OYOL Week 14 and Misc. Thoughts

 I've been working since the year began to declutter my home and get rid of the excess that's just sitting around and over all I think I've been doing pretty well.  I've noticed now that some places are getting cluttered because the organization within them is not working.  For example:

This cabinet isn't bad, but I can't get to the back and it's hard to get new stuff put away.

 So I end up with things here:

 And here.  Especially on grocery days.  I eventually get them put away, but only after a good 45 mins of resorting.

Another area is my couponing.  The files are currently so full they are busting and so I haven't put any more away leaving me with this:

 This:

 And this:

I'm hoping to get one or both taken care of tomorrow for my Week 14 OYOL (decluttering).  I'll let you know how it goes!

OYOL Week 13- After

Well, we were really busy this week, so my "after" generally looks about the same, if not worse, as the "before".  One of my friends was holding a consignment sale this week and I helped out with it a lot.  Sooo, yeah, not much going on at or with the house.

I've found that I like sharing the dirty details of my home with you guys, so I've decided to post a few more.  Partially to make Brenda feel better, too :).  I'll admit that the pictures I took for the before post I tried to really focus in on the spots that give me the most trouble, so here's a view of the full, in action, version ;)...


My kitchen after grocery shopping and cooking dinner:

(Sorry for the crooked picture)

 Good news is after only ohhh, 3 hours or so I finally got it cleaned.  Not straight cleaning though, I got distracted by two little faces that wanted me to play ball with them.

How could I say no?

I've been trying really hard to keep on top of things, though.  My goal is too not let my mess go past the end of one day into the next.  So I do try to get things mostly straightened before I quit for my night and over all I've been pretty successful so far (I also don't beat myself up if it DOESN'T get done).  It's helped that I've started looking at it as just something the needs to be done (as in "it's basic maintenance that helps my house run smoothly"), not as something I have to get done (as in "bleh, I can't believe I have to do this again").  Attitude really does make all the difference.

A Bit of an Epiphany

I've realized (again) the importance of discipline in my life. It's amazing the far reaching impacts of a disciplined life. Whether it's gardening, weight loss, or housekeeping, being disciplined is a major component in all of them. I love The Biggest Loser and one of the things I've learned from the show (as well as my own weight loss journey) is that you have to work hard to get the weight off, but then not as hard when you are at the maintenance point. In the same way I'm realizing that I have to suck it up and just DO the extra housework needed to get to excess out of my house before I can get to the maintenance part. Once the habits are in place and the clutter is gone, housework won't take as long. But it still needs to be DONE, it can't be neglected all together. This is where I normally fail at diets. I lose the weight, and then quit weighing myself, neglect the healthier foods, and get lazy about my exercising. So the weight creeps back on. In the same way, I spend hours straightening, decluttering, and cleaning things only to sit back and let it go right back to the state it was in before. What I need to do is to put the hard work in, but then stay disciplined on the basic pieces of maintenance that allow me to keep that lean, clean house. It all ties together in a super simple way that just blows my mind :).

OYOL Week 13- Before

I seem to have missed a few weeks in here... :) I guess I got sidetracked and distracted, so I'll be going back over those.  I started trying to redo my home management binder, and like a true perfectionist, it's taking a lot of my time right now.  My thought was to redo that binder and separate out the menu planning stuff into a new binder and have it all coordinate and look nice together.  In theory it sounds good, but in actuality it's not coming along very fast.  I probably need to got back to work on just getting the basics of my menu planning down and then work about making it look nice.

I've also discovered many, many new blogs about decluttering, cleaning, organizing, the whole nine yards and I've been spending a lot of time perusing those.  Lot of good ideas, but not a great use of time.  I really need to work on DOING and then pick up maybe just a few ideas at a time.  What can I say, I'm a dreamer :).

I did successfully cook big batches of two dinners.  One was a pork roast, which Kent will eat, and the other was a Black Bean Chili, which only I eat, but they have successfully been frozen and reheated without complaints, so I'm thrilled with that!

Anyway, on to Week 13.  This week we're tackling our main clutter spots.  I can tell you right now what mine are without even walking through the house.  Honestly, right now my entire living room is cluttered because I'm taking a break from tagging some outgrown kid's stuff for a consignment sale that starts Thursday (yikes, only a day and a half left!  I need to get moving!),  but overall I've been doing a fairly good job keeping the our house picked up and straightened.  These are just the spots that I can't seem to get rid of (if you follow FlyLady, these are my "hotspots").

They are:

                                         My counter next to the door we come in and out of.

 My "laundry chair".  The place where all good laundry intentions go to die.  Seriously, it's like once it's on the chair, it's good enough.  :) At least this time I've actually folded it, usually it's just a pile.  Also, you can see another of my projects behind the chair where we're trying to pick a new wall color.

                    Computer desk.  The top but the shelf under it could really be included as well.

And lastly, the laundry basket in my room.  This one just frustrates me, it's been there since we moved in last June and it's really just a catch all that sits there and I never take the time to go through it an MOVE the dern thing.  If I could get this cleared out I could actually have a mostly clear floor.

I have a few other spots that come and go depending on life at the moment, but these four are the most consistent that I deal with.  (Opps, just reread Brenda's blog and we were supposed to only pick our top three.  :) Oh well, I'm close!).  I'll work on decluttering these this week and get some "after" photos.  The tough part is that I really just need to stay on top of these spots so that they don't come back every time I turn around.

OYOL Week 10

This week for OYOL we're doing Menu Planning.  Oh, how I needed this!  I've been thinking and thinking about this all week because I certainly TRY to do this, but it just hasn't been working for me.  What I've been trying to do is sit down on Wednesday (before my shopping trip Thursday) and plan out for the week.  I have tried doing just dinner as well as doing all meals (including snacks) to try to keep us out of ruts, but nothing seemed to click.  I can do all the planning, get all the food and yet somehow something always happens to distract me.  Either my day goes crazy and we end up eating out, or we don't feel like eating what's on the schedule and we end up eating out, or Kent wants to do something nice and knows cooking is a huge job for me so we end up eating out (noticing a pattern here???).  So, obviously this isn't working and I need to come up with another way to go at this.

So here are the truths that I have to work around:

1.  Kent is super picky.... all casseroles/mixed foods are out, he won't touch them.  Oh, and he doesn't do leftovers very well.

2.  Abigail is picky but doesn't want the same things day after day ... she will eat jelly sandwiches for 4 days straight and then refuse to touch them for a few weeks.

3.  Nathan is still testing new foods for allergic reactions and is also picky ... sigh, what did I do to get all these picky people in my life?? :) Good thing I love them so much!

4.  Cooking is fun from time to time, but not one of my favorite chores (yes, I consider it on the level of mopping, something I HAVE to do) and when I'm doing it for people who are soooo picky it loses even more of it's appeal.

5.  When ever I go into the kitchen to attempt a meal, I have two little locusts swarming me the entire time. One trying to help and wanting to get a lick from everything (My fault, lol, I've let her bake too much...baking I enjoy!) and the other screaming for reasons only known to him.

Soooo, where does that leave us???  I don't know for sure, but I have two ideas that I'm playing with and will probably end up combining.  First is the once a month cooking.  I really like the idea of having everything cooked up at once and minimizing the amount of day-to-day cooking I have to do.  I found this website, Once a Month Mom, that really gives some good info on it.  The other is the idea that was posted on Brenda's Week 10 post by Reagen which is the "30 Meals Plan".  Basically you keep the ingredients on hand for your 30 go-to recipes.  Your 30 includes only those that your family loves so it's a guaranteed winner.  I'm going to start going through meals a few at a time to try to find things that everyone will eat (though, the toddler picky stage where they randomly stop eating things may make this difficult) and try to stick to ones that freeze well.  Kent said he would eat BBQ that has been in the freezer, so that's one of the first that I'll be attempting.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes :).

Oh, and for added fun, I forgot to mention that I'm trying to keep all of this relatively healthy so I don't begin to put back on the weight that I've lost so far.  Just don't tell Kent, because whenever my fried meat and potatoes man hears "healthy", he gets a little nervous :).

General Updates :)

I'm having a hard time getting around to blogging lately.  It's been on my to-do list the last 3-4 days or so, but I just keep putting it off.  Too many other things have been grabbing my attention when I sit down at the computer.  Oh well, I refuse, refuse to make myself feel bad about it.  This isn't meant to be a professional blog, all spiffy and nice, it's really just for me and who ever else may find something interesting here.  I have no agenda here, not really even a purpose other than a place to work through my thoughts and projects.  In someways this is an online journal, but really I don't even do the super personal thoughts that go into my infrequent journalling here.  Oh well, again I refuse to feel bad about this.

Anyway, here's a few of the projects that have been keeping me so busy lately:

~OYOL: Obvious one, as this has been the majority of my posting lately.  This week is about menu planning which I am TERRIBLE at so I've been doing a lot of researching into better ways to do it.  I'll give more details on it in my next post.

~Wardrobe: I mentioned a few weeks ago that I've been working on revamping my entire wardrobe and I still have a lot of work to do.  Thankfully I'm finally getting some of the lessons I'm learning down, so I'm starting to see some nice outfits come together.  It's hard for me to do, though, because I have to do it in bits and pieces to accommodate our budget and I have yet to do what I'm supposed to in sitting down and making a shopping list to keep with me.  :) Ideally this would keep me on track, I just haven't done it.  Maybe I'll post some more of my journey with this and put up some pictures to help me keep track of the outfits I like and don't like.  An online style file instead of a paper one.  Maybe :).

~Project 52 Dates: Another one from my friend Jackie.  The lady who put this together did this last year and the challenge is done, but it still doesn't make the premise any less important.  The idea is to do a weekly (mostly) at-home date, just to help keep you in touch with your spouse.   You are supposed to take turns planning the dates, but since Kent is super busy I told him I would do it for the time being.  Our first one is tomorrow night :).  

~Potty Training: Abigail is doing pretty well with it, but it's only been three weeks and so we still need to stay on top of her.  She doesn't have big accidents, but she normally will wait until she pees just a bit in her underwear and THEN tells us she needs to go.  It's frustrating, but I'm trying to stay patient with her.  I'm hoping she will get better about it as time goes on.  Until then, I just have to keep reminding her to go about every two hours.  She also wants to wear underwear at night, but just can't make it, poor thing.  We tried for about four nights straight and had accidents ever night before Kent pulled the plug on that one.  She really doesn't want to wear a diaper, but Kent doesn't want to go in and wake her just to go potty, so I really don't know what to do.  My laundry load has been much easier, though, since putting her back in diapers at night!  So there is an upside!

~Exercise:  A few friends of mine and I have put together a fun challenge to compete against each other to eat right and exercise.  It's been a lot of fun and it has definitely gotten me going again :).  I love to compete, so it has really worked out well, but I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 Shred and it's been kicking my butt!  I love that I'm getting stronger and I'm seeing a difference from when I started, but I totally get worn out and crash at night now.

~Morning Routine:  Along with the general daily routine that we've been setting up through OYOL, I've been working through the Maximize Your Morning Book from Inspired to Action.  My one big focus has been to get my rear end up and moving in the mornings.  I have been entirely too lazy lately about getting up and having my quiet time with God before the kiddos roll out, so my goal last week was to get up at 6 and then this week I moved it back 5 mins.  I plan to keep adding time (slooooowly, I am not by nature a morning person), but this weekend's time change may stall that process for a while.

Umm, I think that's about it, haha!  I know that's like 2 weeks of updates in one post, but I had been putting this off for a while.  I might try to start updating things a bit more regularly, but as always: no promises ;). 

Southern Savers

I figured it was about time to try to add more to my links.  My goal originally was to put all my favorite helpful websites there, but as you can see I've been slacking off.  Well, here's a VERY popular new one.  I don't remember who first got me to go to the Southern Saver website, but it is now a page I visit every day, sometimes more than once :).  It is my one stop shop for all things bargain.  The lady who runs the site, Jenny, posts on pretty much any and every deal that she is alerted to, but her focus is on couponing at grocery stores and drug stores.  She can help you save so much on your grocery bill, it's truly unbelievable.  I've found that it does take some effort to get things straightened to be able to truly save half or more, but when you save that much, it's sooo worth it.  :) I love it!