Life is a Journey not a Destination

A couple of days ago I tidied up the small linen cupboard.

Before: Stuffed to the gills and overflowing

After: Donated most of the books from the bottom and some of the linen we no longer use.

The top shelf has stuff for our king size bed.

Second shelf – Christy quilt, cover and spare sheets (Amy had room in her own cupboard to store her own)

Third shelf – Guest linen for our sofa bed

Forth shelf – Two cushions I’m hoping to knit/crochet covers for, and a container with some of my clothes

Bottom shelf/floor – a spare pillow

Can’t say I want to do the big linen cupboard – full of Christmas decoration containers, books, and other assorted junk that has no home!

Well, it’s been nearly a year since I last sorted out my recipe folder so it was definitely time.

I currently have 3 folders – one for meals, soups, etc; one for cakes and deserts, and one for recipes to try. I usually also have a pile of new recipes recently printed or torn from a mag.Then a nice blue folder with my very fav. ones.

I decided to condense 3 folders into one with labels – soups & salads, main meals, main meals to try, cakes & deserts and cakes & deserts to try. I might try and get some more dividers and make a few more categories.

These fit in very nicely in the space beside my microwave. It’s funny I bought this folder not knowing what I planned to do with it (I just loved it) but look how perfect it goes in my kitchen.

Next up trying to get rid of a couple more recipe books…

I’ve also started using springpadit to flag any recipes I come across online. I can leave them there until I’m ready to try them, then print them out.

How do you keep track of and sort your recipes?

Somewhere in the land of blogs I came across a review of It’s All Too Much – a DVD by Peter Walsh. The preview looked good and I’m always on the lookout for extra organising hints so I decided to order it. At $30 AU (shipped from the USA) I felt it a reasonable price. It arrived last week. I’ve already watched it twice. It’s very good – well put together – and I even got a few ideas. Definitely worth checking out if you get the chance.

I might be odd but I actually look forward to my Monday morning cleaning sessions or weekly home blessings (c/o flylady) as I call it. It’s really pretty straight forward. I like to go room by room around downstairs, then move upstairs.

First thing is to put on cleaning apron so I’m in “work” mode…

and collect my supplies…enjo cloths and a flylady duster.

In each room, I dust and clean any glass tables, then vacuum…

and mop the lino and tile floors…

It usually takes around 1.5 hrs to do downstairs as I tend to get sidetracked and about an hour upstairs. I’ll take a break in between so all up around 3 hours.

However, today I learned that if I’m motivated and the house is already picked up (something the girls and I have been working on) I can get the WHOLE HOUSE done in under 1.5 hours!!!! Todays motivation – watching the Olympics. I knew not the put the TV on until I was done .

During the week I’ll try and find a few hours minimum to do detailed cleaning in one room but other than basic maintainence that’s it for the week as far as cleaning goes. Having a clean and tidy house makes me VERY HAPPY!!!

Oh boy, I did not realize quite what a big job this would be. Normally I just scan through my clothes and try on a few I’m not sure about. Today I tried on almost everything and was rather ruthless with what I donated. I’ve still got quite a few clothes that are just a little too tight but I wanted to box them up and get out of my wardrobe so I don’t have to see them on a daily basis. Feels good knowing EVERYTHING in there fits and makes me HAPPY!

As you can see it was very tiring for Rosie…

The bags ready to take to the donation center…

Still working my way through the house – one room each week.

Taylor of Joy of Food sent out a challenge to her readers to share the contents of their bags.

I’ve been using Fossil bags for a long time – love their style and all the pockets. Here is the one I was using up until about 2 weeks ago. This is my Summer bag, I have a blue leather bag for Winter.

Here are the normal contents of my bag, plus more often than not, my camera. I don’t usually have nail polish but this was borrowed from my beautician.

* Main wallet (new – thanks Mum!!)

* 2 other “purses” – one for grocery money and one for gift money

* Card holder (need to get a bigger one or find another way to organise them)

* At least a couple material shopping bags (these fold up so small)

* Water bottle (love this one from flylady – keep water cold ALL day long)

* Handcream, hand sanatiser, sun cream, lipstick

* Wet ones (Singles we bought in the USA)

* Panadine

* Hair elastic

* Sunglasses (if they’re not in the car)

* notebook and pen

* Gift vochuers and cards

* I always have an emergency snack which I need to restock.

Despite the pockets I still found I was losing things in this bag (as the main opening is once section), so I quite exited to find this bag organiser at Howard Storage (after seeing lots of similar things available in the States). Can you believe that everything above fits in? The few remaining items would fit but they go in pockets in my bag.

Speaking of bags, I’m currently trialing a new bag Mum bought for me on holidays. I love it and so far it’s working out great, in spite of it’s size. It’s so comfortable and seems to be lighter. It was certainly great on holidays as I could fit LOTS in it!

So now I’m going challenge you to share “what’s in your bag?”

Quick post tonight as we’re just back from seeing Avatar – great movie BTW!

I forgot to take a photo of Amy’s bedroom but you saw the after yesterday.

But I did want to share Christy’s room – which took us about 4-5 hours to get organised.

Before:

After:

Before:

After: I bought some more container today for all the lego!

Before:

After:

Firstly, if you couldn’t see the photos on yesterday post I believe Kevin has solved the problem for me.

Secondly, I’m obviously not going to get the whole house sorted as I’d hoped but I’m still pleased with the progress I’ve made.

Over the last few days I’ve been working on the scrapbook room. I took out the non-working computer (after giving up waiting for Kevin) and did some re-arranging.

Before :

After:

Now that we no longer use this area as a desk area I’m going to look for some more storage to put underneath.

Before : The girls area – used for both the computers and craft!

After:

Before : My area: Yes, I know I did the desk a few weeks back but I didn’t do the shelves !!!!

After: Just realized these shelves still look kind of messy.

The girls and I also went through all these drawers but I won’t bore you with the photos

Today I tackled my desk. It’s a constant job since I spend way too much of the day there. It took me about 6 hours (not the hour that it should have) as I kept on getting sidetracked. Oh, well, I didn’t have much today anyway – too hot to go outside except for a swim.

Before….

After….

And the drawers are MUCH emptier…

Top drawer….

Middle drawer…

And bottom drawer…might not look any different but it was full to overflowing…