52 weeks of Organizing!

February 11, 2011 5 Comments

I had a crazy week, my get up and go got up and left, but I really felt like I needed to do something, so I decided to work on something small, the junk drawer in the kitchen.  It is not very exciting, but it does look better.  I had fun going to the Dollar Store and getting some organizing containers.  I am trying to decorate/organize in blue and white, inspired by some of those Flickr photos of lovely work spaces.

Here is my drawer before:

And here is the after:

 I used two woven baskets from the Dollar Store, and put my rolling pin in another drawer!

That’s it for this week.  I have a ganglion that is preventing me from doing too much, but I did manage to work on this:

These made really cute pinwheels.  I think i am going to put a wrist brace on and try and work on this little quilt this weekend.  I am going to keep truckin on in the organizing department.  I am anxious to see what everyone else did this week.

Questions to ponder this week:
1.  What did you accomplish this week on your 52 weeks list? Just the drawer.
2.  Have you had a negative conversation check with yourself lately? I have many reasons to break this pattern and learn new positive affirmation for organizing, fibromyalgia and my fear of flying!
3.  Are you beginning to see new habits developing yet? Yes I really am seeing things differently, but the fibro throws me off somedays, today being one of them.

Filed under 52 week organizing challenge

Tuesday Garden Party

February 9, 2011 Leave a comment

 

I am a bit embarrassed to say this is it for my garden this week:

These were 3/$1.00 at Rite-Aid.  I have other seeds that all need to be started soon.

Oh wait, DH pulled this out the other night from our garden:

Isn’t it cute?  I grated it into a salad.  These were from seeds from 2006!  Only 2 came up and survived.  But hey at least I know they take no care after planting.  Notice the carrot seed packet above.   

Life has been a bit overwhelming the past few weeks.  Partly my own fault.  I had a great time making these for an art show on Saturday that my daughter’s photos were in:

I am continuing my organizing and sewing projects too.  I think I need to read up on everyone else’s links to get myself motivated.  It has been cold and clear and I did end up watering this morning my daffodils and my so cute primroses from last week.  Rain is coming this weekend, a good time to get my seeds started inside.  I will plan to do it then, in fact I am going to go write it in my planner, you know, commit to it!

Happy gardening everyone!

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52 Weeks and Happy Birthday Em!

February 4, 2011 12 Comments

First, Happy Birthday to my middle daughter who turned 30 today!  Here she is with my granddaughter (her niece):

Well I was supposed to be working on DH’s man cave this week.  This is as far as I got:

Yes that is a basket that DH picked out at Michael’s this afternoon when I insisted he choose one!  He has all this crapola for cleaning his guns stuck on that bookshelf and I want it in a basket!!  I have learned something from the hours I spend surfing around finding bloggers who are WAY ahead of me in the organization department.  It was 40% off at Michael’s.  There were some good ones at Joann’s too, but no way was I going to get DH there since we were shopping at Winco a few stores over. 

My studio (I say that tongue in cheek) was looking like a hoarders room, so I jumped in and started working on it after finishing one quilt and getting another top done this week:

I made this one for our next door neighbor who turns 2 on Valentine’s day.  I have never seen the reaction she had to this quilt.  She spread it on the floor, rolled around and finally hid herself in it, smiling the entire time.  I loved it so much and the Bliss line from Bonnie and Camille for Moda, that I purchased a kit and finished this:

I added another row from my leftover Bliss fabric or I should say my new stash of it (need to get more before it is gone, baby, gone!).  It is going to look really cute with giant red rick rack:

Back to organizing, I found this wire basket at Target today on clearance for $2.48.  I think it is perfect for my jelly rolls:

So hopefully next week I will have a little more done!  But then I need to get ready for out tax appointment and DH brought home paperwork for me to do for the 401K at his business….. hopefully I can figure it out since he has been so busy.

So here are my answers to Laura’s questions:

1.  Name ONE reason you want to get organized. 

To make my life easier, to work smarter not harder, which is even more important now that I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and have chronic pain.

2.  What did you organize last week & were you happy with the way it turned out?

I worked on my sewing room, I am happy with what I have gotten done, but it is far from finished, but then will it ever be?

3.  Have you had any breakthroughs or a-ha moments yet? 

I have moments all the time when I thump my head, mostly when I see what other people have done and think “why didn’t I think of that”.  Luckily I can copy people!!  My biggest moment has been to accept that the home is now my “job” and having it clean and organized is honoring the hard work my DH puts in at his business. 
Thank goodness my sister, who has been a stay-at-home wife longer than me,  has clued me in on the racing around half an hour before DH gets home to make him think I have been slaving all day!  HAHA!

Filed under 52 week organizing challenge, Crafts - Quilting and knitting

Tuesday Garden Party

February 1, 2011 1 Comment

Aahh it’s Tuesday!  This weekend we had rain on Saturday briefly followed by more sun.  My husband decided to mow the lawn, but the lawnmower would not start.  We hauled it into the back of the truck and headed for http://millerfarmsnursery.com/ .  I said I would go too, acting like the good wife.  Once the lawnmower was installed in the service department, I said, “Let’s go look at the garden shop”.   It was pretty sparse, still early in the season, but found these beautiful primroses:

Yes that is a pumpkin there!  I have a bunch of nice pots from my elderly neighbor who moved to Minnesota to be near her son and daughter-in-law.  I got busy right away:

I put them out at the end of the driveway in the side yard on the display shelf also from my ex-neighbor (who is my total inspiration going into the second half of my life).

Please ignore the weeds, especially the one growing between the driveway and the border (I have fibromyalgia and cannot do as much as I would like)!  Here are some closeups:

Aren’t they pretty?  They had bright pink too, but I figured DH would be more likely to be enthusiastic if I picked these.  In other orange/ flower news, yesterday DH brought home Birds of Paradise:

I know I need to trim them, but I just wanted to stick them in water quick!  He also was given these by the same customer:

I made some into fresh squeezed OJ this morning and fed my DH along with this:

This is a recipe from http://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Italian-Simple-Delicious-Recipes/dp/1400052580/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296574667&sr=1-1

I forgot fontina cheese, so I substituted Kraft Mexican mix…haha.  I added spinach and 2 pieces of cooked bacon too.  It was yummy!  I used 3 eggs and 4 egg whites to make it a little bit lower in Power Points.  I need to put it in the recipe calculator at Weight Watchers to get the exact number.

The weather has been beautiful and my daffodils are about 4 inches high.  It won’t be long until they bloom! 

I am gardening for the first time in many years, but this year over winter my spinach, kale, arugula, turnips and lettuce all have survived and are producing.  We have a temperate climate here in Humboldt County so we can grow lots through the winter.  We are lucky!

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Friday’s Accomplishments!

January 28, 2011 2 Comments

Another week, another project….. or two…. 

Being home after 32 years working outside the home brings on many new challenges, like shopping and cooking!  I have done a lot of coupon shopping in the past few months and did not have it organized.  So I kept buying some of the same items.  I knew I needed to inventory it and get it organized. 

Then the other night DH requested that the TV room become his man cave.  What???  Well I guess I did have my own room and have for several years.  Yes he needs his own space (luckily I can still use the treadmill and watch TV).  So he requested I start getting rid of anything that is mine out of the room.  I have to admit he did spend time last Sunday hanging up these pegboards for me, enabling me to get started on my disaster of a sewing/craft/office room:

So DH hung these:

Which helped me to accomplish this:

My other accomplishment today was to take this:

and this:

add in this:

and this:

and you get this:

Okay not that exciting, but at least I know where everything is and I have an inventory list.   I have 4 sets of queen sized sheets, put into matching pillowcase!  Oh and I definitely need new towels!  I bought the white ones when Mervyn’s closed, 2 years ago?  I like white towels and will keep buying more of them, getting rid of the old colored ones as I go.  While not as pretty as a lot of contributors, it is keeping me going on this very needed challenge.

I made breakfast and lunch every day this week for DH (except Monday when I woke with a migraine) and sewed the quilt top for my almost 2-year-old neighbor.  I have decided to add another border of 2-1/2 inch squares of white alternating with 2-1/2 inch squares from this fabric line Moda Bliss by Bonnie and Camille.

I did much better this week with pain, pacing myself, until Wednesday’s shopping excursion to town.  I am going to have to stop trying to cram in all my errands in one day, it is just too much.  But live and learn!  I am looking forward to seeing what everyone accomplished this week and tackling this:

This is the new man cave, taken from the doorway.  Specifically I need to work on this:

Okay I am lying.  I am not looking forward to it.  But it needs to be done.  Hopefully by next week it will be all done!

Filed under 52 week organizing challenge

Tuesday Garden Party

January 25, 2011 1 Comment

Today’s topic of planning is timely.  I have not kept good track, but I remember last year cosmos, batchelor buttons and zinnias did not come up as volunteers like the year before.  So while at Rite-Aid getting some good buys including Hormel Chili 4/$5.00 with $4.00 back in Rite-Aid Rewards, I ran into their seed display at 40% off.  Our local Times-Standard last week had the usual garden column talking about how great Chinese greens grow here i Humbolt County.  I bought some of those too. 

What is that apple container from Costco doing there??  I am using it as a mini-greenhouse.  Hopefully next week I will have actually planted some flower seeds!

However, I have anoher project taking up my attention:

Moda Bliss Line by Bonnie and Camille…. a quilt for my little neighbor who will turn 2 on 2/14/11.  She is my granddaughter’s best friend who, between the two of them, gave me many happy memories these last several months. 

So lots to do, better get on it!

Filed under Tuesday Garden Party

Monday, what am I reading?

January 25, 2011 Leave a comment

I had a migraine yesterday with the accompanying sick to my stomach feeling.  So I laid around a lot and managed to finish this week both The Lost Quilter AND The 19th Wife.  Both were very good, I would give both a 4 out of 5.  This is also why I am a day late!

The Lost Quilter was set in South Carolina right before and the beginning of the Civil War.  It as quite interesing reading about sites around and including where my youngest daughter lives in Port Royal.

The 19th Wife was very interesting following both Ann Eliza, wife of Brigham Young and a current day mystery murder.  I found both stories highly entertaining.  

I am ready to move on to Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  This one of my good friends favorite book of all time…. so I have pretty high expectations!

Filed under Books, Books, Books!!

52 Weeks Organizing Challenge-January 21, 2011

January 21, 2011 7 Comments

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??

Filed under 52 week organizing challenge

Tuesday Garden Party, January 18, 2011

January 18, 2011 Leave a comment

Wow 2011, I found some nuts in my freezer that were dated 2001, I think I meant 2010!   We eat fresh veges all year around normally.  But with me not working, I am trying to buy some frozen or pay attention.  Actually if I just use it up and not throw any wilted sad veges out we are doing pretty well.  I just started Weight Watchers and DH shopped this week.  He bought all fresh.  My plan is to try to make soup with anything at the end of the week.  We’ll see……

The sky is just blue enough today to remind me of spring.  My yard is remembering too.  There was a time I hated Calla Lillies.  That is before my dear young neighbor moved in.  Amy always has something on her dining room table, usually found in her yard. 

I went in one day to find white Calla Lillies in a very large vase.  It was beautiful.  I told her I could not get rid of mine.  She said they were very popular wedding flowers now.  I am looking at them differently now and have a beautiful blue vase I am going to put some in later this week.  

I spent an afternoon a few years ago digging them out of the bed against the back of our house.  I figured I would put a few in pots.  Here are the calla lillies in my backyard today.

Darn Direct TV and their wires:

Darn bird doodie on the house:

Look at that darn volunteer onion in our yard waste pile.  I put some calla lillies in pots thinking it would contain them.  So far it has:

 

Notice the rose nicely pruned in the background:

These primroses were transplanted about 5 years ago from the neighbor behind me.  They desperately need to be weeded and divided again. 

I am not sure what this plant is called, but it is huge and I meant to get it out of that prime garden raised bed, but didn’t.  DH is fighting me on it because he really likes how big and showy it is…. I don’t!  I mean I do, it is just taking up valuable real estate!  It needs to be moved to that corner in the back of the picture.

Finally my Amaryllis is in all it’s showy glory right now, lovely.  The Amaryllis sitting there looking pathetic was beautiful for 2 years.  I did not know what I was supposed to do with it, but found something on the internet, actually I think through Garden Party, so I am going to try it again next year.

Also this Poinsetta is still putting off a pretty show:

I need to look up and see if it is worth trying to save for next year.  It would be kind of fun to try.

I feel like my life is getting on track with the kids gone.  I miss them, but know it is really time to get this house and yard in shape, and myself too!  I did both my core program AND walked on the treadmill this morning!  Happy week!

Filed under Tuesday Garden Party

It’s Monday, What Am I Reading?

January 17, 2011 2 Comments

Well I gave up on 2 book this week:  Before Women Had Wings by Connie Fowler.  Halfway through I realized I had already read this book.  Then I started Katherine the Queen by Linda Porter.  I checked this out at the library.  I did not have a list of books to find, so I just went to the new book section.  I do enjoy books written during the 1500’s (Pillars of the Earth, World Without End) or was that the 1600’s?  Anyway Katherine the Queen is just too dry for me. 

So my choices from the library are The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell or The Lost Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini.   The last Cornwell book I tried to read was so dark and weird, I wondered what happened to this author that I usually enjoy.  Of course I cannot remember the name of it…

I think I will start The Lost Quilter.  It is set in South Carolina where my yongest daughter and her family live.

I talked to a friend yesterday from Florida who is vacationing for the week at Hilton Head Island.  We did a lot of “book talking”.  So this book just seems to fit into where my head is at these days.  

My parents were way ahead of their time in that TV watching was not a regular event in our house.  So I was a voracious reader as a child.  Unfortunately we did not have a lot of money so I reread the same books over and over.  I will never forget the first time I walked into the library at Zane Junior High in Eureka, California in the fall of 1971.  I looked around in wonder at all the books that were available to me.  I started in the A’s and read some really good books by the same author…. I wish I could remember the name of that author now!  In the subsequent years there our library was burned down TWICE by I believe two different disturbed boys. 

How did I get on that?  The other wonderful thing about junior high was meeting my DH (yes 7th grade!), and making some really good friends who were so incredibly important to me in my junior high and high school years.  I wish I was a writer, I have a book in my head about our friendships and the things we went through in the 70s.  Who knows, maybe someday?

Time to get up and get going on my day.  One problem with not having a job anymore after 32 years of working outside the home is I really need to work on my routines.  So this morning, once again, I purchased and dowloaded the weekly chore chart from http://www.motivatedmoms.com/.  I have a weekly chore chart that basically assigns a room a day, but I really like this chore chart as another way to stay on top of things.

Filed under Books, Books, Books!!

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