I have 4 earring holes thanks)

Since i didn't organize the closet i spent three hours washing my washing machine. yes. i washed a machine that is full of soap and water! and yes, it really took that long. Longer actually.

first you pour a quart of bleach in the the machine. set it to high water and hot and let it fill. agitate for about 30 seconds and then leave the door propped to soak (I HAVE A TOP LOADER!). soaks for about an hour, mine was actually longer. since i forgot about it. the water was nasty black dingy. omg bleck. then you let it run the rest of the longest wash cycle. mine takes about 40 minutes.

after the bleach is the vinegar cycle. refill high water/hot and pour in a cup of white vinegar. agitate for 30 seconds to a minute then let sit. while it was sitting with the vinegar, i took a sponge and cleaned off the agitator, and the edges, i also cleaned out the little bleach cup on the side. you know the one that's supposed to add the bleach without ruining your clothes. soak for an hour and then let it run another long cycle.

i ran a load of cloth diapers right after. and they came out much cleaner than usual. i think we get detergent build up from the powder i use on our regular clothes, and it effects the diapers even with the Free and Clear detergent i use with them.

So yeah, that was my day yesterday!

Today i did the front entry

21 day - day 9

Today was the bookshelves. We have 4 in our house. One in the living room, one in the kids room, and two in our bedroom.

Says a lot about the kind of people we are lol.

The shelf in the living room needs more attention. I did what I could with the time I had, and kae got in on the action by doing the shelf in their room. I'll need to go over it again when she's not home of course.

I packed up all of Ross' Magic: The Gathering decks and put them into baggies. The boys get on a kick and play every few weeks. (My decks are in fancy metal deck boxes. I have a black/green deck and a blue/green elf deck).

I admit I got distracted. I've been catching up on The Walking Dead and put it on while working...I hate Lori, Shane and Andrea...lots..also Carl is a moron.

I do have a box of books to go to the used book store (or library if they won't take them for store credit).

Tomorrow I tackle the bedroom closets! Eep! Ours is full of comic books ::face palm::

21 day challenge - day 8

Don't go searching for day 6 part 2 or day 7. My phone decided it was time to die. Like really dead. Green screen of death dead.

I did do under my kitchen sink and the fridge/freezer Sunday afternoon. I just don't have pictures to prove it /sigh

Today was kitchen cabinets. We don't have many, the cups and dishes are good, the doors won't close if we don't keep that organized. We have one food cabinet. And a pantry (that's later this week I think).






















But we do have the BIG cabinet. It houses the griddle, crockpot, rice cooker, baking dishes and Tupperware.

I sorted all the containers without lids and made a decent home for the griddle.






















Oh and made a home for Connor's baby food lazy Susan. Holds baby food jars, very handy. Might become a baby food jar spice rack when he doesn't use jar food anymore.

tomorrow...the bookshelves!

21 day challenge day 6 part one

So I wasn't home yesterday to organize under my sinks. So I'm having to do two days worth at once. Not bad, just hard with the husband and both kids.

We had breakfast out, so now I'm trying to get motivated to clean.

The bathroom sink was my first task, it was bad. I got some stacking organization bins at Wally-world and used our existing ones. Found a bunch of crap I didn't know was there...like 6 bars of soap, and two huge bottles of body wash.

Even as a 7 year old kaeley has more soaps and lotions than I do. Jeez!

Horsin Around

I am reminded every day how wonderful the knitting community is. The ladies at the local group I attend are some of the nicest and most supportive people I know.

I was telling them how hard school has been for kae so far this year, and my friend Kim offered for kae to come out and meet her horses!

Kae got to feed them carrots and horse cookies, she got to brush one and brush her mane. Then she got to learn how to pick the hooves and took Hershey for a walk around the paddock.

She also wanted to help clean the paddock. I have video lol

It was fun, and a great experience for kae. I'm glad she got to be around horses at least once, so she's not as left out with the really horse crazy girls in class.

Then grandma helped her pick seeds for the new raised bed garden she's getting for Easter!

21 day challenge - day 5

Today was a good day! Did Zumba and yoga. Connor has been great.

I made a stop at goodwill and dropped off the bag from the linen closet and the bag of toys.

I got some organization stuff for this weekend and early next week. A shoe rack being the most important one.

After I made salsa corn dog minis for freezer lunches (thank you o-bento) If anyone wants the recipe lemme know! I got to work on my purse.

It wasn't all THAT bad, since I'd cleaned it out couple days before Christmas.

 on the table: christmas card envelopes, my wallet, cosmetics pouch, sunglasses case, tictacs, receipts, snickers bar, play food hamburger bun bottom, bookmarks, octopus earrings, quarter machine ninja, crochet hooks (3, h, i, j), whoppers, build a bear bow, Squishables red panda, girl scout paperwork.


After!

-wallet
-zippy pouch with "cosmetics"
-fish coin purse
-eyeglass case


Plus a couple other important things, checks, tictacs, the key to the church for Girl Scouts.

I also used this opportunity to switch purses from my blue-green paisley Vera Bradley to my Asian print Vera Bradley. They are the only two purses I own now

At least, the only two "mommy" purses I own now...


Tomorrow is under my sinks, kitchen and bathroom. I'm scared...