Category Archives: Organizing/DeCluttering

December 20, 2017 · 9:42 am

Can You Smell It?

“Falling Rain” – quotesgram.com

 

We had a bit of drizzle, and sprinkling on the windshield as we went to town for errands yesterday. Then we had a more serious rain late yesterday afternoon. The intermittent rain is still going today. We really need it. We’re in a drought and under a burn ban. I’m not even complaining as I stand outside in the rain waiting for the doggies to take care of things. :0)

I’m especially grateful because we have an excellent chance of a cold front with rain that MAY change to flurries this weekend! A double gift from Mother Nature for sure if we get more good rain PLUS a pretty, white Christmas with snow that will look pretty, but not cause problems on the road. The very BEST kind of snow!

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Yesterday I consolidated two notebooks of low carb recipes into one, plus punched holes into a whole stack of recipes I printed from the net and put them into the notebook. Now I have all the loose recipes in one place, organized so there is hope of finding the one I’m looking for again! I have the notebook on the kitchen desk along with the most used low carb recipe books.

Today’s project is moving my warm weather clothes OUT and my cool weather clothes INTO my closet.

 

balletpumpsandroses.com

 

If I finish that, my poor little duck and hedgehog yard ornaments are awaiting possible repair after our 81 pound lab puppy, Amber, bit off beak and nose respectively. I have some pieces I retrieved from the yard, along with the critters, but I’m not sure I have enough for a full repair. Fingers crossed.

I hope that your day is productive and fun.

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Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob, Lewis projects, Mother Nature, Organizing/DeCluttering, project refurb

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December 17, 2017 · 3:59 pm

Final Project of the Day

I know. I can hear you saying to yourself – or out loud – “Why don’t you put things away so you don’t end up with piles of “stuff” everywhere? Haven’t we been through this before?”

It’s true. I have no excuse. I get busy and the current project takes precedence, so I end up with things falling on my head, demanding that I finally reorganize, throw away, etc.

This is the ‘before’ pic of my desk in the office.

I just finished cleaning things up, and there IS a piece of furniture under all that mess! I KNEW it! :0)

Now, after 4 projects today, I feel that I have earned a cup of coffee. I’ll put my feet up and either watch the football game with my husband, read my book, or completely veg out and take a nap.

I hope you’ve had a happy day!

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December 17, 2017 · 2:14 pm

Projects for the Day – 1, 2, and 3

PROJECT 1 – FOOD –

I –

  • grocery shopped and put stuff away, then
  • made sausage balls and
  • got a chicken and veggies dinner going in the crock pot,
  • fixed baby carrots and cut up celery for lunches this week, and then
  • fixed lunch

 

 

PROJECT 2 – CLEANING UP AND ORGANIZING –

I cleaned up the table beside my chair in the living room

Before –

After –

PROJECT 3 – PAYING BILLS –

I’m doing that as soon as I finish this post –

AND THEN

I’ll tackle cleaning up my desk in the office. There is so much ‘stuff’ on it I may not finish it today, but if I do – I’ll post pics.

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Filed under Cherishing the Quiet Day, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob, Organizing/DeCluttering

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November 10, 2017 · 4:00 pm

Jewelry Project Can be Checked Off

I have two hangers together here,

 

And two more here –

and one on the door to my closet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gathered a large plastic tub full of jewelry for donation or jewelry making. I have some fine tuning yet to do, but I free up a lot of space, can actually SEE and get to the pieces I might wear. I’ll give it 6 months and then purge what I haven’t worn between now and then.

 

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November 10, 2017 · 2:44 pm

Spoiled Woman

mrkate.com

This is me – except for her youth, beauty, and lack of clothes…

I’ve been up in our master bathroom trying to organize my jewelry. I have FOUR nice wall-mounted jewelry holders.

I brought in a purse from my art room that was filled with jewelry and turned it upside-down on the step beside the tub. I reasoned that one holder would hold ‘silver’ jewelry, one ‘gold,’ one primarily for holiday stuff, and one miscellaneous. (The quotes around silver and gold are because I mainly wear costume jewelry.)  I have a few REAL pieces; but I decided long ago that the more something cost, the more nervous I was wearing it. I also had a stroke if a stone were lost, or I actually LOST the piece. I decided that the few really valuable pieces I had would mainly be put away for safe keeping. The jewelry that is in-between in value I wear, but more carefully.

I stopped in the middle of trying to add the jewelry from the purse to the holders, because the holders were getting full.  I KNEW I needed to purge, putting the pieces that were still good in the donation pile. The ones that have stones missing will be put in the “if I ever get serious about trying to make jewelry’ pile.

I’m down here typing this because, though I’m making progress, I feel pretty overwhelmed. I have a lot of jewelry I really like – more than one woman should have, I suspect. (think Imelda Marcos with shoes). I’m trying to become more and more ruthless, thinking when it was I last wore something. If I haven’t worn it in a LONG time, it gets purged.

This was becoming agonizing, so I decided to take a break. I’ll gather up all my RUTHLESS motivation and go up and purge a bunch more stuff. Hopefully, at the end of it, I’ll not only be able to hang everything up, I’ll have some room left to buy more stuff!

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November 10, 2017 · 12:41 pm

Fun Friday

This is like the two jewelry holders I ordered recently from JewelryHoldersForYou on Etsy. Mine are a nice cherry wood finish.

I’m going to go up today and see what sense I can make of my completely unorganized jewelry. If I get enough accomplished, I’ll take some pics and show you.

Yesterday I didn’t feel well. I slept all day long, rousing only to eat or go to the bathroom, moving from my recliner to the couch and back again. I then slept all night long, awaking feeling much, much better!

I had called and told my Lunch Bunch friends that we wouldn’t be there today. I called them again this morning and said we WOULD! We had a good time, as always, catching up on what was going on with the three of us.  We did our errands on the way home and are now in for the rest of the day.

It’s a much nicer day than we’ve had lately. We’re supposed to get to a high of 61 degrees F. and the sun is shining brightly. My spirits soared when I saw such a beautiful day. Amber did her ‘run like a mad thing’ act when we went out earlier. She LOVES the cooler weather.

So – I’m up to the master bath to start trying to bring some kind of order to my jewelry.

I hope you have something fun to do with your afternoon, too.

 

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November 1, 2017 · 12:15 pm

Disorderly!

A A Milne via Lisa Bearnes Richey

Example:

I LOVE jewelry. My husband spoils me, so I have a lot of it. I’ve convinced him that I don’t want expensive pieces – I see something that delights me and I get it. Usually, I have him help me pick out earrings, because I want him to be pleased to see them when I wear them. I also find necklaces, bracelets, and pins other places.  I don’t want to agonize if a piece gets hurt or lost. I don’t like to lose something or have it ruined, but I don’t have to slit my throat because it’s so valuable. I do have a few pieces that were my mother’s, plus a few pieces that friends have made for me that are ‘good’ jewelry, but I keep these things separate. The more valuable it is, the less I wear it.  Since I’m spoiled,  I have a LOT of jewelry I love.

Right now I’ve stopped wearing much because our sweet Labrador Retriever puppy, Amber, who now probably weighs around 70 pounds, notices anything dangling. If it catches her eye, she wants to eat it – or at least, TASTE it. I don’t even want to THINK about her biting one of my earrings, so I’ll just wait a bit more before I indulge myself.

In the meantime, I have more jewelry than I have places to store it; so, I’m making ‘discoveries’ from time to time, finding things I didn’t remember that I had.

I have some wooden jewelry holders I have hanging on our master bathroom walls. These are full, so we decided that one of my Christmas presents this year would be ordering two more jewelry holders.  I ordered from a couple on Etsy who let me choose from several styles and varnishes for the wood. I chose cherry. They arrived today and I’m thrilled.

They are much better quality than my others, but are of similar style so they fit right in and will be easy to use. Not only is the workmanship great, they included the hardware needed to hang them, a paper template to use on the wall to mark where the holes need to be (including a push pin to hold the paper on the wall while you mark the holes). The only thing we needed was a hammer and a level, both of which we keep in the kitchen tool drawer.

Both of them are up now, and ready for me to go through everything on the other holders, plus the group of things I put in my art room for safe keeping until I had a place to put them. I’ll take my time hanging things up, trying to come up with a ‘plan’ so that I can find things quickly and easily. In this process, I’m excited so see all the pieces I’ll discover! :0)

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