Project Simplify Week 4: The Final (Not Really) Push

What a month!  I've gone from, "Wow, this should be fun," to "OMG, are we going to be on 'Hoarders'?"

Now that weeks 1-3 have come and gone, my house has some spots that are truly working well:

• Kitchen: The papers cluttering the counters and refrigerator were out of control and we had no real system for keeping them managed.  After adopting a filing system that included a calendar, my family is now more organized than ever!  We know the day of the week, what is due (and the cost), as well as where the kids need to be and what's for dinner!  Whew! :-)  That alone makes me happy.

• Kids' Things: Not really done, but much more manageable, the "toy room" was a mess and the boys didn't like to play there. What does that mean?  All the toys came out into the living room!  This wasn't pleasant.  So, we put away the toys we wanted to play with, stored some we wanted to keep, and donated [very] few that were not loved.  We also got the labeled tubs back on their shelves and my oldest son's artwork up on the walls for his little brother to admire, which he does all day long with "My brother made me this!" :-)  I also got binders to house their artwork and writing samples so that there was a real place to put the things that would never make it onto a scrapbook page but needed to be kept.  This week's project makes them smile because they can play in the playroom and admire their work in the binders.

• Closet, Cabinet, and Drawers: This week's project took a lot of effort on my part only really.  It was all my stuff!  I like to think that my family makes the messes, but I too had way too much stuff.  I culled my clothing by 4 big bags, emptied some drawers to make room for baby, and down-sized my scrapbooking items to almost half (and organized it in a way that got it out of the over-crowded, catch-all office that should be a baby's nursery in a few months and into the room where I actually do my scrapbooking!) What a great idea.  This not only benefits my family, but also my good friend's Girl Scout troop that loves to do craft projects.  It's a win-win.

Week 4 was supposed to be about the garage.  I planned on spending the whole week hanging shelves and cleaning out tons of stuff we don't really want.  Instead I think I'll spend the time working in the office, turning it into the baby's new room.

I get so excited thinking about this little boy and I want him to actually have a room of his own.  The older boys love sharing a room now, so we are going to wait until this guy is old enough for a twin bed before changing the rooms around.  Ry will be in third grade in two more years, and O will be starting kindergarten the same year, so that may be the time... or we may wait until Ry is in forth grade.  Either way, a baby's schedule would not be nice to the older boys' sleeping and eventually our oldest should have his own room... When the time comes, we will shuffle again, but for now I want to make the office more comfortable for us to spend time with the littlest.  I am so looking forward to this week! :-)

Project Simplify Week 3: Closets!!

Well, actually the week's theme is closets, drawers, and counter tops, but I think I have already mastered the counter tops in our home.  We only have them in the kitchens and tiny bathrooms.  I used the kids' stuff week to contain the kitchen clutter already.

By the time I get back into my pre-pregnancy clothes, I'll probably be ready for new ones, so my clothes should be easy to purge.  I read somewhere that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time... or was that brain power? :-)  I'm positive that I don't wear most of the clothes I have.  I can name at least 15 pieces I don't like off the top of my head.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have a ton of clothing or buy stuff on impulse.  Actually the opposite is true.  I hate clothes shopping, so when I find something I like I buy every color/print it comes in so that I can stop looking!  This means that I have several items that wear at the same time or stretch/fade/go south all at the same time.  I can just round up each version of the item and toss them all.  That way I don't have to try them on either!

My husband on the other hand has a TON of shoes!  I think he holds on to old shoes as "yard shoes" so that he doesn't have to part with them.  I find them in the garage, hallway closet, bedroom...  They are usually all the same too!  he will return to the same store every year or two to get the same pair of shoes!  We are going to get rid of some of the old ones this week.

We are pretty good about getting rid of the clothes that the boys stain or grow out of, but now that we know the baby will be a boy I'm trying to hold on to some of O's hand-me-downs.  He is pretty rough on clothes though and he is the second in line for most of them.  We've been getting big guy clothes from a coworker lately now too, since Ry is going to be 7.  This just enables me to avoid clothes shopping further! :-)  I love it!!  However, I'm sure there are clothes in the boys' room that shouldn't be saved because we just don't like them.  My boys don't like skulls or dark colors much, so we can donate them.  I know we have several pair of little boy shoes that can go now too since the 3-year-old wears SIZE 11 and the almost-seven's kindergarten clothes from last year.  At some point he just started wearing his older brother's clothes and shoes and now we have sizes 9 and 10 in shoes and 2T, 3T, 4T that no longer fit him.

We have a neighborhood pickup on Saturday for the local cancer research center, so this is a great week to get a move on and purge our closets.  My goal is at least 6 bags to donate!

Before:

UPDATE: HERE

Project Simplify Day 1: Organizing Papers

So even though the project doesn't technically start until today, I tried to get a head start yesterday just be cause I was home... Uugh.  I don't think we are off to a good start, but I do have an idea of how to start.

I did get some good ideas:

Organize our schedule.  I went out a bought a new yearly calendar that hangs from the fridge and fits in the front of the pockets when it needs to travel.  It needs to hang on the fridge so the whole family can reach it to add important information.  My oldest is responsible for giving us notice of the days he wants to eat school breakfast (or lunch) and Dad-Dad works random hours on random days.  I have plenty of late meetings and doctors appointments too.  When we keep a calendar, we do very well with scheduling time.

You can also see our new way of organizing our artists' work.  I've placed page protectors on clip magnets for the boys to put their art in.  When they want to switch out the art, they can do it without adding more to the fridge.  It forces them to make the decisions.  I also like that I can take a page protector off the fridge and put it right into their binders!  I have a binder for each of them.. the youngest only has artwork, but the older has school work and Honor Roll certificates, report cards, and his school pictures.  It forced us to pare down the amount of paper in the wicker basket on the fridge, which is now empty! :-)

Organize new papers coming in.  I bought a  13-pocket portfolio for $13 for the counter and shredder to leave in the garage for those junk mail items with sensitive information like account numbers, pre-approval notices, those checks that credit cards send, etc.  I am very good about dumping junk mail, but I don't want to throw some of these things right into our curbside bin. Now I can ditch the junk outside without compromising security.  For the portfolio, each month is labeled with the month and when a new paper comes in (field trip, class party, car registration, etc.) it gets put into the correct pocket and written on the calendar.  This was called a "tickler file" and I saw it at Simple Mom. Even my green bowl is neat and decluttered!  This is where I keep spare keys, my sun glasses, things to mail, etc.  The white divider to the right of the bowl came from Staples too and holds my meal planner, restaurant coupons, gift cards, and coupon organizer.

So now I have a bit of a system, NO MAIL ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER, and a calendar hanging on the fridge where it should be. :-)  So maybe I didn't organize the playroom yet, but I have gotten a start on controlling our lives.