Finished

Finished another weeks challenge!

I have finished the room exchange, I have purged and condensed seasonal boxes, and am just waiting for my hubby to carry 2 boxes for me one is full of yardsale items and the other has my collection of dolphins in it! I have gone through all our books and have 2 boxes full to list on http://www.paperbackswap.com/ next week.
Some before and after shots of storage/ craft room. Sorry I don't know how to do a side by side. :-(

BEFORE

AFTER: notice the empty tote and crate stacked together :-)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It isn't perfect but it is a huge improvement! I am taming my mess one room at a time and that makes me a very happy mommy! A huge thanks go to Laura over at http://orgjunkie.com/ for posting the challenge 52 weeks of organizing!
 

Moving ahead!

Over the weekend we finished switching the storage room and the playroom – sorry I forgot to take pictures of the before but here are some of the after shots!

 The children are much happier to be in the bigger room!

All these large toys take up so much space!

The train table is huge but the kids love it!

 The room the toys were in now filled with boxes.

 That's my huge pile of seasonal stuff in the corner there.

Mostly books to be gone through.

I will be combining this week and next week’s challenges, since they are of the same area and I need time to prepare for my daughter’s birthday party. She has decided she wants to have a sleepover birthday – so I will be concentrating on planning that. It will be interesting to keep 7 or 8 girls entertained all night but I am sure everyone will have a blast!

I am excited to get into this next challenge – I have boxes of things I haven’t seen since we moved to this house almost 5 years ago. I am sure I will be purging quite a bit of stuff, since I haven’t needed them for all these years, I doubt I will suddenly have a need for them!

I will update as I have time.

Back after a long weekend!

Well, we completed last week’s goal of purging toys and making room for Christmas gifts! My kids’ rooms look great or as good as they will get for the near future! They purged so much stuff we now have room to grow, which is a great thing because my daughter’s birthday is at the end of this month and my son’s birthday is in March! We managed to fit my daughter’s large Barbie house in her room, which thrilled her and made it much easier for her to get rid of stuff!

Those baskets on the shelves were overflowing with toys, and her new Barbie doll house she got for Christmas.

Her game and craft shelf a bit messy but everything fits nicely.

My daughter's bookcase she loves the big cubes!

Her closet looks SO much better!

My son's bookcase- it was full of baby books, but I bagged all those up to give away!

 His toys all organized in these bins- I need to make some basket tags though!

My son's closet- is much improved!

Progress FINALLY!

Persistence pays off! My kids forked over lots of toys today! I am so proud of them, lots of hugs and kisses all around! They both went through their toys and put in a box any they didn’t play with anymore. I had to help very little as my daughter was helping my son understand the process! They both had over flowing boxes! My daughter then went through her books and handed down lots for my son to enjoy, now I have to go through my son’s books and get rid of the baby board books to make room for the “new” ones. I hadn’t thought about this step- my daughter did it by herself. I will probably have to exchange bookcases too I think my son’s is too small for the quantity he now owns!

I took a picture of the pile of toys they let go. It was quite a large pile! Under all those larger toys are a whole lot of little toys. Did I mention I am proud of them?

Free hand washing timers! = EXPIRED

The American Public Health Association is offering 3 completely FREE hand washing timers. Answer a few questions and they are yours. Of course this is a * while supplies last offer so hurry!

http://action.apha.org/site/PageNavigator/timer_form

Toy purge!

Having my children home all day due to the heavy snows that pounded Georgia has made this week difficult to say the least. Wrangling toys away from children is the equivalent of taking a fresh kill away from a lion! It is not an easy task, but I am persevering! I will complete this task this week and get all the Christmas toys put away.

On a side note: we are loving the snow that has fallen over the south this week! The hill that seems so ridiculous any other time of the year - has been a great beginners sledding hill. At one point we had at least five other neighborhood kids sledding on our little hill. Our dog, which we adopted just this past summer, was hilarious to watch in the snow! She is a border collie mix and was springing around the snow like a jack russell terrier.

My family is happy that I stockpile food now, as all the grocery stores in our area have lots of empty shelves. We didn’t lose power to which everyone is extremely grateful! Thanks go to God for keeping us safe and sane!

I am slightly sore this morning after helping my husband shovel snow and ice off our driveway yesterday. I am happy we got it done, but I understand now why people charge so much for this service in the northern states, it is hard work! We had at least 6 inches fall in our yard and it was beautiful! Too bad it all has turned to ice now, no more snowball fights allowed.

This picture taken while it was still snowing a little, no one had been out to play in it yet so it was all still very beautiful and undisturbed!

The Challenge!

Here is an interesting organizing task I ran across. Laura over at http://orgjunkie.com/came up with a great organizing challenge called 52 weeks of organizing. You can find a checklist here http://orgjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/52-wks-of-organizing-checklist.pdf. I have developed my list and have begun tackling my projects already. Here is my list for the next three months and even though I had started a week late I have already caught up and slightly surpassed my goals for these past two weeks!

Jan 2: Take down Christmas decorations and purge any unwanted items. Set up a dropping center in garage for sale and donation items from around the house. I must remember to remove these items also when the boxes get full.

Jan 9: Go through children’s toys and purge, purge, purge! Get new Christmas toys put away.

Jan 16: Flip playroom and storage areas.

Jan 23: Go through all boxes in storage area and purge. Reorganize and purge seasonal boxes.

Jan 30: Sort through books, and list on http://www.paperbackswap.com/ those I don’t want.

Feb 6: Begin sorting for children’s consignment sale.

Feb 13: Continue sorting and tagging for sale.

Feb 20: Straighten lower kitchen cabinets.

Feb 27: Straighten upper kitchen cabinets.

Mar 6: Move pantry overstock into basement and cleaning supplies into laundry room.

Mar 13: Tackle some photos. Complete at least one full album this week! I am a total slacker when it comes to pictures- I take forever to print them out, and then they sit for another lifetime waiting to be put into albums.

Mar 20: Begin garage clean up. Get rid of all cardboard boxes and place items into plastic totes, straighten shelves, and clear out kids’ toys.

Mar 27: Continue garage clean up. Straighten lawn and garden supplies, move totes to designated area in storage, move table to craft room, then gather all craft supplies and put in craft room.

I will try to include pictures of my progress, some before and after shots, although I don’t have any photos of my projects I have completed so far. This should be a productive year if I can stick with the challenge!  

I challenge you to try this also; everyone has those little projects that just never seem to get done, well this is your chance. Make small goals for yourself and stick to it! I can do it and so can you!

Welcome!

My name is Crystal and I am happily married with children. My daughter is 6 and my son is 2. I am a stay at home mom and feel my “job” is to save my family money! I hold consignment sales twice a year, shop at thrift stores (yes Goodwill too), and love to find a good yard sale! I love coupons -this is my main way of saving money. In the grocery store my kids love to race ahead of me to collect coupons from the blinkie machines. Are mine the only ones that do this? I never see other children waiting patiently for the little red box to spit out just one more coupon.

Check back in tomorrow for an interesting organizing task.