Hiatus!

I came to check the blog to see just how much Sarah has gotten done lately, and realized that it looks like we've both been on a little hiatus...called life!  It's amazing how life does that! :) 

My newest organizational frustration are my contacts.  My family address book, which has been kept on excel, and my contacts on email and phone.  Seems like I have contacts coming out the wazoo!  I stumbled upon plaxo.com today and am in LOVE!!  It's a free website that organizes and syncs all your contacts.  It's great! :)  Does anyone use this site already?  If so, do you like it?  What are some helpful hints?  I'm curious to know what you think!

Meal Planning/Grocery List Challenge

This week's challenge at the Organized Home Challenge is to work on healthy meal planning and creating a grocery list.  On the blog, she has a link to a printable weekly dinner menu and shopping list for some sample dinners...it's great!  She also has a super printable grocery list that looks like it would make meal planning and shopping much easier! 

I really like recipe.com for planning and creating my shopping list.  There are TONS of quick & easy meal ideas on that site.  You can search for whatever you are in the mood for, then save the recipes to your recipe box, and add ingredients to your shopping list.  I have the shopping list app on my iPhone, so all I have to do is sync the list with the app on my phone, and I'm good to go at the grocery store!  I love it!  You can also create other lists on the app, so if there are specific things I need to get at specific places (Costco, for example), then I can create a list just for that. 

What are your meal planning and shopping list ideas?  I'd love to hear what everyone else finds helpful and useful! :)

52 Week Organized Home Challenge

I stumbled upon this challenge and thought it was a little more reasonable for me than the daily calendar Sarah posted when we started this blog.  My weeks are so busy and I just don't have time to catch up on the weekend, so I'm thinking this one might be more do-able for me.  We'll see! :)

This week's challenge is to Create a Home Recycling Center, which we desperately need here.  We kinda live in the boonies and our recycling program is pretty much nil.  I try to take things to work and recycle, but sometimes I don't know where to store it all.  So, today I'm going to try to come up with a solution.  Here's a link to the .pdf version of the challenge and here's all the nitty-gritty details!

Master Bedroom Re-organization

Guess it's time for me to check in! Sarah has been on the ball...me, not so much! My family has been sick, life is crazy, blah, blah, blah. I think it's the excuses that are the reason I'm in this disorganized and cluttered mess in the first place! So, this past weekend I decided to do some reorganization in our master bedroom. Part of the motivation is that we got a king-sized bed just before Christmas. My parents got us all new bedding and it looks so nice, but there were piles of clothes and other random junk that has been collected around the room.

This was the view of the problem area before:

I really disliked where the treadmill was, but I wasn't sure what else to do with it! I want it in my room so I can use it often, but it ends up becoming a junk trap! (How did it get so bad?!) I was sick of seeing all the piles and using my treadmill for a storage area. I need to be able to use the machine for it's purpose...not to store all the junk! So I started to sort...and sort...and sort!

I found that most of the stuff piled on there were maternity clothes. My daughter is 10 months old and our last baby, so I started to document the items using It's Deductible Online, which I love! It keeps track of your donations throughout the year, then imports directly into Turbo Tax when you're doing your taxes. It's great! I boxed them up and they're ready for Purple Heart to pick them up. Junk gone...check! In the process I found some "treasures" that were not donation worthy and ended up filling a huge black garbage bag!

I also wanted to figure out how to get our new TV higher, without mounting it on the wall. We had a TV stand in our room before that held our old box TV. It's not the fanciest piece of furniture, but it is tall! So I decided to haul out the old TV (which my husband reluctantly carried to the garage by himself...it was heavy!) and I decided to find a new purpose for this piece of furniture.

I moved the treadmill parallel to the wall by the windows, which left a space just the right size for the TV stand. I found two shelves inside the stand which I plan to use as shelves for some of my sweaters and sweatshirts that are too bulky for drawers. I just need to get the little pegs to hold up the shelves. Here is the view of the finished furniture placement.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I like being able to turn the TV towards the treadmill for when I'm walking. And for some reason our room feels so much bigger! Maybe it's because you are not walking into that TV stand when you enter our room or maybe it's because there is a lot less junk all over! So I am counting this as a success!

My next project...finish the TV stand and post pictures! Stay tuned...! :)

Edit: Linking to

Spices and Rubs and Extracts...oh my! :)

I decided to tackle the spice cupboard this morning. I'm definitely a few weeks off of the organization calendar, but I figure anything I get done is progress! The bottom two shelves in the cupboard by my stove house my spices, rubs, baking supplies, oils, etc. and it's always a hot mess!

I took everything off those shelves, combined spices (who needs five different boxes of cinnamon?) and re-organized. I am very pleased with the finished product. Everything is easy to find and you can actually turn the spice rack (top right) and the turn table (bottom left) to see what is included!

My goal for this week is to purge the extra stuff hanging out in our bedroom. We got a king-sized bed just before Christmas so things were just set aside, and our ginormous TV died (but it's still in our room), so there's lots to be done! Stay tuned for pics and progress! :)

Edit: Linking to Home Decor & Organizing Link Party

Organized Kitchen Pantry

Our kitchen pantry is pretty much a black hole.  The shelves are quite deep, which I thought was a good thing, but things get lost.  It's very easy to just shove it all in there and push the doors shut, which is what we ususally do.  However, last Friday when I tried to "put away" pantry items, I found the doors wouldn't shut.  SO, I figured it was time to do some organization. 

I first took everything out and dumped anything that has been in there too long...which filled half a large black garbage bag.  Gross.  I then organized as I put things away.  Cans (found 10 cans of tuna!), oils, sauces, jars, and packets of rice on the top shelf.  Chips, pretzels, boxes of mixes, spice packets, and extra ketchup and dressings on the second shelf.  Pastas and cereals on the third shelf, along with cookbooks.  Large pots, more cereal, and extra paper products on the bottom.  I realized two things by doing this.  1...We have a LOT of food we can use to make dinner.  I need to use those things up.  2...Having a large pantry isn't so bad if you keep it neat.  I'm sure with three kids and a husband on the go it won't stay organized for long, but having an idea of what's in there is super helpful.  Now, what to do with those 10 cans of tuna?!  :)