I have been waiting for this moment for quite a while…. since at least the beginning of the year. I just needed 5 months to get to it!

Taking on the Freeing Task of Decluttering

I’m getting ready to start decluttering closets and any other area that needs some attention and then I’ll be getting things into a more organized state around here.

Paperwork, decluttering under the bathroom sink, whipping the pantry into shape again, drawers… I’m going to get to it.

I’m even going to get to those canned goods that are outdated that I’ll never use.

Clutter in my home is clutter in my mind. I’ve experienced it before. When you get rid of things, it’s invigorating and you feel so much lighter.

I’m not looking to have a sparsely furnished home – minimalist style. That’s not me. I like some things on display to give it a warm look. But just maybe I’ll find extra stuff that’s not being used which needs a new home where it will be needed and appreciated.

I’ll be using a combination of two books as I approach my decluttering challenge.

the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo and The Home Decluttering Diet by Jennifer Lifford.

I’ll ask myself, “Does this bring joy?” when sorting through items. I know there are going to be some things that will be a real struggle for me to sort but moving forward in areas that are easier for me first will help with the motivation once I get to the difficult items.

A 30-Day Home Detox

My first 30 days I will be doing the 30-Day Home Detox Plan as outlined by Jennifer Lifford in  The Home Decluttering Diet book mentioned above. Her premise is that when we detox while doing a 30 day detox, a 30 day home detox will help us clear out all those items that are clogging up our home. Our home will “lose weight” quickly and it will keep motivation high as you start on the next steps of doing a deeper cleaning room by room.

It’s amazing the amount of things you amass as you go through life. It can be pretty overwhelming as the years go by and to be honest it’s a little intimidating to be saying I’m going to do all this. Even though I’m excited, I’m thinking what if I get hung up on my “things” thinking I’ll use it some day etcetera?

You, my friend, will be my accountability partner as I go through this. I will be keeping you posted of my progress as I go along, even if it’s slow.

And if you want to join in that will be even better! Your library may have the two books I mentioned. Anytime is a good time to get things in order so even if you can’t start this week, there’s always next week or even next month. I took 5 months to get started on this so I understand.

Start with small blocks of time if that’s all you have. In the 30-Day Home Detox, I will be spending about 15 minutes a day on a task. It’s all about finding a schedule that works for you!

Now, I have a pile of “stuff” that’s calling me. I guess it’s time to put feet to my words!

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I think one of my dreads is breakfast and wouldn’t you know it(!) – it’s my husband’s favorite meal of the day! He can skip almost any other meal, but don’t miss making him breakfast. Even some of my boys says it’s their favorite meal. What’s a mother to do in this situation?

Since we married 27 years ago, it has always been a practice of mine to make a hot morning meal. I wanted to have that family time together and I feel like it’s an important meal too, but man oh, man I’m sure tired of making it.

I’ve been trying to think of things I could do to make it less of a chore. If you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments. I’m thinking I need to go back to menu planning. When you know what you have to get up and make in the morning, when it’s all written down, you don’t have to waste valuable energy or time trying to decide what you want to cook. If I have a breakfast plan made ahead, I can go directly into the kitchen and get to it.

If I had a menu plan, I would also be sure I had purchased all necessary items. Do you ever walk into the kitchen and find out you don’t have everything you need for that meal you thought sounded perfect for right then?

(artisan bread made by my daughter)

So we have two pluses now for planning a menu ahead of time.

1. make a menu – save yourself energy and time by not having to think about what you’re going to make every morning
2. with a menu I would be sure I had purchased all items needed for the week at the grocery store

What about having some things in the freezer ready to go? Have you practiced this? Some ideas of food that could be made ahead and placed in the freezer are:

• quiches (half-way cooked)
• muffins (freeze in the muffin tins and then they can be removed and put in zip-loc bags)
• loaves of homemade bread (great for toast)

Other ideas?

You may remember the magnetic chalkboard menu planner I made 3 years ago. It’s such an easy system to use and worked really well, but then I got out of the habit.

This chalkboard that we placed on the inside of the cabinet door was specifically for my breakfast menu.

I listed out every breakfast I make and then in the squares that have the days of the week, I put the number of the meal that I want to make for that day. It works really nice. I have a lot of breakfast choices because after making breakfast for so many years, you need some variety. Saturday and Sunday are my days off and so the kids help themselves to cereal.

What breakfast will you be making tomorrow morning?

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It was a little too cold but even Shalom (my 3 month old beautiful granddaughter) didn’t utter a cry of protest but was a sweetheart the entire time.

See, I told you she was beautiful.

The Thanksgiving season is coming upon us rapidly and my two girls both have birthdays the same week as Thanksgiving. Poor things, they always get a little shortchanged since it’s a busy but happy time preparing for everything. For Serenity’s 16th birthday last year, we didn’t even give her a party till February – wait a minute – I just checked and it was M.A.R.C.H. of this year!! Maybe I should just consider picking a new birth date for the girls. People change names, why not birth dates?

I have a feeling they wouldn’t like it so I’ll just let that idea go…

This year we’re spending Thanksgiving with my sister and her family in Pennsylvania, so we’ll have a white Thanksgiving perhaps with snowmen and sledding and frozen toes and lots of hot chocolate. However it is, it’s sure to be a lovely time. (minus the frozen toes, of course)

With the addition of my new pantry (still considering what name I would like for my new room) my coat closet was emptied out of the hanging tablecloths and moved downstairs. Now my brain is busy thinking about how to maximize the space I have in there. Here are some ideas I found on Pinterest.

I have a small closet similar to this.

Housewives of Riverton

I like the idea of storing gift bags, tissue, etc., on the door.

The Chronicles of Home

Different levels of shelving would be nice.

BHG

Angry Julie Monday

Another way to store wrapping paper.

Princess Pinky Girl

And one last one.

Martha Stewart

How do you use your coat closet?

Here’s what’s been suggested thus far.

Once a name has been decided I want to make a sign to hang on the exterior, so we’ll see how that goes.

On to my pantry pictures!

When we first began the process of building the pantry.

In the painting stage…

And now…

No food will be in here as I mentioned before, just supplies and the things I need to host a large crowd.

We built an area just to hang my tablecloths. They had been hanging in my coat closet but no longer!

Please excuse that one lone pant hanger that doesn’t match anything else. I didn’t take the time to make it picture perfect.

Above the tablecloths I wanted to use the space for my place mats and cloth napkins.

An abundance of paper products are stored on the left side of the pantry.

Some small vases I have for the dining tables.

For these platters I am getting some plate holders so that the platters are not stacked one on top of another, making it easy to grab the ones I want to use.

The pegboard wall that I really wanted.

The right side of the pantry holds my large equipment.

And the left side…

The little table at the end of the pantry is very special to me. It was my husband’s grandmother’s and was used to set the wash basin on where everyone would wash their hands before going into the house. I use it quite often when entertaining and I wanted it in a protected and accessible place, thus we planned for it to go in here.

Another project my husband can check off as FINISHED!  I am really thrilled to have this space. Thank you to my sweetheart for his desire for me to have this area and for getting it done.

Linking up with:

Between Naps on the Front Porch

By Stephanie Lynn

Sand & Sisal

It wasn’t pretty and I lost a lot of time trying to make it better.

But thankfully the doctor took care of it. The PC doctor that is.

I had an enforced writing break  when my computer got a virus and had to go to the shop. Thankfully, nothing was lost except my time as I attempted to self-diagnose it.

I’m glad there are computer gurus in this world.

Of course it was some computer whiz that put the virus on the ‘net in the first place. Amazing what people do for kicks.

So, y’all are probably wondering what’s been happening in the garage.

Well…

Um…

Actually not much… until yesterday.

You see from this picture that the garage isn’t going to be no 30 minute task, so I have to wait until I have some time several days that I can devote to it.  Along with my hubby.  He’s pretty vital to the operation.

Those muscles of his, you know.

Zachary and Hannah were here 2 weeks ago and opened gifts.  Hannah’s parents spent the weekend with us, too and got to be a part of it all.

Russ took me on a 2 day getaway. This is the year for it, it seems. I don’t think I’ve ever went on so many. But it’s a good thing and two days!   It was absolutely wonderful, the place we stayed at was exquisite in my opinion.  I loved the cabanas.

Then we had to say goodbye to our Seth.  He’s went to Manitoba for the minnowing season and then he’s going to be able to fulfill another dream he’s had for a long time – that of being a guide. He’ll be in British Columbia for 2 months and doing guided hunts for moose, goat, elk and grizzly bear. They will pack in on horses, along with their supplies and not go out again till they’re leaving for the year. Laundry is all done by hand. Hmmm.  The hunters are flown in.  Yes, he did get his rental trailer fixed up and ready before he left. I’ll do a post on that soon and show you how it turned out.

Of course, we had to send him off with a special breakfast, too.

And then there were the graduations and our annual homeschool convention. So there has been very little time for cleaning up a danger zone. Oh, wait that’s our garage isn’t it?

I’ll get to it people. I’ve got plans for that place.

How often do you have to clean yours?  Are they actually meant for parking your car inside?

This seems inconceivable but it’s a proven fact.

How do these small insects do it?

By taking one bite at a time.

Have you heard of the book Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy?

The book is based on the thought that if the very first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, nothing worse can happen the rest of the day.

Ugh, yeah, I could probably agree with that.

Take a look at your To-do List.  What on there is the very worst thing that you really don’t want to do?

That’s your frog.

And…. you must eat it – one bite at a time.

Termites cause all their damage by taking one bite at a time.  If you want to achieve something, you must begin with that first bite and then take another one and another one till you have finished.

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” ~Olin Miller

Isn’t this the truth?  I cannot tell you how many times I avoided doing something when if I had just did it, it would have taken less energy than the avoiding.

Knowing you have a task to do and yet avoiding it is very draining.  As Brian Tracy say’s, “If you eat that frog, it will give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day.”

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”  –Abraham Lincoln

Currently, I have a lot of frogs in my life.

Here’s my plan. I’m going to write all of them down. Right now.

I have many things I need to do but there are several I know I’m avoiding. Those are my “frogs”.

Okay, I did it.

Five frogs.

Ahem. That was the number 5. Now, I can’t eat all 5 in one day but I can start by taking that first bite.

Sometimes we can avoid a job because we’re truly not sure what to do next. My recommendation would be to decide what your “Next Action” is.  What is the very next thing you need to do to move your task forward? Be very specific, not vague or general.

For instance, one of my frogs is to plan a breakfast menu for the month of March. I’ve been “wanting” to do this for over a week now but haven’t.  Sure I’ve been busy but I know when I’m avoiding something, too.  I need to figure out my Next Action (taken from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done).  What is the very next thing I need to do? Is it printing off a calendar for me to write my menu onto, perusing the Web for new recipes or pulling my cookbooks off the shelves?  See, it doesn’t have to be a big step but whichever one of these I choose will move my project forward.

After I complete my next step, I then need to decide once again what the Next Action will be.  Pinpointing your next action is very important and actually aids you in the completion of it.

“If you haven’t identified the next physical action required to kick-start it, there will be a psychological gap every time you think about it even vaguely.  You’ll tend to resist noticing it.” –David Allen

Why don’t we challenge ourselves today to take that first bite and eat our way to completion this week or at least as much as we are able.

 “You may delay, but time will not.” ~Benjamin Franklin

This time around I used it for my freezer organization.

First let me begin with the cleaning of the freezer because that was the very beginning of my freezer organization and the beginning seems like a very good place to start.

Every year around this time I clean my freezers (a chest and upright) because hunting season is just around the corner and having a place to put the meat when it’s brought home is sort of important, I figure.

Now you may wonder, why would anyone need 2 freezers.  Well, I didn’t always have two.  I started off with just the upright but then my mom started supplying me with all kinds of bounty from her garden. She would plant, tend, harvest and the preserve the harvest by freezing and canning everything she raised.  Not only did she do all of that for herself but for me and my 2 sisters.  My mom is simply amazing – but that’s another story.

So my freezer started to fill up with all this wonderful bounty and then about that time, we got bugs in our grains  (I buy bulk.)  and I decided there was no way I was going to grind up those bugs in my grain mill and use it for cooking.  So the grains were tossed and I bought a new bag.  Same problem.  That’s when I decided I needed a chest freezer to store my grains.  Not only will my grains be kept bug free but they will remain fresh.

A chest freezer was purchased with the intent of storing grains but over the years it has also become the place where we put our elk/deer/antelope meat.  The meat is starting to take up a little too much room as it now owns about 2/3 of the space.

When I started cleaning the chest it looked like this on top. Of course, that is the very worst thing about a chest freezer – you have to dig for items.  I didn’t get a picture of when I took the baskets off the top so you’ll never know what it looked like underneath.  Dreadful realization, I know.

1.  The first thing I did was empty every single thing out of the freezer and group like items together.

2.  Then I vacuumed up any spilt grains, removed the ice build-up and vacuumed up the water that had gathered in the bottom.

3.  I wiped down the interior.

4.  Then my son and I got down to business.

5.  I used a wonderful and simple organizing sheet from Simple Productivity Blog that can be downloaded if you go to the above link.  I’ve looked at different freezer organizational charts before but I think the difference here is that LJ of Simple Productivity blog  explained how to use it.  I never said I was a rocket scientist, folks.  I need things ex–plainnnn–ed!  LJ’s suggestion that really made the light bulb come on for me is to put a diagonal slash through the box for every item you have in your freezer and then complete the x when you take the item out and use it.

Crates Are Wonderful for Organizing a Chest Freezer

6.  All of our meats were then separated by type and placed in crates.  Something new I’m doing this year was to number the crates and then I wrote on a separate sheet of paper what type of meat was in each numbered bin.

See the 4 at the top of the crate?

7.  Toss anything that is freezer burnt.  My chickens loved the few packages of meat I gave them.

8.  This step took me the longest because I decided to place many of my smaller bags of grains, legumes, etc. into containers.  I’m hoping for no more spills from bags splitting because they can’t hold up in the freezer.  The part that I’m a little unsure about is whether there will be any breakage from the glass jars or if they’re sturdy enough to withstand any jostling they might get.  I did use some plastic containers I had on hand, too.

Then I went to Excel and I made the same type of form that LJ of Simple Productivity Blog had designed.  The reason I made one of my own was because I couldn’t figure out how to write on hers using the computer.

Now everything is typed up and I can tweak things around if I need to without writing my whole list over again (not that I would do that anyways).  It’s in alphabetical order according to its kind.  For instance under Grains I have in alphabetical order: Amaranth, Hard Red Wheat, Hard White Wheat, etc.

Here’s the first page of my “What’s in the Freezer?  inventory list.

Now I know exactly how many roasts I have left. Before if i didn’t see anything on top or after digging a little while, I would assume we were getting very low or were out. Now I’ll be able to look at my inventory list. It’s another step in the whole getting organized plan.

Organization happens one step at a time.

It can be a slow process sometimes but even if we take one idea and make it work for us over a long period, that’s one thing that we’ll have down pat and it will become a habit to do.

Good habits are wonderful because they require no real effort.  Why?  Because we now do that task unconsciouslyor without great thought.  It has become a habit.

Joining up with The Homestead Barn Hop #27

Last graduation dinner (Seth’s) ,my sister came and masterminded the event.  She’ll be coming again which I’m very grateful for.  She stays working in the background while I get to enjoy the party.  How sweet is that?!  

It may sound kind of sad for her but really our family enjoys planning and managing these kinds of events.  So she’s pretty excited, too.  Right, Sis?  Just thrilled?  Oh, that’s splendid!

Although my sister is doing a lot of the planning on her end (She’s in Pennsylvania and I’m here in Arizona – 3,000 miles apart) for decorations and food amounts, I am doing a little bit.  I promise, big sister. 

So what I want to share today is how you can stay organized when planning this type of occasion.  There may be better ways out there, so if there is, feel free to enlighten me but this is how I’ve been doing it for a very long time and it’s so very useful. 

What’s my secret weapon when planning an event? 

The Notebook!

Yes, this little inexpensive notebook will be your lifesaver.  I personalized it my finding a graphic from Printshop, printing it off and sliding it into the front pocket.  I love making things like that.

I have 3 tabs inside.  The reason for 3 is if I’m planning multiple projects at the same time. The tabs just say, “Project 1,” Project 2″ and “Project 3”.

So, what do you keep in your notebook when you’re planning an event?  Everything you need to know to carry out the event!

Lists 

•  groceries
•  attendees
•  how many to plan for
•  menu
•  order of events
•  things to do
•  recipes
•  jobs for my helpers 
• anything that comes to mind, pertaining to your occasion, should go in your notebook 

Do not try to remember everything.  You use up too much brain power trying to remember what you don’t want to forget and if you’re like me, you do forget and then you’re wondering “What was I trying to remember?  I know there was something!” 

Boy, I hope your mind was able to wrap around all the remembers and forgets in that last paragraph.

I don’t have page pockets yet, but just today I got the idea from The Morris Tribe in her garden journal post and I think that would be a great addition to the notebook.

For many years I kept all the above lists when making plans but I never kept them in a notebook.  I lost papers so many times and would have to start afresh.  A notebook is a little harder to lose.

The other great benefit to a notebook, besides it being harder to misplace, is that you’re able to take it with you everywhere.  I can look over my notes in the car.  I can refer to my notes if I get to the store and find I need clarification on my grocery list or I can add to my notes anytime I think of something new. 

Here are a few of the bigger events I’ve used my Current Projects folder for…

Our Middle Ages Co-op Day Part I

Our Middle Ages Co-op Day Part II

I Survived

Don’t toss the idea out of using a folder just because you think you don’t plan large gatherings.  The notebook is something that’s useful for any size occasion.  It’s great for Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday parties, dinner parties, etc. 

Have you ever had guests over and it wasn’t until the middle of the meal or after they were gone that you realized you forgot to take that side dish out of the fridge? 

Or has it just happened to me?

Well, the notebook can help prevent that from happening to you.

Yes, you will find that this little $2.00 notebook really is a wonderful help in your planning. 

What do you currently use?

Linking up with the Homestead Barn Hop

After about 15 minutes, order was restored.

That messy cabinet was an eyesore.  It’s funny how a little 15 minute organization spurt can make one feel so much better.

Joining up with Tackle it Tuesday.

Here are some outdoor solutions I found.  Which one is your favorite?

1.  I really like this mudroom shoe rack for about $64.  It even comes with a metal tray for your wet boots.

2.  Here’s a deck storage bench that’s waterproof for between $50-$180 depending the size you get – good for cushions, yard supplies or pool supplies.  But what about my shoes?  I don’t think we would want the extra step of opening the lid.  I just can’t see it happening.

3.  Perhaps a metal shoe rack for around $15?

4.  How about a 4 tier wooden shoe rack for $60?  If you purchase a second one, you can make it an 8 tier shoe rack. 

5.  This shoe cubby looks interesting.  It’s made of a weather resistant poly and can be configured into the shape needed for your area. $29.

6.  And finally, this 3 tiered shoe rack looks like a very good deal. $30.  No tools are needed for assembly and you can stack more shoe racks on topfor added storage.  It’s made of iron and could be refinished if it became rusty over time.  This one looks like a possibility for our family.

Have you figured out a solution for your family’s muddy shoes?  The mess at our back door is pretty bad.  Sometimes there will be 10 different pairs of shoes.  (remember there are 8 in our family)  When we had our shoe storage that my son had built, I would limit the shoes to 1 pair per person but now, without my shoe storage, I’m dealing with a very messy area.  Bad habits are sure easy to fall into.