Monday, July 27, 2009

Well for some reason this post will not space out my paragraphs, so you have to read it all squished together. Sorry. I tried. I really, really tried.


OK, I've been doing some serious slacking in the blog department. Seriously. Do you even remember the last time I did a "Simply Monday" post? I sure don't. So I think it's about time I got back around to it.
So - I want to know how you all did with your menu planning! I did really well for a little while there, but I'm still trying to find a system that will work for me. I know that you guys are probably sick of hearing about it, so I probably won't post about it until I've got it all done. But I need to work on it. I'd like to have something firmly in place before I start my student teaching in September. Oh - and just to illustrate what a slacker I've been - remember that contest I had way back when and the winner got a menu planning binder from me? Yeah - well my friend Tonia won. And I made her the cutest binder ever. But have I even sent it to her? Ummmmm, no. So, Tonia, as soon as a re-locate it amoungst the chaos that is my house I will mail it off to you. I know you'll be anxiously waiting;)
In the meantime, I've been trying to spend lots of time over the course of our 7 week summer sorting and organizing and decluttering. Basically, getting rid of the junk we don't need or want, and finding a "home" for everything else. And though I know that I've been make good progress, it feels like it's just getting worse. I just need to remind myself that that's how it works. Right now the living room is filled with piles of stuff to be taken to the freebie bin, an extra couch that we're not sure if we're keeping or not, the kitchen table because we moped and scrubbed the "tile" and there's so much misc. crap on the table that I haven't moved it back yet, all the school supplies for the kids, a laundry basket full of clean sheets and towels, a pile of dirty sheets and towels, and a laundry basket full of misc stuff that needs to be sorted through and either put away or thrown away. I'm sure there's even more stuff than that, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. On the plus side I have finished sorting through the kids clothes and have narrowed things down a bit, supplemented with a few new school clothes and packed away the things I want to keep for Juliana and Danielle to use in a couple of years. I've also packed up another box of baby and boy clothes to send to my sister - though I'm sure it won't be sent for a while:) Cameron and I also sorted through all the books we own and cleared out some, I rearranged the living room furniture and but the books back away -and it actually looked really nice, lots of open space, hence the implosion from the other rooms. We just found out that we're going to get new kitchen cabinets, so I want to start on that next, so it's ready to go when that happens. But I think I should resort the living room again, first.
Well, now I'm just babbling on and on about crap - literally - when I could be out there getting rid of some of it. So I guess I should hop to it. But I did want to share a couple of websites that I've been reading lately that will hopefully provide some inspiriation along the journey out of chaos.
This first one is 10 Questions to Help You Declutter. These have been really helpful to me in decidid whether to keep something or get rid of it.
This one talks about becoming a minimalist in your own way. I really like the ideas here and hope to get to that point someday - soon.
I have also really been enjoying SimpleMom lately, as I have it set up in my Google Reader.
There's so many resources out there - what are some things that have helped motivate you to clean, declutter, and organize?

3 comments:

Lynne's Somewhat Invented Life said...

I haven't sent your caramels yet either so you are not the only slacker. Send me your mailing address. Not that I'll get speedily right on it but you never know.

I can tell you that sometimes, when you upload a photo you can not get paragraphs. You have to go into HTML and after all the gobbleygook that you don't understand hit enter. That will get you a paragrap break. It's hard to find your paragraphs though, you have to keep switching back and forth and hope you remember where the new paragraph starts. It works though.

I'll check out the websites. I wish I were a minimulast. Or however you spell it. I'm a maximumist.

Anonymous said...

I don't think I would mind cleaning, organizing, etc, if I knew it would end. But it NEVER ends! It's something that takes consistent effort, and patience too, and frankly, I"m not very good at EITHER of those! So I guess for me it's about changing my mind set. I realize that I enjoy cleaning more if I put on some music that I really like. :)

Karen Lambarth said...

Lis, I also need to declutter. I want to check out the 10 tips. We will be moving sometime. I have been off-loading. One box that brought back good memories: the costume box!
Wigs and other cross dressing stuff from Mike, pirate swords, blood, etc. etc.
There is still lots to go!
Mama