Category: household management

Thank you to Mandi at Organizing Your Way for her fantastic post on how to minimize the space plastic bags take up when storing them. Since I’ve read it I have taught my husband and mother how to do this technique and we LOVE it! (photo of final, space-reduced, storage-ready plastic bags) Here is a summary of how to … photo instructions (very helpful) on her original story. 1. Start by holding the plastic bag in one hand and the handles with your other hand. 2. Holding the handles tightly, slide your other hand down the bag, squeezing out all

The Canadian Diabetes Association is coming next Wednesday, April 1st to collect donations. I have a pile of items to give to them. I’m excited to get it out of the house. I’m still stuck in the kitchen. Hubby bought some nice plastic “trays” to organize the pantry. I must have been sick because he took it upon himself to put the items in it. He did a pretty good job too. I’m hoping once I lick this cold for good that it will get all under control. I took “before” photos that I’m going to post now of the

I have taken photos of all the cupboards (pre-organizing and decluttering) to motivate me to start. I found some nice containers at the $Dollar Store$ to get me enthusiastic and motivated to start. I did the top two shelves of the pantry. And then I got sick. For two weeks. And I am still sick. It was all I could do to get through the daily stuff, never mind the extra decluttering and deep cleaning. There was two weeks of laundry (which I have the last load folded and ready to put away, all else is done) and the sheets

I stumbled across Smead Organomics after a great post from I’m An Organizing Junkie. As the “junkie” summarizes in her post (hey, why reinvent the wheel!), Smead Organomics will provide you with organizing solutions for your office based on your specific work style and organizing challenges. You start by answering a few questions and choosing the work style that suits you best out of the following five. Visually orientedDetailed orientedGoal orientedTeam orientedTask oriented Using this information Smead will provide you with three solutions and how to instructions that fit your type of profile. I did this and, to organize my

It’s overwhelming all the “stuff” in the house. I sat down with my calendar one day and decided I needed to break it down into manageable chunks. I took one room a week (sometimes 2 weeks for the larger projects) that I would declutter 15 minutes per day in that room and then deep clean (dust baseboards, ceiling fans, California blinds, windows and screens, etc.). So far it is going really well. I started at the front, top floor room and went down ward accordingly. Thus far I have completed … Master bathroom Master bedroom & closet Upstairs Hallway (including

After years (quite literally) of hanging on to brand new, unread and unloved books that were no longer wanted by consignment book stores, me or the library, I finally bit the bullet and posted them for free on Kijiji where I stipulated they must be picked up by this weekend. I have never had so many responses! I put the 5 bags of books on the porch before I left for my book club (books that I reserve from the library) and the gym and they were gone by the time I got home. At the library I also donated

I’ve decided that I MUST get this house decluttered. I am drowning in it. I have almost the whole upstairs done with Ava’s bedroom to finish and only in Travis’s room to re-arrange the furniture. His closet (which he doesn’t use quite yet) has been emptied of all the hanging clothes that I had stashed there and I either donated them or sold them. There are a few bags by season to be given to a consignment store and anything that doesn’t get taken from them will be donated. I have been successful to date because I sat down one

The holidays are fast approaching and my to do list, I am pleased to say, is shrinking. I am supposed to have printed and mailed Christmas cards (or in our case, a Christmas family newsletter) by today but what do you know, it’s still on the computer (with the virus!). I think I’ll look into it this afternoon during nap time. I had the draft done by mid-November too so I’m not quite sure what my problem is. I think I want it to be perfect but without anyone seeing it, who cares, right?

I found a fantastic site called Organized Christmas that really is simplifying things for me. You don’t have to think – just print their templates and to dos by week (which are very reasonable) and voila! They even have awesome ideas for inexpensive non-cheesy homemade gifts. Very impressed – go check it out.