Tag Archive

Following I’m an Organizing Junkie’s roundup…the assignment was to tackle the kiddlet rooms.

Dear daughter’s closet and room:

• Redid the inside with shelving, bins and more hanging rods so she can reach most stuff. (Did this for everyone else last year. Had funds for her’s this year.)

• Took dresser out of her room! (Yippe! I LOATHE dressers. They are horrible for me to keep organized.)
• Couldn’t find nice canvas bins that weren’t real expensive. But clear plastic bins are working well.
• Put outfits together, so I knew what had matches. (Idea from Creative Triplet Mom)
• Put a necklace hanger for her. (Formerly an inexpensive tie holder that could hang in the closet. But we took off the hanger part and hung it on her shelving.)
• Gave her bigger bins for her shoes, so they aren’t all over her closet floor.
• Went through her book case and moved it to a more convenient spot.
• Hung up shelf that I bought 2 years ago.
• Sorted through toys and made picture labels for toy bins and shelves.

(Eeyore is stuck wearing a tutu, because they both had a hard time finding a home.)

Wandered through my son’s room to see if there were any real problem areas and I didn’t see any newly emerged ones from the last time we organized his room.

So, I’m done early. Yay!

Decided to accept this week’s challenge at Organizational Enlightenment, despite current chaos here. If I don’t make time to do these things they won’t get done. Cheallenge: Medicine cabinet. I don’t really have such a thing - but I do have a shelf and a first aid kit. So I tackled that just before lunch. Mostly just needed to do the right most container and ditch some stuff behind it.

Removed a few old medicines. Didn’t have much that was real old as I just organized this a few months back. Did find syrup of Ipecac expired March of 2005 - thus reminding me I need to check the first aid kit every once in a while.

Also labeled the containers the medicines, bandages, and what-nots are in. The contents of the bins seem to find themselves hopping from container to container fitting the whim of the person “returning” the item to the shelf. Perhaps this and a little coaxing will help the guilty family members.

Things that could be improved at some future point:

- The first aid kit. Have the one my in-laws put together for us when we got married. Needs updating. Probably should just go get a new one. (Edit - I found a happy little long lost first aid kit (hiding downstairs) that I’d bought for camping years back. This is no longer on my to do list. SWEET!)

- Consider if there’s a better way to store band-aids. I think I have about 10 boxes of them - very inefficient space use. (Yes, I do need 10 boxes - we go through all kinds of owwies here with kiddos and hubby’s current job.)

Taking up the Take 5 Friday challenge.

Things I’ve been doing to organize my computer: (this week and last - is that cheating?)

- Automated backups.

Using SyncBack (freeware version) on an external hard drive - which is working fabulously. About 5 minutes to install and setup. Quick instructions here.

Also testing out Carbonite for an off site backup - slow going for the initial backup, will see how it works afterward. Again less than 5 minutes to setup and start. Wonderfully simple.

- Putting all my notes and stored documents into OneNote, so I can find stuff!!! (Invested in MS Office Home and Student version. Was thrilled to see you can install it on up to 3 home computers. ) Takes longer than 5 min to install, but starting to jot your ideas down only takes 5 min.

I started several notebooks including an “idea dump” with tabs for “incubate/think on it”, in progress, projects to do, project wishlist, summer ideas, thoughts in general, drop the project (can go back to sometime), and complete. This has become a great way to manage project ideas and make myself have attainable goals.

And starting to convert the favorite recipes cookbooks to digital (a few recipes at a time) takes 5 min at a pop. The digitized ones are all in there and I can’t wait to start on my menu planning to see if it goes faster now.

- Sorting through all the fonts, patters, brushes and whatnots I download for use in Photoshop. First thing I’ve been asking myself is do I NEED this. I have this crazy want to collect all this stuft with no good way to catalog it for use. (Sounds like a project for another day) Sorting them was another 5 min at a time project - now I should be able to easy get to them and likely credit the creator of the brushes and whatnots when needed. Now as I download the things, I extract them into the right area so I don’t have the big mess again.

- Cleaning up my feed reader subscriptions. This may not be clutter “on the computer” since I use Google Reader, but oh much what clutter does it bring into my life (= distractions)? I had 99 feeds I was subscribed to. How in the world can I get much done and read or listen to all those? I cut it down to 69 and will see if this helps enough.

Yesterday and today, I’m helping my son tackle his room (organize, sort and pitch). I think he’s finally out growing his Rescue Heros things. He of his own free will put them in the give away bin.

Done:

• 3 of 4 drawers under bed (for toys)
• toy cubbies
• sorted through all the little collectable/buildable card pieces

Yet to do

• Art supply drawer
• Book shelf
• closet cubbies
• Outside toy bin (I’m kicking this stuff out to the garage.)

I’m also slowly dealing with the kitchen (trying to work the schedule at “I’m an Organizing Junkie“. For the most part it wasn’t too bad. But there were a few problem areas.

Done:

• Swap dishes and pantry cupboard contents. So dishes next to dishwasher and food by stove.
• Clean off the top of the rolling cart. Give that space to griddle. Take griddle out of pans cupboard - it takes up way too much space. Organize pans cupboard.

Before

After

Before

After (perhaps I need to re-contact paper this cupboard?)

• (craft area) Cleaned out the mess under the far wall counter top. (Will keep this more open to reduce mold.)
• (craft area) Organized sewing supplies (formerly all on counter top) and embroidery. Packed up tablet weaving and dye supplies, I don’t use them as often but am unwilling to get rid of them.

Yet to do:

• (kitchen) Flour/sugar/etc. cupboard
• (kitchen) Tupperware cupboard (/groan) - I think I can help my sanity in this one by putting in large bins to “toss” the tupperware in. Easier in theory to put away and keep “organized”.
• (craft area) Spinning cupboard
• (craft area) misc crafts cupboard

Have been labeling most everything with the labeler I invested in last week. Fun little tool. One purpose, but many uses in my home.

—

Have one more photo to edit for the last photoshoot I did for a friend. Then I just need to resize them tomorrow and I’ll be done! (Happy dance!) I learned from this experience to have a spray/spritz bottle in my “studio” so that winter wild hair can be tamed before I have to edit it. I can edit staticy hair - but want to minimize it. Will be a taking a break from photo shoots for a while now, so I don’t burn out. One of the edited shots:

Finally got to order a bit of fabric from Sew Mama Sew. Think I will make a bag from it. Thought of sharing the fabric with my daughter. I’m too greedy. MY FABRIC!