Finishing Up

I hate that I'm consolidating a week's worth of items into two blog posts... BUT... it's already the end of the month! It's nice to be sitting down and relaxing tonight after our super busy week and after hosting the engagement party last night. It was such a fun time! The extra bonus that came along with hosting the party... my house has never been this clean! It's great! I finally feel like I'm caught up (for the most part!)

This afternoon I tackled all of the remaining items on my list. My husband and I got our automatic savings account set up, I listed three things for sale on Craig's List (a rocking chair, a pedestal sink & faucet and an iRobot Roomba that my husband won at work and we never use) and I have already had two play dates this week and the third is scheduled for Thursday.

The things on the list that took a little more time today were very gratifying to finally get completed!

1) Make a Cleaning Kit

This was really fun! I actually made two cleaning kits because I already had 2 caddies to hold my cleaning supplies in. They were previously being used to store cleaning supplies on a shelf in the laundry room and I would just grab what I needed out of them. Now, I have one designated for "Kitchen and Living" areas and one for "Bathrooms." I'm going to keep the bathroom caddy upstairs and the other one downstairs. I also made all of my own environmentally friendly cleaners today. Everything I made used one or some of the following ingredients: baking soda, vinegar, tea tree oil, olive oil, lemon juice and water. So, I now have a bottle of "All Purpose Cleaner" and a bottle of "Glass Cleaner" in each caddy and a bottle of "Mold & Mildew" remover in the bathroom caddy. I also made some furniture polish with olive oil, vinegar and fresh lemon juice, but I already used it all. I loved it! I used it on my tables and end tables. I'll definitely make that again! I also put two of my microfiber cleaning cloths in each caddy and a pair of some yellow rubber gloves I found in the garage in the bathroom caddy. It's nice to have everything where I need it now!

2) Clean and Organize Kitchen "Junk Drawer"

The before and after pictures probably speak for themselves on this one! I purchased a drawer organizer at Walmart today and boy, what a huge difference it made! I was able to fill a grocery store bag with trash out of that drawer AND I found my car charger for my cell phone which I have been missing for about eight months now! I also found a ridiculous amount of Sharpie markers. I've already used one four times today now!

3) Move Andy's Tub Toys

The bathroom that Andy "uses" is also the guest bathroom when we have company. In the past, we just picked up all his bath toys and shoved them in a drawer or put them in the sink. Over Christmas, we just moved them all to the tub in our bathroom, and that is where Andy has taken his bath every night for the past two months because I've been too lazy to move the tub toys back to the guest bath. Today I drilled holes in the bottom of a bucket for drainage and after Andy's bath tonight, put all the toys into the bucket and moved them to the other bathroom. Now the toys can go in the bucket at the end of his bath at night and if we have company we can just pick it up and move it to our bathroom (and back again!) without much effort.

4) Create a Monthly Meal Menu & Shopping List

My husband and I made a list tonight of the 13 dinners we eat the most and then I put them all on a 30 day calendar in Microsoft Publisher to print out and put in my household management binder. We picked 13 dinners because we are accounting for eating dinner out once per week and eating each meal twice. This filled 30 days on the calendar. Then I went through all of the meals and made a master grocery shopping list by category (meat, produce, canned goods, etc.) I'm going to go to the grocery store and shop for the month with my list and see if I can follow the menu for a whole month and only have to go to the grocery store for perishables after that. We'll see how that works out.

5) Create File Boxes and Filing System for Paperwork

Okay, so last month I sorted through all of our paperwork and put everything into file folders by category. At least it was all sorted, but it certainly wasn't organized! Now all of the folders are in two file boxes with hanging folders. One box is for all things house related an the other box is for everything else. It's a start. I'm sure there will be more files added, but for right now, at least it's all organized.

I can't believe it's the end of another month! I'll have to post my March list tomorrow. I'm actually starting to feel like I'm making progress for the first time since I started this mission. I know I still have a long way to go, but the more I cross off my list, the more momentum I seem to gain. I never really thought that changing the things I didn't like about myself could be so fun!