An Update On My Progress....

Okay, I'm thinking it's time for an update, because I need to get my own thoughts clear in my head about this process.

First off, our bedroom is functioning better now. Not great, not ideal, but better. We actually sleep in our bed most nights (before there was usually a kid in there on a pile of clothes and we were often too tired to remove said child and clear the bed off) and we have had bedding on it (visible, usable bedding) ever since we changed rooms. Sooo, all that is going well.

The things in our room that are not going so well at the moment are:

• Dirty clothing getting laundered in a timely fashion


• Clean clothing getting folded or hung and put away


• A mess on our floor of various odds and ends that need homes


• Two totes full of cloth diapers that need to be put away into the armoire


• A nightstand that needs to be cleaned out so we can use it for Girlie's minimal drawer needs

Other than those few things (all easily fixable), it's improving!

The things in the boys' room that are not going so well at the moment are:

• Messes being created on their floor of various art projects (mostly scraps from papers that Boy A has cut to make things out of)


• No toy storage established yet


• A closet in severe need of being cleaned out to accomodate some of their storage needs


• Book storage...I'm lost on this one. They have a bookshelf but refuse to use it; they'd rather have their books "handy"?

Overall, though, it's going well. And fairly easy fixes - which is the next part.

For our room, I know that I need to do certain things in a specific order:

1. Clean up the floor mess


2. Sort through the two diaper totes to figure out which diapers need to be in the armoire (newborns on one shelf, smalls on the second shelf, mediums on the third shelf) and store the remainder (the larges and extra larges) in one of the totes. Also need to weed through the diapers at this point and get rid of some, because I seriously have way too many!


3. Clean out the two drawers of the nightstand for Girlie to use


4. Put Girlie's 'drawer items' away in the nightstand


5. Laundry - I think once the floor is less cluttered with homeless junk and the laundry is more accessible, it will make it easier. In addition, I need to adopt a new habit. Which will be: "Do four loads of laundry by noon each day until I am caught up."

For the boys' room, some things need to be done in a specific order, some things can be done at any point.

1. Clean out their closet (it's mostly my and Hubby's mess - throwing junk in there without a thought for what it is or where it actually belongs - I may just enter this closet in the contest for the small space)


2. Put the drawers that I have for their toy storage in their closet and label the drawers so that they know where to put things

• The books on the bookshelf need to be sorted through. Some books are too young for them (and more age-appropriate for Girlie) so those will be removed. I'll have the boys pick out the books that they love and have them weed out the ones that they really don't care for. The ones in the middle ground may stay on their shelf, they may not. I haven't gotten that far in the plan yet.


• The art messes can be alleviated by my putting the trash can meant for their room, um, in their room? Also, maybe to clear the desk out with Boy A so that his favorite supplies have a home and he knows where it is. The drawers will need to be labeled as well.

So, those are my plans for the next stage. So far, I haven't spent any money on the projects, but I will need to before the end of the challenge to at least buy a labelmaker. (Unless any of my readers have one they don't use and want to donate one! LOL)

SMART Habit Saturday

To join up in the fun and excitement of attaining your New Year's goals, visit The Lazy Organizer to join in! Or, even stop by to read everyone else's goals and progress!

Okay, I'm coming back into the group. I took some time off as our life was hectic beyond belief and life almost (not quite though) fell apart. As a result of that time, we are all stronger and more committed to each other than we were prior to that stage, so it was for good. :)

The first habit that I want to work on at this point (starting fresh) is:

• Do at least four loads of laundry every day before noon until I am caught up on my laundry.

That's it. In it's entirety. :)

30-Day Organizational Challenge

Thanks Laura for the kick in the motivator to get an area of my home organized! If you are wanting to join in on the fun, just click the banner above and it will take you to Laura's site and post about this challenge.

My first major decision was to pick a room. I am actually picking two separate rooms, because they need to be done together. Our boys currently share the master bedroom while our baby girl shares the smaller bedroom with us. (Two bedroom apartments don't leave a whole lot of space for two adults and three kids.) We will be changing rooms back with the boys because we have recently discovered that we will be having a baby due in October and the new baby will also be sharing a room with us and there is currently not enough room in the smaller bedroom for Hubby and me, as well as the two babies. So, switch we will.

I had planned on taking some before pictures, but the boys got ambitious this morning and cleaned their room fairly thoroughly and Hubby got ambitious and cleaned our room, but let me try to describe to you what it was like.

Our bedroom floor and our bed were all covered (like buried) two to three feet deep in clothes. They were clean clothes at one point, but now, I think, they need to be rewashed. At least, I'll feel better if they are. There was also a bunch of clutter/junk/catchall kind of propaganda in our room. It was quite the mess, but as of now, it's fairly well picked up. I'll try to get in there and get pictures of the room before too long. I waited two hours too long this morning...

The boys' room had papers and scraps of papers, dishes (no, they are not ALLOWED to eat in their bedroom, but an independent six year old sometimes gets stuff in there without our realizing it right away)...anyhow, papers, dishes, toys, books, clothes, etc. covered the floor to the point of making it all disappear. The boys cleaned it up this morning, including stripping down their beds (all the beds got stripped this morning), picking up and vacuuming. I'll get a picture of their room as well when I take the picture of the smaller bedroom.

Step two is to create an organizational plan: (questions from Laura here from an article Laura found on About.com by Sarah Aquirre. The complete article can be read here.

1. What do I want the purpose of my room or area to be?

• I want for the boys' room to be for sleeping, schoolwork, some of their crafts and projects, and to play.


• I want for our room to be for sleeping, reading, relaxing, maybe even a touch romantic (as much as possible without buying new fabrics for our beddding or changing wall colors, window treatments, etc. - rental, ya know?) as well as a place for me to knit while also being a safe area for the babies to play.

2. What do I need in or near the room to serve that purpose?

• For the boys' room, they need their beds, their dresser, their desk and a bookshelf. They need to have a toy storage area as well (that one is in the works - haven't quite figured out a solution for toys just yet)


• For our room, we need our bed, the playpen (maybe), the crib for the Girlie(or a toddler bed), (the new baby will co-sleep with us for awhile for easy night feedings), the babies' armoire, our chest of drawers, the cedar chest (my knitting storage, I think), and I think that should do it.

3. What can I remove from the room?

• From both rooms...EVERYTHING to be put back in the other room. But, I don't think the question is so much of what can be removed, but what will be allowed back into the room. In which case, see the above answer! :)

4. What problems do I see with the room?

• Well, the clothing mess is a big issue with the rooms, and that is because when we switched rooms, we were not able to switch closets as well. The boys' closet was too small for our clothes and such...so our clothes remained in the walk-in closet off the master bedroom and the boys' clothes remained in the closet in the smaller room. Once we switch back, that will make that issue disappear. Also, paper trash. I will make sure that there is a wastebasket in each bedroom for the various things that need to be thrown away.

5. What organizational tools might solve those problems?

• In the boys' room, an area for their toys, a wastebasket, and I think that would do it at this point.


• In our room, some baskets to help organize the small items for the Girlie (socks, hair bows, etc.), a wastebasket, not sure exactly what else.


• I think it will become more apparent to me when I figure out what is going to be allowed back into the rooms.

6. What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems?

• One thing that MUST change is for me to put the clothes away right away so that I don't just lay them on the bed and they end up dirty again.


• I will continue working with the boys on picking up their room at intervals throughout the day.


• I need to pick up after myself in the bedroom (no longer leaving half-done projects laying around, etc.)

7. What kind of budget do I have to create the organized room of my dreams?

• I have a budget of $0 because I honestly cannot afford to buy more containers, so I will be checking freecycle and such for some organizational tools to help implement the plan.

8. What kind of a timeline is necessary to organize the room?

• Well, it will probably take close to the full month that was given to get it all done.

9. What is my plan of action?

1. Clean our bedroom.
   
2. Clean the boys' room.
   
3. Drain our waterbed.
   
4. Move all of our furniture to the living room.
   
5. Vacuum the small bedroom.
   
6. Steam clean the carpet in the small bedroom.
   
7. Wash the walls and the closet doors.
   
8. Take apart the boys' beds.
   
9. Move the boys' furniture to the small bedroom.
   
10. Vacuum the master bedroom.
    
11. Steam clean the carpet in the master bedroom.
    
12. Wash the walls.
    
13. Move our furniture into the master bedroom.
    
14. Bring the crib in from the garage and set up.
    
15. Then, last last last step, bring in the "other" stuff as deemed acceptable to come back into the rooms.

10. Who can I ask to help me with this?

• Well, Hubby and the boys (namely Boy A, Boy B isn't very cooperative at the moment) and maybe my mom (to help with just watching Boy B and the Girlie)

So, I will be back with pictures before the end of the night! Good luck to everyone else who is joining in! And thanks so much Laura! :)

Okay, I'm back with pictures now - these aren't actually pictures of the two rooms before the start of the challenge, but Hubby said I wasn't allowed to post those. He actually took a couple but these were ones that were taken fairly recently. Let's put it this way - these pictures were taken when I had started to work on the project before, but after a month of the flu going around our house (all February) combined with the first trimester tireds...well, after these pics, it all fell apart. But just imagine with me if you will the picture I painted in your mind before. But the basic elements are the same... (click on the images for a larger image)

The boys' bedroom:



Our bedroom:

The foot of our bed:



One side of our bed: (the other side was about the same - you can kind of see it over the top of the bed picture)



The bed:

At Long Last

I am back from an unplanned blogging hiatus. The month of February was horrible to us, but we all fared through it. Three kids, Hubby and I ALL got sick with a bout of the flu - at a painstaking pace of one at a time. It was horrible! I was sick for a grand total of two days where I stayed in bed, did not move from the bed except for bathroom purposes and then back to bed. Although, there is a full week after those two days that I also do not remember. One thing about me when I'm sick...my memory of the time just disappears. I have no clue what's going on around me and have no memory later on about it, other than just knowing that I was sick and that I can't really remember anything that happened. This just started happening last year. Last August, to be precise. Why? No clue. But I wish it didn't happen.

My college courses suffered, my housework has suffered and I have a month worth of housework to catch up on. Okay, so it's not like the house didn't get cleaned at all that whole entire month, but it definitely didn't get cleaned well enough.

I hope to get back into the regular blogging habit, but right now, I must jet off to get stuff done. For the next few weeks, this may very well be my record book of accomplishments. :) Wish me luck!

S.M.A.R.T. Saturday

SMART Habit Saturday is all about making one small change in your life at a time. Pick one daily habit that you want to start, post about it (please link back to The Lazy Organizer) and then leave your *link here so that we can all check up on your progress and give encouragement! Next week you can post an update and a new SMART Habit or just keep working on this week’s habit for 21 days. Don’t forget it takes 21 days to make a new habit so you’re not off the hook at the end of one week. Keep working on it!

Okay, my check-in. This past week my goal was to follow my new cleaning schedule. Let me sum it up this way:

Didden happen.

I ended up being so busy and we had a sick little girl and it just...yeah, too many late nights and big projects around the house and a fussy baby and class and ... well, there's this next week.

So, my new goal for this week is to:

FOLLOW THE CLEANING SCHEDULE!

Especially making sure to follow that first before starting in on the bigger projects! Or doing the bigger projects within the cleaning schedule plan.

I didn't do so hot this week, but maybe check over at The Lazy Organizer to see how everyone else faired!

Shorties!!!!

I just finished these up at an unearthly time this morning (don't ask what time it was - I was up late, not early! But here are some pics...my dear Boy B is the model here.

His measurements are:
rise: 16 inches
waist: 20.5 inches
bum: 22.5 inches
thigh: 12 inches

These shorties were created for someone that is about two inches smaller in all the measurements but I think they'll fit that little someone just fine anyhow!

Here's the pics:
















(Oh! And I'll be back later for my S.M.A.R.T. Saturday post!)

It's Been Quite Awhile..

Since my last blog entry and I do appologize for that! I started back to classes last Friday and I have also been trying to score a part-time job as a tax preparer. One would think that with a high score on the tax prep exam and good people skills, etc. I'd have companies wanting to hire me. But alas, that does not seem to be the case. I'm giving it one last shot though with a local company and then I'm hanging up my adding machine for the season. (Okay, so we don't really use adding machines, but you get the idea!)

I've also been knitting up a storm! Trying to get a scarf done for Boy A for his birthday (next Friday) and I'm also knitting up a pair of shorts for a friend's little guy. The colors that she picked out are so gorgeous! I'm planning to make each of my boys a pair of shorts for this summer in two different but similar shades and then another similar (but a little bit more girly colored) pair for Girlie.

I have also talked to Hubby about starting back to knitting for profit, like, a lot. He agreed to it and I talked to a friend who is thinking that maybe she'd join me if we opened an online store. I knit and crochet, she and her sister sew...it'd be a fun venture! And the beginning of the year is the perfect time to open a new store!

We did a huge tackle this week, but I don't have before and after pics because it was rather unplanned to start (and it's not quite finished yet either) but we rearranged our living room / dining room and it looks so much better now! More open and just...I don't know - comfy too! That was a huge tackle and for next week, I'm planning on tackling our bedroom. I think a clothing shop may have exploded in our bedroom, or at least in the near vicinity of where I last remember our bedroom being? It's a scary sight at the moment. I'll spare you the pictures. :)

So, what have I missed? Anything must-reads (that I haven't already read?) I read Get Rich Quick... over at Shannon's - which I found pretty interesting (and inspiring!) and Keep Your Eyes Open over at Laura's and also Organized Girls Closet over at Lara's blogs. What inspiration! THIS is the kind of blogging that keeps me going! Thanks ladies!