52 Weeks Organizing Challenge-January 21, 2011

What a great week.  I am still concentrating on the kitchen/pantry.  However, since I am a stay-at-home wife now I wanted to do something each day that my husband would notice.  What better place to do that than the entryway table, which of course is a catch-all for eveything!  Here are my before pictures:

Random bag, my back brace, mail, basket with zip lock of change, a flashlight and some other stuff.

Why is that huge flashlight under there.  Are we obscessed with flashlights?   That huge binder is my husband’s work stuff, it should be at work!  Then there are my roomba thingees in front and that litte recipe file that is actually my SHE files that I never completed!

First I emptied everything onto the floor, dusted it well, moved and swept the cobwebs away and stepped on a big spider.  Then I moved the cabinet back and started to sort.

I retrieved a empty banker’s box from the garage and tossed all of DH’s work stuff into it including the daily cash register receipts that were still back on the table in the TV room, where he worked on his excel spreadsheets last weekend.  I moved the stuff in the basket to more appropriate rooms (notice I did not say put away), where I will deal with them when I get to that room (eek piles)!

Aha, I remembered all my recipe books sitting on a folding table in the garage where they have been sitting since our new refrigerator arrived, and we had to take the shelf out above the frig area to accomodate our new beautiful stainless steel model.  I went and picked the ones I actually use, along with my two older recipe binders (a future project) and stuck them in the bottom along with the empty white binders that hopefully become my organized recipe binders!

Finally from Tuesday’s garden party, I remembered the first of the season Calla Lilies that were starting to bloom.  I went and picked a few, put them in a vase along with some of those colored marbles and put on the table, along with the picture of my youngest daughter and her husband at the Marine Ball 2007.  YD is wearing her older sister’s bridesmade dress from her own wedding in 2006.  See bridesmaid dresses do sometimes get worn again!

I used the basket to put our mail so that when desk time comes I can go scoop up the mail and go through it, instead of losing bills and other important paperwork, or spend my time searching all the usual spots that I pile things!

It looked so nice, when my husband got home, he asked if I was taking the flowers next door to our neighbors, and he was dead serious! Hopefully he will get used to the house looking a little nicer.

 Yes the SHE box is there, hopefully I will complete and use it eventually.  Also on the far right bottom, you can see my dog’s head.  He was very interesed in what I was doing, and possibly was there any food involved??

Go check out what others are accomplishing at http://orgjunkie.com/2011/01/52-weeks-3-identifyg-the-piles.html 

This week’s challenge….. piles… now where to start??