Well, let me just say... nothing will motivate you like the threat of a 6 mm kidney stone getting stuck while you are pregnant... and knowing that the only thing the doctor can do for you is put in a stent. Sounds fun, right? Uggh! I'm having a little bit of a hard time knowing that I might have something super painful and uncomfortable happen and that I'd have to deal with it for the duration of my pregnancy. The bright side? I'm super motivated to get the things done that I need to while I'm feeling good, because I know that could change at any second.
I had one kidney stone before this pregnancy. It came a few months after Andy was born. That one got stuck. That was THE WORST pain I've ever been in... EVER! I'd never been so happy to have an IV of morphine flowing into my arm. The worst part was that it happened so fast! I went from thinking something isn't right here... maybe I'm getting a bladder infection to OH MY GOD! I THINK I'M DYING! In about an hour. Yes, an hour. I think that is the only time I've ever called my husband at work and said I need you to come home and take me to the ER... NOW!
So, now I have the threat of that happening again hanging over my head. It's not something I'm constantly worrying about, but I am also trying to be realistic. I have awesome friends here, and my brother and sister-in-law, who I know would pitch in and help out if I need it... but I also don't want my house to be a disaster, or for there to be things that I need to take care of and have them go untouched for months. Paperwork is totally disorganized around here. It would be a nightmare to have my husband sifting through things to find tax paperwork, etc. I really need to sort through everything so that it's easy for him to find what he's looking for if need be.
I know my Mom is going to read this and worry that I'm going to wear myself out and run myself down trying to take care of things... and I'm not going to go to that extreme :-)
But... I do need to make myself a little list of the things I want to get done before the baby comes and then prioritize. I want to tackle one task a week, starting with some of the most important things. I will feel like I'm being smart about preparing myself for the worst, while hoping for the best.
I guess maybe I'll be making a list again after all! But instead of something daily...I'll try and tackle something weekly!
Showing posts with label Organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organization. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Thursday, August 5, 2010
July Wrap Up... Five Days Late
Well, this is officially the most behind I've been at the start of a month. I feel like I'm going to do much better keeping up with things in August than I did in July. I think I'm over my half way through the year hump. I'm getting back on track. Although, I have to say, I can waste time like nobody's business! I have to get better about that. Here's the thing... and I know you are going to read this and think...uhhh DUH!!!!... but the more disorganized I am, the more time I waste. That seems SOOOOO simple, right? So, if I was actually let's say... more organized then it would take me less time to get things done and then I would ACTUALLY HAVE more time to "waste" online or watching TV or reading a magazine... big sigh... if I could only get my act together...
Seriously though, I'm going to put more of an effort into the organizational thing this month. (my husband is totally reading this and thinking ya RIGHT! right about now... aren't you honey!) But really, I am. I need to be. In addition to taking care of Andy all day (which becomes increasingly more FUN and FRUSTRATING everyday as we approach the big TWO YEARS OLD), my Thirty~One business is starting to take off... AND... I got a job! Yeah! BIG YEAH!! Remember at the beginning of July when it was on my list to apply to five jobs? Well, it paid off... and the best part??!!! I didn't have to settle for something I didn't want to do. I got the exact job I wanted... the job I was waiting to open... and on Saturday I start work back at the same place I landed my very first job out of college... ten years ago! Yes... my life is already coming full circle and I'm only 32. Ha ha! Seriously though, it's the perfect schedule for me, it's the perfect mix of job duties, and since several of my old co-workers still work there, and many new friends, I already know I'll fit right in. It's the place I met my husband ten years ago... so it will always be special. And now I'll have one to two shifts per week... only nights and weekends, so I can still stay home with Andy, but not have EVERY night or weekend away from Matt. I'm really excited to start. Tonight I finished filling out the 10 pages of pre-employment paperwork to take to my orientation tomorrow.... so that is getting crossed off the list.... although what I should have put on the list was keeping Andy entertained for 45 minutes in the waiting room while waiting for my drug test a few days ago... THAT was an accomplishment! Ha!
Okay, what else did I do? I set up an appointment for a tree removal company to go give me a quote on removing some branches that are overhanging the roof of our rental house in North Carolina. I actually already did do this about a month ago. I called three companies... no one ever called back with a quote. So, this time I got a recommendation from a friend of a friend and I think these guys will actually show up... let's hope... in the mean time I'm knocking on wood that branches don't crash down on our roof in a storm... because that would totally be something that would happen to that house!
I also returned two Netflix movies that we have had out for almost two months. The only problem? I forgot to update our cue, so two new movies we didn't really want are headed our way. I'll have to get a quick turn around on those so that we can get the ones we really want in.
I also finally framed a 12x12 picture of Andy and me from his six month photo shoot.... yes... as in a YEAR AND A HALF ago. It turns out that 12x12 frames (or frames matted to 12x12) are hard to come by. Couldn't find any at the big box retailers... not going to pay for custom framing... looked at ordering online but didn't want to pay the high price plus shipping... Enter a very ill advised stop at Ikea on our way back from camping last weekend... You know when you know a decision is a really bad idea, but you do it anyway? Like when your kid hasn't napped in three days, has spent some part of three days in a row strapped in the car seat of his car and is SUPER over tired and has TONS of pent up energy... and it's a rainy Saturday... and it's IKEA... but you think, Sure! Let's stop! He'll be FINE for like 45 minutes in a cart! Ummmmm.... try ZERO minutes! So, we tried opening a package of $2 stacking cups for him to play with, he wanted no part of it. After 10 minutes, we realized that yes, we were those parents, and cut our losses. Matt took Andy to the back of the building to run around in the empty parking lot in the rain while I walked approximately 2 miles through the ENTIRE store to get to the check out line to pay for the stupid $2 stacking cups... when something stopped me in my tracks!
Now my biggest issue with this picture is deciding where to hang it! Hmmmmm..... And LAST... but not LEAST... uggghhhh this month felt like it would never ever end... I made a chore chart. I think we'll eventually upgrade to a bigger dry erase board, but we already had this one... who knows for what... but we did. So, I used it.
Chores are on the left separated by day and by "C" and "M" (for Colleen and Matt) and then basic stuff is plugged in on the calendar to the right. We'll see if we can make any sort of effort to stick to it. If we do it 70% of the time, that would still be an improvement over how often things get done now, so I like our odds.
Goodbye July! Welcome August! Month of my future sister in-law's shower AND bachelorette party weekend... my FIVE YEAR wedding anniversary... and my not-a-baby-anymore's TWO year birthday! It will be a good month... I can feel it. If I could only get organized!
Seriously though, I'm going to put more of an effort into the organizational thing this month. (my husband is totally reading this and thinking ya RIGHT! right about now... aren't you honey!) But really, I am. I need to be. In addition to taking care of Andy all day (which becomes increasingly more FUN and FRUSTRATING everyday as we approach the big TWO YEARS OLD), my Thirty~One business is starting to take off... AND... I got a job! Yeah! BIG YEAH!! Remember at the beginning of July when it was on my list to apply to five jobs? Well, it paid off... and the best part??!!! I didn't have to settle for something I didn't want to do. I got the exact job I wanted... the job I was waiting to open... and on Saturday I start work back at the same place I landed my very first job out of college... ten years ago! Yes... my life is already coming full circle and I'm only 32. Ha ha! Seriously though, it's the perfect schedule for me, it's the perfect mix of job duties, and since several of my old co-workers still work there, and many new friends, I already know I'll fit right in. It's the place I met my husband ten years ago... so it will always be special. And now I'll have one to two shifts per week... only nights and weekends, so I can still stay home with Andy, but not have EVERY night or weekend away from Matt. I'm really excited to start. Tonight I finished filling out the 10 pages of pre-employment paperwork to take to my orientation tomorrow.... so that is getting crossed off the list.... although what I should have put on the list was keeping Andy entertained for 45 minutes in the waiting room while waiting for my drug test a few days ago... THAT was an accomplishment! Ha!
Okay, what else did I do? I set up an appointment for a tree removal company to go give me a quote on removing some branches that are overhanging the roof of our rental house in North Carolina. I actually already did do this about a month ago. I called three companies... no one ever called back with a quote. So, this time I got a recommendation from a friend of a friend and I think these guys will actually show up... let's hope... in the mean time I'm knocking on wood that branches don't crash down on our roof in a storm... because that would totally be something that would happen to that house!
I also returned two Netflix movies that we have had out for almost two months. The only problem? I forgot to update our cue, so two new movies we didn't really want are headed our way. I'll have to get a quick turn around on those so that we can get the ones we really want in.
I also finally framed a 12x12 picture of Andy and me from his six month photo shoot.... yes... as in a YEAR AND A HALF ago. It turns out that 12x12 frames (or frames matted to 12x12) are hard to come by. Couldn't find any at the big box retailers... not going to pay for custom framing... looked at ordering online but didn't want to pay the high price plus shipping... Enter a very ill advised stop at Ikea on our way back from camping last weekend... You know when you know a decision is a really bad idea, but you do it anyway? Like when your kid hasn't napped in three days, has spent some part of three days in a row strapped in the car seat of his car and is SUPER over tired and has TONS of pent up energy... and it's a rainy Saturday... and it's IKEA... but you think, Sure! Let's stop! He'll be FINE for like 45 minutes in a cart! Ummmmm.... try ZERO minutes! So, we tried opening a package of $2 stacking cups for him to play with, he wanted no part of it. After 10 minutes, we realized that yes, we were those parents, and cut our losses. Matt took Andy to the back of the building to run around in the empty parking lot in the rain while I walked approximately 2 miles through the ENTIRE store to get to the check out line to pay for the stupid $2 stacking cups... when something stopped me in my tracks!
Ah ha!!!!!!!!!!! All is not lost after all!!!!! A frame. Matted to 12x12. For only $19!!!!! Whoo hoo! Who cares that it's black/brown and not black! Not me! Yaye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But seriously, with the black and white photo, the frame really looked brown... so, no biggie, I spray painted it black... and... viola!
Now my biggest issue with this picture is deciding where to hang it! Hmmmmm..... And LAST... but not LEAST... uggghhhh this month felt like it would never ever end... I made a chore chart. I think we'll eventually upgrade to a bigger dry erase board, but we already had this one... who knows for what... but we did. So, I used it.
Chores are on the left separated by day and by "C" and "M" (for Colleen and Matt) and then basic stuff is plugged in on the calendar to the right. We'll see if we can make any sort of effort to stick to it. If we do it 70% of the time, that would still be an improvement over how often things get done now, so I like our odds.
Goodbye July! Welcome August! Month of my future sister in-law's shower AND bachelorette party weekend... my FIVE YEAR wedding anniversary... and my not-a-baby-anymore's TWO year birthday! It will be a good month... I can feel it. If I could only get organized!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
How To Organize Earrings
I don't know about you, but I have a really hard time keeping my earrings organized. I have little square compartments in my jewelry box for earrings, but they are all taken up with the studs. Any long earrings seem to be ALL over the place! So, the other day, I worked on a little solution to this problem. Actually putting this together took all of 10 minutes... if that! It took me more time to collect the things I would need for this project!
First, I purchased this old picture at Goodwill for $1.80. I picked it because I liked the look of the frame and didn't feel like I had to alter it in any way.
Then I stopped at Lowe's and picked up a roll of window screen for around $4. When I got home, I took the glass and the picture and mat out of the frame. Then I cut a piece of screen to fit the back of the frame and I used a staple gun to secure it to the back. I hung it up in my closet above my jewelry box, and hung all of my earrings on it!
Then I stopped at Lowe's and picked up a roll of window screen for around $4. When I got home, I took the glass and the picture and mat out of the frame. Then I cut a piece of screen to fit the back of the frame and I used a staple gun to secure it to the back. I hung it up in my closet above my jewelry box, and hung all of my earrings on it!
I love the way it turned out!!!! The rest of my jewelry was also a mess....
So, I straightened everything up and now it looks much nicer. I use two velor covered neck tie hangers that I found at Walmart to hang my necklaces from. It works out well for me.
Now, all that I have left to add is a small mirror on the adjacent wall so that I don't have to carry various necklaces and earrings into the bathroom to try on with an outfit. They usually get left in the bathroom and not put away, so it would be nice to be able to try things on right in my closet!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Getting Out Of A Slump
So, it's probably been pretty obvious by my lack of blogging lately that I've been in a little bit of a slump. I know I blogged a little bit about it during July, but honestly, I feel like I'm just now starting to come out of it. Going on a little one night camping trip to the mountains with Matt and Andy definitely helped. I'm hoping we can do that more often! I still can't really pin point what has been causing me to feel this way, so that makes me think that maybe it's just a whole bunch of different things. I kind of just took a mental break for most of the month of July. I stopped letting things stress me out and I stopped keeping up with things I normally take care of. I had absolutely no motivation. For anything. Well, now, the not keeping up with things is starting to stress me out. I'm feeling ready to get back to my normal pace. I probably won't get my August list up until Wednesday, but that's okay.
I also refinished two bedside table lamps that I have had for five years. They were perfectly nice looking brushed nickle lamps.... but I wanted them to be more of an oil rubbed bronze finish so that I could use them in our master bedroom.
Over the course of the month I've been stock piling things to get rid of. Yesterday I removed thirty items from our house. Taking a cue from 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge, I decided that it would be pretty easy to get rid of thirty things. The following have left (or are leaving) my house:
Pair of curtains
Other than the tools (which are going to my brother) and the cardboard box (which is going in the trash), and one of the glass canisters (which I dropped and smashed on the front porch) everything went to Goodwill.
Okay, I'm almost done... on Tuesday night I started crocheting a baby blanket for my friend Heather. She's due with her second child, a little girl, in September. I'm DETERMINED to a) finish this and b) not screw it up. Even though I go to our weekly Stitch n' Bitch group, I'm not what you would call, good at crocheting! I tried to make a baby blanket once before, but it ended up looking like a trapezoid... no kidding. Then another time, we were making "friendship scarfs"... each person adds a section to everyones scarf in their own yarn and pattern.... well, I added my section in the wrong direction to my friend Amy's scarf. We decided it could be made into a pocket.... because seriously... how practical is a pocket on a scarf?? Right??!!
The only thing I've made successfully is a dish cloth. I've actually made three. So, my friend Megan, who is an uhhhhh-mazing knitter and crocheter is teaching me a pattern for a blanket that she swears I can do... we shall seeeeeee-eeeeee.....
And last, but not least (for this post anyway), I mailed the bridal shower invitations for my future sister-in-law's shower in (yikes!) THREE weeks!!! This was a challenge in and of itself because for the past three times that I've gone to the post office, my wonderful, sweet, loving, adorable child has pitched some kind of fit... for no apparent reason. THIS TIME, I was prepared! I'm totally not above bribing. I went to Walmart and bought a package of Goldfish (his favorite... but he hasn't had them in about a month) and I let him eat right out of the package (gasp!) while he was in the stroller. THEN... I gave him a juice box. Forget the sippy cup! Straight juice ... not watered down... out of a REAL straw!!!! That kept him quiet long enough for me to buy 3 books of stamps and stamp all the envelopes... and get the heck out of there!
Whew! Are you still reading? Probably not! This was ridiculously long! I promise to get better about posting! I am, after all, coming out of my slump!
I've realized over the past month that I actually feel worse when I don't hold myself accountable for getting things done, and then that makes me feel less motivated, and then I feel worse... and it's just a vicious cycle. I've been starting to remember why I started this list in the first place. It's to make me feel LESS stressed by actually getting things done. Although it's been nice to lay on the couch with my husband at night watching back to back episodes of old shows on Netflix... I'm realizing that I can't do that every night! I think I'm starting to find a balance between getting things done on my list, and keeping up with the day to day... or at least I hope so!
Okay... SOOOOO... what have I accomplished during my little blogging hiatus? Well, let's see... (and PLEASE ignore the really terrible photos... I left my camera on vacation and had to take all of these with my cell phone!!! Uggggghhhhh!)
First of all, I got the hall closet finished up. Back in April, my husband created a little storage area under the stairs in our house. It's where I am keeping all of our Christmas containers. We haven't done anything to the closet since. It's a pretty deep closet, and the coat rack used to be at the back of the closet. We had to take it down when we put in the door to the storage area, but also, it just wasn't that practical. We decided to install a coat rod closer to the front of the closet instead. This puts our coats within reach, and still leaves storage space behind them. I'm using that space to store our vacuum and carpet cleaner.
I also put an old hanging shoe holder that I had previously thought was destined to go to Goodwill, on the inside of the closet door. This way we can keep our "everyday" shoes neatly organized instead of piled in a heap on the closet floor.
All in all, I'm much happier with this closet now!!!! Okay, project number 2... touch up painting Andy's room. Andy decided to nap one day with two painted wooden blocks from this shape sorting box that was my husband's when he was a toddler. I didn't think anything of it until I went to get him up from his nap and saw that he'd used the red and green blocks to "color" his wall!!!! And of course his room is still the flat paint that our whole house was painted, so.... I couldn't wipe it off.
It stayed like this for a few months.
Finally, yesterday I bought a mini roller and paint tray and took some of the wall paint and got the whole thing touched up... then I spent a good 30 minutes going around the rest of the house and touching up the walls that still have that beige flat paint. I am beginning to think that I should really do that every couple of months!
I also refinished two bedside table lamps that I have had for five years. They were perfectly nice looking brushed nickle lamps.... but I wanted them to be more of an oil rubbed bronze finish so that I could use them in our master bedroom.
Nothing that a can of spray paint won't fix!
I haven't decided yet what to do for lamp shades because I haven't found any bedding for our bedroom that 1) I like and 2) can afford... sigh... so that is on hold!
Also in our master bedroom we FINALLY installed a ceiling fan!!!!! This is also our overhead light... our ONLY light. Yes, we lived in our house for THIRTEEN MONTHS with no light in our master bedroom. So, finally, yesterday I splurged and bought the ceiling fan that I had my eye on at Lowe's. After some mild frustration, Matt got it installed! Hooray! And the best part??!! Tonight when I was back at Lowe's for some black spray paint, I noticed the SAME FAN was on clearance for $30 less! So I brought my receipt to customer service, and now have $38.30 (with tax) back in my wallet! Whoo hoo!
Also in our master bedroom we FINALLY installed a ceiling fan!!!!! This is also our overhead light... our ONLY light. Yes, we lived in our house for THIRTEEN MONTHS with no light in our master bedroom. So, finally, yesterday I splurged and bought the ceiling fan that I had my eye on at Lowe's. After some mild frustration, Matt got it installed! Hooray! And the best part??!! Tonight when I was back at Lowe's for some black spray paint, I noticed the SAME FAN was on clearance for $30 less! So I brought my receipt to customer service, and now have $38.30 (with tax) back in my wallet! Whoo hoo!
Over the course of the month I've been stock piling things to get rid of. Yesterday I removed thirty items from our house. Taking a cue from 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge, I decided that it would be pretty easy to get rid of thirty things. The following have left (or are leaving) my house:
Pair of curtains
Thermal lunch box
Package of underwear (the wrong size)
One pair of men's dress pants
Eleven men's t-shirts
Tea pot
Bathroom light fixture
Four glass canisters
Outdoor baby swing
Baby gate
Cardboard guitar box
One men's dress shirt
Five tools
Other than the tools (which are going to my brother) and the cardboard box (which is going in the trash), and one of the glass canisters (which I dropped and smashed on the front porch) everything went to Goodwill.
Okay, I'm almost done... on Tuesday night I started crocheting a baby blanket for my friend Heather. She's due with her second child, a little girl, in September. I'm DETERMINED to a) finish this and b) not screw it up. Even though I go to our weekly Stitch n' Bitch group, I'm not what you would call, good at crocheting! I tried to make a baby blanket once before, but it ended up looking like a trapezoid... no kidding. Then another time, we were making "friendship scarfs"... each person adds a section to everyones scarf in their own yarn and pattern.... well, I added my section in the wrong direction to my friend Amy's scarf. We decided it could be made into a pocket.... because seriously... how practical is a pocket on a scarf?? Right??!!
The only thing I've made successfully is a dish cloth. I've actually made three. So, my friend Megan, who is an uhhhhh-mazing knitter and crocheter is teaching me a pattern for a blanket that she swears I can do... we shall seeeeeee-eeeeee.....
And last, but not least (for this post anyway), I mailed the bridal shower invitations for my future sister-in-law's shower in (yikes!) THREE weeks!!! This was a challenge in and of itself because for the past three times that I've gone to the post office, my wonderful, sweet, loving, adorable child has pitched some kind of fit... for no apparent reason. THIS TIME, I was prepared! I'm totally not above bribing. I went to Walmart and bought a package of Goldfish (his favorite... but he hasn't had them in about a month) and I let him eat right out of the package (gasp!) while he was in the stroller. THEN... I gave him a juice box. Forget the sippy cup! Straight juice ... not watered down... out of a REAL straw!!!! That kept him quiet long enough for me to buy 3 books of stamps and stamp all the envelopes... and get the heck out of there!
Whew! Are you still reading? Probably not! This was ridiculously long! I promise to get better about posting! I am, after all, coming out of my slump!
Sunday, July 25, 2010
How to Organize a Lazy Susan Cabinet
I really dislike my lazy susan corner cabinet. I can't figure out what its best use is. It's hard to keep organized. Until today, it has looked like this...
It was just kind of a wasted space, junk cabinet. I finally decided to put things in perspective and learn to love my not-so-functional corner cabinet. I was thinking about five years ago when Matt and I bought our first house. It was a 2,800 square foot TOTAL fixer upper that was built in 1920. It had the worst kitchen... EVER... and we lived with the kitchen like that for a LONG time while we worked on other parts of the house. Unfortunately we moved out of state and ended up renovating the house to be a rental and never got to live in there with a nice kitchen. This is what it looked like the day we closed....
Pretty, huh?
Uh... ya... so, those windows above the stove used to be exterior windows that looked out onto a porch. The porch was eventually enclosed. What you see on the other side of those windows is tile board. That's right, folks... cheap, ugly tile board. Why, you ask? WELL... apparently the previous owners moved out of the country and then sent a check up to someone to install a full bath in that space. Probably not the smartest move... you know... no quality control or anything like that. I don't think you'd ever expect someone to install something this bad though! I know you are just dying to see what it looked like...
This picture doesn't even do it justice!!!! But I'm sure you can see the additional piece of tile board placed, oh, so craftily on the end of that tub. Not to mention the kitchen sink faucet they installed on the tub! The far end of the picture shows the accordion door they installed... that led to this...
I picked up some cheap plastic containers at Target (using a gift card I had rediscovered... thanks Svenja!) and used them to corral extra bags of flour and other baking ingredients. I also moved my flour and sugar containers out of the pantry and into the cabinet.
I used an extra container I had lying around from going strawberry picking to store my canning utensils on the bottom shelf.
All in all, I'm much happier with this new set up! I also think it will be pretty easy to keep organized. I'm sure it helps that I don't bake much :-)
It was just kind of a wasted space, junk cabinet. I finally decided to put things in perspective and learn to love my not-so-functional corner cabinet. I was thinking about five years ago when Matt and I bought our first house. It was a 2,800 square foot TOTAL fixer upper that was built in 1920. It had the worst kitchen... EVER... and we lived with the kitchen like that for a LONG time while we worked on other parts of the house. Unfortunately we moved out of state and ended up renovating the house to be a rental and never got to live in there with a nice kitchen. This is what it looked like the day we closed....
Pretty, huh?
Uh... ya... so, those windows above the stove used to be exterior windows that looked out onto a porch. The porch was eventually enclosed. What you see on the other side of those windows is tile board. That's right, folks... cheap, ugly tile board. Why, you ask? WELL... apparently the previous owners moved out of the country and then sent a check up to someone to install a full bath in that space. Probably not the smartest move... you know... no quality control or anything like that. I don't think you'd ever expect someone to install something this bad though! I know you are just dying to see what it looked like...
This picture doesn't even do it justice!!!! But I'm sure you can see the additional piece of tile board placed, oh, so craftily on the end of that tub. Not to mention the kitchen sink faucet they installed on the tub! The far end of the picture shows the accordion door they installed... that led to this...
I mean, seriously! I have no clue why we didn't end up in a bidding war over this house! OR, why all our friends and family thought we were crazy!!! So, why this trip down memory lane? To remind myself how blessed we are to live in a year old house, with a beautiful kitchen... lazy susan cabinet and all! I have to admit, I love that first house more than seems reasonably possible, and I'm glad we still have it. I think I love it because I'm so PROUD of what it looks like now, compared to what it looked like when we bought it. There is a lot of satisfaction to be gained by doing a lot of the work yourself. It was a big project to take on three months into our marriage, but I think it just made us work better together as a couple.
But... I digress. So... organizing a lazy susan cabinet.... here is what I decided would work best:
1) Keep it simple. The more stuff you try to cram in, the messier it will become and the more frustrated you will get.
2) Containerize. Everything.
3) Pick a theme. Don't shove every miscellaneous item you own in a container and stick it in there. Pick a group of items - for me it was baking supplies - and go with it.
My first task was to find a solution for all the plastic sippy cups, snack and travel mugs and toddler bowls. We use these constantly. They barely have time to sit on a shelf between coming out of the dishwasher clean and getting used again. So, I decided not to shove them all in a cabinet. There was just no way to do it neatly. I got a cute basket, put it on the counter, and dumped everything in. Plus, as my Husband said if we don't want people looking at it on the counter when we have guests, we can shove it in the closet. Excellent point!
I actually really like that basket there. I might by another matching one to collect other stuff that migrates around our kitchen! Alrighty... so... I moved my baking supplies out of the pantry (which freed up some much needed space) and into the lazy susan. The other cabinets in that corner of my kitchen have my baking dishes, pans, measuring cups, whisks, spatulas, etc. It's also the area of counter top I do most food prep and baking. I figured it would be nice to have all my baking ingredients handy.
I picked up some cheap plastic containers at Target (using a gift card I had rediscovered... thanks Svenja!) and used them to corral extra bags of flour and other baking ingredients. I also moved my flour and sugar containers out of the pantry and into the cabinet.
I used an extra container I had lying around from going strawberry picking to store my canning utensils on the bottom shelf.
All in all, I'm much happier with this new set up! I also think it will be pretty easy to keep organized. I'm sure it helps that I don't bake much :-)Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Adjusting To Metformin
Well, I'm officially and for good (well, through my first tri-mester if I'm lucky enough to get pregnant again) back on my Metformin. I had started taking it again in January, and then stopped taking it when I got hit with a nasty stomach bug, then procrastinated going back on it, then decided NOT to go back on it while I was training for my race ... and well ... now my race is done and I'm out of excuses!
This time I'm starting off on the extended release tablets. So far, this is proving easier for my body to adjust to than when I first started taking it when I was trying to get pregnant with Andy. I'm considerably less nauseous, but am definitely still having, eh, hem... digestive issues. Ugggh. I'm up to my full 1500 mg per day though, so I'm hoping I'm almost done with the adjustment period. I'm trying to be careful and watch what I'm eating and drinking. I remember very clearly from last time that I get particularly sick if I eat or drink anything sugary or have a meal loaded with white, starchy carbs. Now, my husband will be the first to tell you that a low carb diet and I are NOT friends! I am a miserable, irritable and just not so pleasant to be around person if I try and go low carb!! BUT... I'm making an effort not to eat any refined carbs and if I do have bread, I'm making sure it's whole grain.
I've adjusted my weight loss number on the side of my blog, because I weighed myself this morning and I have gained back two of the sixteen pounds I had lost a few months ago. I'm hoping now that being back on the Metformin and watching what I'm eating and working out (which I'm getting back to doing tonight!) that I'll be able to start seeing results again.
Today has been hard to get things done because I am feeling a little bad from the Metformin, but I did manage to accomplish two things! First, I finally bought a little rack to hold the lids to our pots. Our pots & pans cabinet drives me crazy. Mostly because we had a pot rack at our rental house and I LOVED having everything hanging in it's place... we don't have a place to put a pot rack now, so everything is kind of dumped in the cabinet.... like so:
So, I picked up the lid rack this morning at Target. The label on it actually says Eliminates Clutter. I'm wondering if this means throughout my whole house? Or only if I actually put the lids on the rack in this cabinet?? My whole house would be nice, thanks!
This took all of 2 minutes and I'm much happier now! Top view:
Front view:
Clutter eliminated! Check!
Then I replaced a light that had burned out in the kitchen. It's been like that for about a month, but I've been too lazy to replace it because A) I didn't have the kind of light bulb I needed since it's a recessed can light and B) our ceilings are tall and I didn't feel like carrying the step ladder in from the garage (all of 5 feet away). But... now, it's done!
I also replaced two lights on the ceiling of our front porch. Those lights have been out since December. Yes... lazy... I know. Hornets even started nesting in one. I guess they figured if it was vacant for seven months, what were the odds anyone would bother with it now???
I couldn't see any hornets in there at the time, so I just climbed up on the ladder and knocked it down with a stick. So, now all the lights are good to go! And I think that was my full 15 minutes of productivity today. My stomach is feeling a little unsettled and I think that is a good excuse to go nap for the rest of Andy's nap!
This time I'm starting off on the extended release tablets. So far, this is proving easier for my body to adjust to than when I first started taking it when I was trying to get pregnant with Andy. I'm considerably less nauseous, but am definitely still having, eh, hem... digestive issues. Ugggh. I'm up to my full 1500 mg per day though, so I'm hoping I'm almost done with the adjustment period. I'm trying to be careful and watch what I'm eating and drinking. I remember very clearly from last time that I get particularly sick if I eat or drink anything sugary or have a meal loaded with white, starchy carbs. Now, my husband will be the first to tell you that a low carb diet and I are NOT friends! I am a miserable, irritable and just not so pleasant to be around person if I try and go low carb!! BUT... I'm making an effort not to eat any refined carbs and if I do have bread, I'm making sure it's whole grain.
I've adjusted my weight loss number on the side of my blog, because I weighed myself this morning and I have gained back two of the sixteen pounds I had lost a few months ago. I'm hoping now that being back on the Metformin and watching what I'm eating and working out (which I'm getting back to doing tonight!) that I'll be able to start seeing results again.
Today has been hard to get things done because I am feeling a little bad from the Metformin, but I did manage to accomplish two things! First, I finally bought a little rack to hold the lids to our pots. Our pots & pans cabinet drives me crazy. Mostly because we had a pot rack at our rental house and I LOVED having everything hanging in it's place... we don't have a place to put a pot rack now, so everything is kind of dumped in the cabinet.... like so:
So, I picked up the lid rack this morning at Target. The label on it actually says Eliminates Clutter. I'm wondering if this means throughout my whole house? Or only if I actually put the lids on the rack in this cabinet?? My whole house would be nice, thanks!
This took all of 2 minutes and I'm much happier now! Top view:
Front view:
Clutter eliminated! Check!
Then I replaced a light that had burned out in the kitchen. It's been like that for about a month, but I've been too lazy to replace it because A) I didn't have the kind of light bulb I needed since it's a recessed can light and B) our ceilings are tall and I didn't feel like carrying the step ladder in from the garage (all of 5 feet away). But... now, it's done!
I also replaced two lights on the ceiling of our front porch. Those lights have been out since December. Yes... lazy... I know. Hornets even started nesting in one. I guess they figured if it was vacant for seven months, what were the odds anyone would bother with it now???
I couldn't see any hornets in there at the time, so I just climbed up on the ladder and knocked it down with a stick. So, now all the lights are good to go! And I think that was my full 15 minutes of productivity today. My stomach is feeling a little unsettled and I think that is a good excuse to go nap for the rest of Andy's nap!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
June
Today is June 30th and let me just say... it has been ridiculously hard to finish my list this month!!! And I'm still not completely done! I have three last things that I'll finish up this evening, and one that I delegated to my husband. I have been out of town waaaaay too much this month!!! It's just thrown me completely off. It's been hard to stay focused, hard to be organized, hard to plan meals, hard to stick to a budget, and hard not to be cranky at times!
I'm out of town again now, but it's been very relaxing and enjoyable. My Mom and Step Dad are staying in St. Simons Island for the week, so Andy and I drove down to Georgia yesterday. We are having a very nice time. This afternoon it's rainy and overcast though, so I've taken this time while Andy is napping to catch up on some of the remaining items on my list.
Before I left town, I returned a company polo shirt that I had never worn to my old place of employment. I can't even remember why they gave it to me... I think it was for a company photo, (okay, so maybe I wore it once). I found it when I cleaned out the dresser in the spare room last month. I didn't need to keep it, someone else can get some use out of it! I also returned my 3 year old neighbor's neck tie! His Mom had lent it to Andy for his baptism (8 months ago) and even though Andy didn't end up wearing it, it has been hanging on the door knob to his closet for the entire 8 months. I see this neighbor pretty much everyday, so I really don't have excuse for my slackness!
I have spent the entire afternoon today on the computer. I brought a flash drive with me on this trip so that I could back up all of our important files that I've just been saving on our desktop. I don't trust thatAndy won't crash this computer won't crash one day and I will feel a total sense of despair. I had an issue with it last month and thought we were going to have to replace the operating system and I totally panicked! That's when it went on the list to back up files! It didn't take too long to do, so I need to just get in the habit of doing it more regularly.
I also copied all of the home videos I've taken with my camera since Andy was born and put them in one folder. They were scattered in folders all over my desktop from different downloads. I want to have them all in one place so that I can eventually burn them to a disk in order by date (not this month! That's for sure!)
And the last thing I did today was set up a business expense and mileage log for my
Thirty~One business. I've been an independent consultant for a little over a month now. I want to make sure I'm getting started off on the right foot as far as tracking business expenses goes. I just made a pretty simple spreadsheet with the following categories:
Date
Vendor
Amount
Cost Code
Memo
The second tab in my spreadsheet tracks mileage. The future me will appreciate getting this all set up now when tax time rolls around again. This afternoon I'm going to work on putting together a binder with a deconstructed catalog, helpful printouts, etc. to take with me for parties.
I'm glad June is almost over! And believe it or not, I already have my July list made. I keep thinking it's going to get harder to come up with a list each month... but it hasn't yet!
I'm out of town again now, but it's been very relaxing and enjoyable. My Mom and Step Dad are staying in St. Simons Island for the week, so Andy and I drove down to Georgia yesterday. We are having a very nice time. This afternoon it's rainy and overcast though, so I've taken this time while Andy is napping to catch up on some of the remaining items on my list.
Before I left town, I returned a company polo shirt that I had never worn to my old place of employment. I can't even remember why they gave it to me... I think it was for a company photo, (okay, so maybe I wore it once). I found it when I cleaned out the dresser in the spare room last month. I didn't need to keep it, someone else can get some use out of it! I also returned my 3 year old neighbor's neck tie! His Mom had lent it to Andy for his baptism (8 months ago) and even though Andy didn't end up wearing it, it has been hanging on the door knob to his closet for the entire 8 months. I see this neighbor pretty much everyday, so I really don't have excuse for my slackness!
I have spent the entire afternoon today on the computer. I brought a flash drive with me on this trip so that I could back up all of our important files that I've just been saving on our desktop. I don't trust that
I also copied all of the home videos I've taken with my camera since Andy was born and put them in one folder. They were scattered in folders all over my desktop from different downloads. I want to have them all in one place so that I can eventually burn them to a disk in order by date (not this month! That's for sure!)
And the last thing I did today was set up a business expense and mileage log for my
Thirty~One business. I've been an independent consultant for a little over a month now. I want to make sure I'm getting started off on the right foot as far as tracking business expenses goes. I just made a pretty simple spreadsheet with the following categories:
Date
Vendor
Amount
Cost Code
Memo
The second tab in my spreadsheet tracks mileage. The future me will appreciate getting this all set up now when tax time rolls around again. This afternoon I'm going to work on putting together a binder with a deconstructed catalog, helpful printouts, etc. to take with me for parties.
I'm glad June is almost over! And believe it or not, I already have my July list made. I keep thinking it's going to get harder to come up with a list each month... but it hasn't yet!
How to Set Up an Electronic Filing System
Since we are so close to getting our office put together and set up (finally... a year after we moved in), I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to best organize our files. Since we have our primary residence, two rental properties, two vehicles, one child and four pets, we have a lot of paperwork that passes through our house. With the three properties, we have a lot of bills and documents that need to be filed.
After much thought, I have decided to go with an electronic filing system. I will still keep two hanging file boxes for all of the originals of our important home documents, taxes and personal documents. I came to realize that most of what I file (or lately, keep to file at a later date! ha ha) could be scanned and stored electronically and then shredded. Since I pay most of our bills online through our bank's bill pay system, I can scan and file a copy of the bill while I'm sitting down at the computer to pay it.
I found that the most helpful thing for me to do in order to organize this system electronically, was to sit down with a copy of our monthly budget and make a flow chart of how I would want the files organized on the computer. My plan is to keep my files on my hard drive and back up monthly on an external drive.
My flow chart of files looks something like this:
Electronic Filing System
Credit Cards
Medical Expenses
Other Monthly Expenses
Personal Records
Pets
Primary Residence
Receipts
Rental Property #1
Rental Property #2
Vehicles
Under each category, I have more sub-folders. For example, under Vehicles I have two folders, one for each car. Under each individual vehicle file, I have the following folders:
Insurance
Loan
Maintenance
Registration & Taxes
Under the Receipts folder, I will have a folder for each vendor and then under each vendor a folder for each month of the year. Receipts will be scanned and stored in order by date. If it's a major purchase, I'll also file the original receipt, just in case.
I'm sure that I will need to add other categories as I go along, or just tweak things a bit, but for now, it's nice to have the infrastructure in place to start filing electronically!
After much thought, I have decided to go with an electronic filing system. I will still keep two hanging file boxes for all of the originals of our important home documents, taxes and personal documents. I came to realize that most of what I file (or lately, keep to file at a later date! ha ha) could be scanned and stored electronically and then shredded. Since I pay most of our bills online through our bank's bill pay system, I can scan and file a copy of the bill while I'm sitting down at the computer to pay it.
I found that the most helpful thing for me to do in order to organize this system electronically, was to sit down with a copy of our monthly budget and make a flow chart of how I would want the files organized on the computer. My plan is to keep my files on my hard drive and back up monthly on an external drive.
My flow chart of files looks something like this:
Electronic Filing System
Credit Cards
Medical Expenses
Other Monthly Expenses
Personal Records
Pets
Primary Residence
Receipts
Rental Property #1
Rental Property #2
Vehicles
Under each category, I have more sub-folders. For example, under Vehicles I have two folders, one for each car. Under each individual vehicle file, I have the following folders:
Insurance
Loan
Maintenance
Registration & Taxes
Under the Receipts folder, I will have a folder for each vendor and then under each vendor a folder for each month of the year. Receipts will be scanned and stored in order by date. If it's a major purchase, I'll also file the original receipt, just in case.
I'm sure that I will need to add other categories as I go along, or just tweak things a bit, but for now, it's nice to have the infrastructure in place to start filing electronically!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
"Spring" Cleaning
Okay... so... I've never actually done any sort of whole house or "spring" cleaning before. That's probably because for a long time the running joke among our friends was to never write our address in INK in an address book! Now that we are, eh hem, settling into a house with no plans to leave (for now!), I felt like maybe it was time to start with a whole house cleaning plan. We have been living in our house for a year now, although it feels like it's been much shorter than that, and the dirt and grime was starting to show. So, although I missed the boat on a true SPRING cleaning, I know my house benefited from the process that took place over the past week.
However... it was a pretty major effort to tackle so much cleaning in a week's worth of time. There were also several areas of the house that I was cleaning and thinking I'm SURE this could use cleaning MORE than once a year! So, now that I've tackled all of this, I think I'm going to re-vamp my list and break it down monthly so that some tasks are in the rotation once per year and others more frequently. The thing that I liked about the check list was that it made me much more methodical in my cleaning. Here is everything that I tackled:
Whole House
wipe down all baseboards and molding
vacuum all curtains and blinds
clean inside & out of all windows
vacuum all rugs – including under furniture
clear all cobwebs
dust all light fixtures and ceiling fans
change smoke detector batteries
dust & clean glass on all wall photos
steam clean all carpets
steam mop all hardwood and linoleum floors
wipe down and disinfect all electronic items
change HVAC filters
Kitchen
wipe down cabinets
clean fridge coils
clean out and wipe down inside of fridge
clean drawer organizers
clean oven
wipe down walls
wipe chairs
clean & polish table
clean trash can
clean inside of dishwasher
wipe down exterior doors
clean inside & out of microwave
clean out and wipe down inside of lazy susan cabinet
wipe down spice rack
dust upper cabinet tops
organize pantry
clean out under sink cabinet
wipe down counter tops, sink & stove top
clean dish rack & pan
new dish sponge
Dining Room
clean & polish table
wipe down all chairs
dust inside and out of china cabinets
Bathrooms
clean toilets, mirrors, counter tops, tubs and showers
organize linen closets and cabinets
wash bath mats & towels
empty trash
stock trash bags in cans
Living room
wash all furniture covers
dust built-ins
organize cabinets
clean out dresser drawers
clean & polish coffee table & end table
Bedrooms
wash bed linens
vacuum & flip mattresses
wipe down & polish headboards and dressers
organize closets
wash dog bed cover
Nursery
wipe down crib
clean leather on rocking chair
clean & polish stand & Dresser
move any out of season or too small clothes to storage
wash bedding
wipe down crib mattress
Play room
dust tv
clean & organize TV stand
clean leather sofa
disinfect all toys
move un-used toys to storage
wipe down kids table & chairs
wipe down play mats
Laundry room
wipe down washer & dryer
organize laundry shelves
empty, clean & refill litter box
wipe down dog food container
Whew! And now I'm tired of cleaning!! To give my husband props, he did get up on the ladder to change the HVAC filters, smoke detector batteries and clear the cobwebs. The biggest thing that he did to help, was to take over parenting duties on Sunday afternoon while I got a big chunk of things finished. I'm glad this is done, but now know that I want to break this up into smaller chunks throughout the year. It was too much to tackle in a week and still try to take care of normal life stuff!
However... it was a pretty major effort to tackle so much cleaning in a week's worth of time. There were also several areas of the house that I was cleaning and thinking I'm SURE this could use cleaning MORE than once a year! So, now that I've tackled all of this, I think I'm going to re-vamp my list and break it down monthly so that some tasks are in the rotation once per year and others more frequently. The thing that I liked about the check list was that it made me much more methodical in my cleaning. Here is everything that I tackled:
Whole House
wipe down all baseboards and molding
vacuum all curtains and blinds
clean inside & out of all windows
vacuum all rugs – including under furniture
clear all cobwebs
dust all light fixtures and ceiling fans
change smoke detector batteries
dust & clean glass on all wall photos
steam clean all carpets
steam mop all hardwood and linoleum floors
wipe down and disinfect all electronic items
change HVAC filters
Kitchen
wipe down cabinets
clean fridge coils
clean out and wipe down inside of fridge
clean drawer organizers
clean oven
wipe down walls
wipe chairs
clean & polish table
clean trash can
clean inside of dishwasher
wipe down exterior doors
clean inside & out of microwave
clean out and wipe down inside of lazy susan cabinet
wipe down spice rack
dust upper cabinet tops
organize pantry
clean out under sink cabinet
wipe down counter tops, sink & stove top
clean dish rack & pan
new dish sponge
Dining Room
clean & polish table
wipe down all chairs
dust inside and out of china cabinets
Bathrooms
clean toilets, mirrors, counter tops, tubs and showers
organize linen closets and cabinets
wash bath mats & towels
empty trash
stock trash bags in cans
Living room
wash all furniture covers
dust built-ins
organize cabinets
clean out dresser drawers
clean & polish coffee table & end table
Bedrooms
wash bed linens
vacuum & flip mattresses
wipe down & polish headboards and dressers
organize closets
wash dog bed cover
Nursery
wipe down crib
clean leather on rocking chair
clean & polish stand & Dresser
move any out of season or too small clothes to storage
wash bedding
wipe down crib mattress
Play room
dust tv
clean & organize TV stand
clean leather sofa
disinfect all toys
move un-used toys to storage
wipe down kids table & chairs
wipe down play mats
Laundry room
wipe down washer & dryer
organize laundry shelves
empty, clean & refill litter box
wipe down dog food container
Whew! And now I'm tired of cleaning!! To give my husband props, he did get up on the ladder to change the HVAC filters, smoke detector batteries and clear the cobwebs. The biggest thing that he did to help, was to take over parenting duties on Sunday afternoon while I got a big chunk of things finished. I'm glad this is done, but now know that I want to break this up into smaller chunks throughout the year. It was too much to tackle in a week and still try to take care of normal life stuff!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Putting In The Time
I've really been struggling lately with making the time for the things that are really important to me. I'm not really sure why. I think that sometimes I get overwhelmed with my life (especially if I am over scheduled) and I either just kind of shut down mentally, or I work on small things while I let the big things pile up and stress me out. Sometimes I think that my coping mechanism when I am stressed is to do as many random and insignificant tasks as possible, while avoiding the big things I should be working on. I suppose that way I still feel productive, but can still avoid dealing with things I don't want to deal with. Of course, this method never works and I just end up feeling more stressed and anxious, but man, is it hard to look at yourself and your habits objectively and try to make changes. Sigh.
So, what it comes down to is that I just need to start holding myself more accountable and just PUT IN THE TIME to work on the bigger things. I know that I'll be less stressed out and then actually have time for the little things. When I was working, it was easier to have someone else holding me accountable for things. Now that I'm staying at home, I'm finding that it's hard to be so self disciplined!
Now that my race is over and I don't have to just train for endurance, I would really like to focus on eating better and getting in shape. I have a hard time focusing on both. I know they should go hand in hand, but I have never been able to tackle making both a priority. I didn't lose any weight when I was training for the Myrtle Beach half marathon, but once the race was cancelled and I took a month off from training, I lost 15 lbs! It was just because I felt like I could focus on my eating. I am someone who can workout all I want, but if I'm not eating well, I won't lose weight.
I really want to keep running right now, but seriously, it's been over 100 degrees in Charleston lately and I would probably pass out if I tried to go out and run. So, last night I started the P90X workout with my husband in our garage. He's been doing it for three months now, and we've already had to go buy him new (smaller) pants! I just kind of put him in charge of my workouts. He made up the spreadsheets to track my reps and weight used for different exercises, he has us following the workout plan, all I have to do is show up. This means that I don't have to feel overwhelmed about planning workouts, AND, I don't have to hold myself accountable for actually working out. I'm not going to let Matt work out in the garage while I'm home doing something else, just because I don't feel like it. The buddy system works for me.
My biggest issue with eating healthy is lack of planning. If I actually plan meals and grocery shop accordingly, I'll eat relatively healthy. If not, well, then I tend to eat pretty poorly. I usually blame my lack of planning on being over scheduled, but really, I find the time to be lazy, or surf the internet or watch a show on Netflix, so I definitely have the time to meal plan.
I think that I'm going to start setting aside a "planning period" for myself on Sunday afternoons while Andy is napping. I might even leave the house so that I'm not distracted by other things, but it will give me some time to plan my week, plan our meals and feel less stressed with the start of each new week.
Oh, ya, and I'm crossing two things off my list...
#1 I submitted our railing application to our HOA. We would like to add some railings to our front porch. Of course, this has to get approved by the HOA, and because they want as much of our money as possible, you have to pay a $75 fee for architectural reviews... this is good for 1 calendar year. We had to pay this last year when we got our fence approved, so while we are covered for another week, I figured I'd better get our application in! We may decide not to do the railings, but at least the request is in. I know it sounds like we must live in some fancy gated community since they are so ridiculous about approving anything we plant in the yard and charging the review fees etc... but WE DON'T!!!! It drives me crazy! The HOA says it's because the builder still has control of the neighborhood and since they are still building and selling houses they want to make sure the neighborhood has a certain "feel"... blah blah blah. It does not use $75 worth of anyone's time to decide if we can plant an azalea!!!
and...
#2 I re-programmed our thermostats. This was easy since I organized all my manuals! The old Colleen would have spent an hour searching for the manual to be able to do this! Anyway, somehow our downstairs thermostat was set for 71 degrees at night!!! Craziness! We don't even need the air on downstairs at night. So, even though I try to remember to turn it off at night, if I don't then we are wasting a WHOLE bunch of electricity! Anyway... it's done.
Geesh! This was a long post! I'll be surprised if anyone is still reading it!
So, what it comes down to is that I just need to start holding myself more accountable and just PUT IN THE TIME to work on the bigger things. I know that I'll be less stressed out and then actually have time for the little things. When I was working, it was easier to have someone else holding me accountable for things. Now that I'm staying at home, I'm finding that it's hard to be so self disciplined!
Now that my race is over and I don't have to just train for endurance, I would really like to focus on eating better and getting in shape. I have a hard time focusing on both. I know they should go hand in hand, but I have never been able to tackle making both a priority. I didn't lose any weight when I was training for the Myrtle Beach half marathon, but once the race was cancelled and I took a month off from training, I lost 15 lbs! It was just because I felt like I could focus on my eating. I am someone who can workout all I want, but if I'm not eating well, I won't lose weight.
I really want to keep running right now, but seriously, it's been over 100 degrees in Charleston lately and I would probably pass out if I tried to go out and run. So, last night I started the P90X workout with my husband in our garage. He's been doing it for three months now, and we've already had to go buy him new (smaller) pants! I just kind of put him in charge of my workouts. He made up the spreadsheets to track my reps and weight used for different exercises, he has us following the workout plan, all I have to do is show up. This means that I don't have to feel overwhelmed about planning workouts, AND, I don't have to hold myself accountable for actually working out. I'm not going to let Matt work out in the garage while I'm home doing something else, just because I don't feel like it. The buddy system works for me.
My biggest issue with eating healthy is lack of planning. If I actually plan meals and grocery shop accordingly, I'll eat relatively healthy. If not, well, then I tend to eat pretty poorly. I usually blame my lack of planning on being over scheduled, but really, I find the time to be lazy, or surf the internet or watch a show on Netflix, so I definitely have the time to meal plan.
I think that I'm going to start setting aside a "planning period" for myself on Sunday afternoons while Andy is napping. I might even leave the house so that I'm not distracted by other things, but it will give me some time to plan my week, plan our meals and feel less stressed with the start of each new week.
Oh, ya, and I'm crossing two things off my list...
#1 I submitted our railing application to our HOA. We would like to add some railings to our front porch. Of course, this has to get approved by the HOA, and because they want as much of our money as possible, you have to pay a $75 fee for architectural reviews... this is good for 1 calendar year. We had to pay this last year when we got our fence approved, so while we are covered for another week, I figured I'd better get our application in! We may decide not to do the railings, but at least the request is in. I know it sounds like we must live in some fancy gated community since they are so ridiculous about approving anything we plant in the yard and charging the review fees etc... but WE DON'T!!!! It drives me crazy! The HOA says it's because the builder still has control of the neighborhood and since they are still building and selling houses they want to make sure the neighborhood has a certain "feel"... blah blah blah. It does not use $75 worth of anyone's time to decide if we can plant an azalea!!!
and...
#2 I re-programmed our thermostats. This was easy since I organized all my manuals! The old Colleen would have spent an hour searching for the manual to be able to do this! Anyway, somehow our downstairs thermostat was set for 71 degrees at night!!! Craziness! We don't even need the air on downstairs at night. So, even though I try to remember to turn it off at night, if I don't then we are wasting a WHOLE bunch of electricity! Anyway... it's done.
Geesh! This was a long post! I'll be surprised if anyone is still reading it!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Baby Pictures
Over the past few days I have been working at putting all of the pictures from Andy's first year onto a disk. I thought this was going to be pretty easy. Of course, I was wrong.
When I sat down to do this on Saturday night, I realized that I couldn't find 90% of his one year pictures on my desk top! I thought that maybe they were actually on Matt's lap top since mine stopped working last year and it took me a good three months to take it to get fixed. However, when I checked his computer, they weren't there either.
Then, it all started coming back to me.... I actually started this project sometime in the fall. I remember putting the pictures on a disk, but not finishing it. The disk never got labeled and Lord only knows what has happened to it since! The kicker?... I was doing it to help clean up my desktop, so I deleted all of those pictures after I put them on the disk! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
My solution? I remembered that I have e-mailed pretty much every picture worth putting in an album to my Mom. So, I went into my sent mail box in gmail and searched for everything I had sent to my Mom from August 2008 - August 2009 (which was... ummm...hundreds!) Then I looked for every e-mail with an attachment and re-copied all of the pictures I had sent her back to my desk top. This took a little over two hours.
Tonight I copied them all onto a disk labeled in HUGE letters with a INDUSTRIAL Super Permanent Ink Sharpie from my husband's work bench. Now, I just need to figure out what to do with them all! I'm going to be realistic here and say that there is NO WAY I am going to get a one year scrapbook done. That is not a precedent I want to set! I just got our wedding album put together for goodness sake!... Four and a half years late!... Plus, my future siste-in-law (boy it will sure be nice when I can just start saying SISTER-IN-LAW! Although I guess this is better than what I used to say when I would talk about her which was "my friend Jaime who is also dating my brother." We were friends for seven or eight years before she started dating Jeff, so I didn't want to short change our friendship by just calling her "my brother's girlfriend")... anyway... I digress... Jaime made me a scrapbook that is already put together and just waiting for pictures, so I do have that! Yaye! And I'll pick some pictures out and put that together next month. But what to do with all the other pictures? I think that since I have so many photo pages left over from the wedding album, I'll just buy an album to start putting all of Andy's photos in and maybe divide it by year. I do like the look of those bound books that you can order with the pictures printed right on the pages, but they are too pricey for our budget right now. If I could find a good deal on them (which I do see from time to time) then maybe I'll do one of those instead.
Maybe I need to Google photo archiving and see what kind of systems people use! Sigh... that's a task for another month! For now, I'm just glad to have year one stored in one place!
Oh, and I am also crossing another thing off my list... I called Verizon and had them take the Internet access off of my cell phone. Andy had signed me up for a $5 a month plan. Fantastic. I have to watch him like a hawk with anything electronic!!!
When I sat down to do this on Saturday night, I realized that I couldn't find 90% of his one year pictures on my desk top! I thought that maybe they were actually on Matt's lap top since mine stopped working last year and it took me a good three months to take it to get fixed. However, when I checked his computer, they weren't there either.
Then, it all started coming back to me.... I actually started this project sometime in the fall. I remember putting the pictures on a disk, but not finishing it. The disk never got labeled and Lord only knows what has happened to it since! The kicker?... I was doing it to help clean up my desktop, so I deleted all of those pictures after I put them on the disk! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
My solution? I remembered that I have e-mailed pretty much every picture worth putting in an album to my Mom. So, I went into my sent mail box in gmail and searched for everything I had sent to my Mom from August 2008 - August 2009 (which was... ummm...hundreds!) Then I looked for every e-mail with an attachment and re-copied all of the pictures I had sent her back to my desk top. This took a little over two hours.
Tonight I copied them all onto a disk labeled in HUGE letters with a INDUSTRIAL Super Permanent Ink Sharpie from my husband's work bench. Now, I just need to figure out what to do with them all! I'm going to be realistic here and say that there is NO WAY I am going to get a one year scrapbook done. That is not a precedent I want to set! I just got our wedding album put together for goodness sake!... Four and a half years late!... Plus, my future siste-in-law (boy it will sure be nice when I can just start saying SISTER-IN-LAW! Although I guess this is better than what I used to say when I would talk about her which was "my friend Jaime who is also dating my brother." We were friends for seven or eight years before she started dating Jeff, so I didn't want to short change our friendship by just calling her "my brother's girlfriend")... anyway... I digress... Jaime made me a scrapbook that is already put together and just waiting for pictures, so I do have that! Yaye! And I'll pick some pictures out and put that together next month. But what to do with all the other pictures? I think that since I have so many photo pages left over from the wedding album, I'll just buy an album to start putting all of Andy's photos in and maybe divide it by year. I do like the look of those bound books that you can order with the pictures printed right on the pages, but they are too pricey for our budget right now. If I could find a good deal on them (which I do see from time to time) then maybe I'll do one of those instead.
Maybe I need to Google photo archiving and see what kind of systems people use! Sigh... that's a task for another month! For now, I'm just glad to have year one stored in one place!
Oh, and I am also crossing another thing off my list... I called Verizon and had them take the Internet access off of my cell phone. Andy had signed me up for a $5 a month plan. Fantastic. I have to watch him like a hawk with anything electronic!!!
Friday, April 30, 2010
How To Make a Car Maintenance Binder
Tonight I finally put together a car maintenance binder. I feel like I never know what to do with receipts from tires we replace or any maintenance work that gets done on our cars. I never know if I should file it or keep it in the glove compartment, or what! Usually it just hangs around in some random pile of papers in our house until it's just so old that I throw it away and figure we'll never need it.
However, I know that it is good practice to keep maintenance records for cars for several reasons. So, since binder systems seem to be working out well for me, I started one for the cars. Mine is pretty simple. We have two cars, so I put two page dividers in the binder. Each has the car's model written on the tab. At the top of each page divider, I wrote "Oil Change Log." This way I can just write the date and mileage of each oil change right on the page divider for each car.
I added clear page protectors to the binder so that I can slip any maintenance receipts in right when we get them. I'm also going to keep a photo copy of our registrations and auto insurance in the binder.
That's about it. You could definitely add more, but for us, I think simple is best. I just think it will be helpful to have an easy place to store everything. Plus, whenever we sell our cars (which hopefully won't be for a long time) we will have the maintenance records to give to the new owners!
However, I know that it is good practice to keep maintenance records for cars for several reasons. So, since binder systems seem to be working out well for me, I started one for the cars. Mine is pretty simple. We have two cars, so I put two page dividers in the binder. Each has the car's model written on the tab. At the top of each page divider, I wrote "Oil Change Log." This way I can just write the date and mileage of each oil change right on the page divider for each car.
I added clear page protectors to the binder so that I can slip any maintenance receipts in right when we get them. I'm also going to keep a photo copy of our registrations and auto insurance in the binder.
That's about it. You could definitely add more, but for us, I think simple is best. I just think it will be helpful to have an easy place to store everything. Plus, whenever we sell our cars (which hopefully won't be for a long time) we will have the maintenance records to give to the new owners!
Secret Storage Area
We have a coat closet in the downstairs hallway of our house. It backs up to the under side of our stairs. A couple of months ago, my husband cut a hole in the back of our coat closet and put in a door. I now have this GREAT storage space that I didn't have before! I'm using it to store all of my Christmas stuff. It's perfect! Since it is at the back of the closet, I couldn't store anything that we would need to access frequently. I also didn't want to have to lug all the Christmas bins up and down the attic stairs. Plus, it gets super hot in the attic in the summer, so I didn't think that would be the best place to store the decorations.
So, finishing out this closet will be on May's list. For right now, I'm just happy to have the door painted and have a home for all of my Christmas bins!
So, the door to our secret storage area has looked like this for the past two months
Before we put the closet back together again, and actually hang coats in it, I wanted to get the trim spackled and the door and trim painted.
So, finishing out this closet will be on May's list. For right now, I'm just happy to have the door painted and have a home for all of my Christmas bins!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Guest Room Closet # 2
Okay, first let me start out by saying that in order to get this post done I am sitting in a Starbucks using the free Wi-fi... BUT... I only ordered a bottled water. I did NOT cheat on my goal of giving up Starbucks for the month (although it was very hard!)
The photo albums on the bed stand will eventually be moved to the office (whenever we tackle that!) and the bin on the floor in the closet is FILLED with unorganized craft supplies. Organizing that will be on May's list.
I'm in North Carolina visiting my Dad and working on a few projects over at our rental house. I couldn't get the Internet to work at my Dad's house last night, despite spending an hour and a half sitting on the floor and hiding behind the side of the bed with the laptop and trying not to wake up Andy, who was asleep in the same room. My Dad doesn't have a wireless router, so I could only sit where I could plug my computer into the cable. It was very frustrating, so finally I gave up and went to bed! I'm here until Friday, so I've brought things with me to finish up from my list, but before I left, I tackled the closet in the second spare room (that will eventually become Andy's "big boy" room).
This project was way more than just the closet. This is what the whole room looked like when I started
Ugggh! It was terrible. This room had become the dumping ground for EVERYTHING while I was cleaning out our bedroom and the other spare room. It took me a few hours, but now it looks like this
The photo albums on the bed stand will eventually be moved to the office (whenever we tackle that!) and the bin on the floor in the closet is FILLED with unorganized craft supplies. Organizing that will be on May's list.Mostly I'm just glad I don't feel a sense of shame when opening that door! Everything now has a home, and that makes me VERY happy!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Family Room
Well, the family room is PAINTED! and the blinds are hung! Hooray! I have actually had the blinds for several months now. I bought them from JC Penny on clearance for $15 a piece! I didn't want to hang them up, though, until after I had painted. Less of a hassle. So, I'm glad I painted the bedroom before this room, because it made this one feel like a piece of cake! I started it on Saturday night and finished on Sunday afternoon. Our family room is also the play room. It's upstairs, and it's the only room in the house with a TV. We decided to make it kind of fun and make it half New England Patriots (for me) and half Tampa Bay Bucs (for Matt). So, I picked gray for the color, because it was the only overlapping color for both teams (yes, I know the Bucs colors are red, black and pewter... but that was just too dark!) Anyway, I'm really happy with how the color turned out. I also think it looks great with the red roman blinds. I'm going to buy some Bucs fabric and some Patriot's fabric and make curtains... two windows on one wall will be one team, and the two windows on the other wall will be the other team!
I made some space on the other side of the room for Andy's little table and chair. This is where he colors. I had those additional block mats stored in a closet, so now they are being put to good use!
This is Matt's vintage Bucs lamp. Personally, I think it's really cool and I'm excited to buy a shade for it and have it functional in the room. The only issue I have with it, is that I can NOT find a matching Patriots one! Right now, this sits to the left of the TV. The poor little empty spot on the right side is just screaming for a matching lamp! I found ONE website that sells these. They didn't have any Patriot's ones and the ones they did have were well OVER $200. Sigh. I suppose if I could just find a vintage helmet, I could make my own lamp. That is a definite possibility!
Otherwise, as far as decorations go, Matt had a vintage Bucs pennant, so I bought a "matching" vintage Patriot's pennant off of Ebay for $5 and we are going to frame those and hang them on our respective team's walls. I'll probably also make some pillows for the sofa. I can't even tell you how relieved I am to finally have this done! I told Matt that I honestly feel like I've been painting for 4 years straight. He told me that is because I pretty much have been! Between renovating the two NC houses (including the whole exterior of one of them!), repainting our entire rental house because I was "nesting" when I was pregnant with Andy, and tackling this house one room at a time... I will be soooooooo glad when I'm done here. It is fun though, trying to turn this house into a home, one room at a time!
Okay, so here is the "Before" (Oh,and I finally figured out how to put pictures in the middle of my post! Ya, I know I'm slow. Those of you who use blogger are going to think I'm an idiot!)
And, here are the "After!"
I moved the toy box against the back wall under the window to make more room for Andy's car mat. Also, since the toy box used to be to the side immediately after you walked through the door, it seemed to collect a lot of clutter. I'm hoping to avoid that by putting it a little more out of the way.
I made some space on the other side of the room for Andy's little table and chair. This is where he colors. I had those additional block mats stored in a closet, so now they are being put to good use!
Eventually I would like to do some kind of toy storage on this wall on either side and paint a big chalkboard square in the middle. Right now, it's just kind of blank. We don't really need any kind of organized toy system yet, but I can see the need for that in the future if we have more than one child!
This is Matt's vintage Bucs lamp. Personally, I think it's really cool and I'm excited to buy a shade for it and have it functional in the room. The only issue I have with it, is that I can NOT find a matching Patriots one! Right now, this sits to the left of the TV. The poor little empty spot on the right side is just screaming for a matching lamp! I found ONE website that sells these. They didn't have any Patriot's ones and the ones they did have were well OVER $200. Sigh. I suppose if I could just find a vintage helmet, I could make my own lamp. That is a definite possibility!
Otherwise, as far as decorations go, Matt had a vintage Bucs pennant, so I bought a "matching" vintage Patriot's pennant off of Ebay for $5 and we are going to frame those and hang them on our respective team's walls. I'll probably also make some pillows for the sofa. I can't even tell you how relieved I am to finally have this done! I told Matt that I honestly feel like I've been painting for 4 years straight. He told me that is because I pretty much have been! Between renovating the two NC houses (including the whole exterior of one of them!), repainting our entire rental house because I was "nesting" when I was pregnant with Andy, and tackling this house one room at a time... I will be soooooooo glad when I'm done here. It is fun though, trying to turn this house into a home, one room at a time!
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Cutest Room In The House
Okay, so... I love our guest room! It's totally and completely my favorite room in the house. I think that one of the reasons I'm struggling with what to do in the master bedroom is because I feel like the master bedroom should be the room I want to relax in the most... not the guest room! (although this set up is good for our guests)
This room was the first room in the house to actually get finished. Part of the reason was that I already had the dressing table, bedside table and mirror. I have also been saving the two closet doors for four and a half years, hoping to one day use them for a head board. They came out of our first house. The one built in 1920. The closets in the bedrooms were rather small... ummm... actually... just short. Kind of strange. Since we turned the house into a rental when we moved a little further South, we made the closets a little bigger and took the mini-doors off. They are still pretty heavy though since they are solid wood.
I rescued the dressing table from a "junk" store and painted it to match the bedside table that we rescued from my in-laws' garage. It's still missing a knob. Someday I will get around to finding a replacement. We think that my husband's grandfather made that table. I bought the candelabra SEVEN years ago at a shop in downtown Charleston... just because I loved it and I just KNEW one day I would have the perfect spot for it. I think it drove my husband nuts to keep moving it from place to place, but now it finally has a home.
The serving tray and luggage rack were hand me downs from my grandparents. My great grandmother needle pointed the straps on the rack. And last, but not least, I had given the framed handkerchief to my other grandmother as a gift, since the embroidered handkerchief had come from her, and I got it back when she passed away.
I think that having so many pieces from different family members just gives the room a sense of nostalgia. That's probably why I like being in there the most. I even have an old sepia tone photo of my grandmother and great grandfather on my grandparents wedding day on the dressing table. I just love everything in there!
So, tonight, I cleaned out the closet! It's TOTALLY cleaned out and empty. My goal with this house is to not store anything for the sake of storing it. (my husband is going to laugh his rear end off when he reads that... but I'm totally serious!) Aside of craft things, or tools, or sports equipment, etc. if it is something that I don't know that we'll ever use, I'm trying to get rid of it. This means there is no reason to keep anything in the guest room closet! I need to put some clothes hangers in there, and I'd like to find a small, distressed dresser that I can fix up and put in there for guests to put folded clothes.
I dispersed the things from the closet and found new homes for everything. Well, for some of the things a "new home" meant getting moved to the other bedroom (ya, there is totally a reason why I started with this closet! ... it's because I'm completely procrastinating starting on the other bedroom. It's not just the closet. It's the whole room. It looks like it exploded.)
Now the guest room is not something I have to think about anymore. It's just sitting there waiting for friends and family to come and visit!
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