Command Central

The theme for this month the command center. I did this last year and love it so much easier to find important papers. I am going to change it a bit this year use either a small binder or file folders havent really decided yet. I gave the top shelf to my hubbie , next to me and next to my daughter. We also have the bottom shelf for activity books and coupons.

My daughter's monthly school calendar goes on the fridge so we can see it everyday before school.

update on the challenge

OOps I almost forgot to blog about last week and this week in the organization challenge. We are 1/2 way through wow!!!! Last week I organized and deleted a ton of blogs now I can go through all of them everyday .

I also did back to school shopping for my daughter and we are now ready for school. Her clothes are all organized whew what a job!!!!!!!

I decided I was going to not do the linen closet this past week either but move it to this coming week. It is the last official week I have of summer before I go back to work.
So the goal I have set for this week is to

1) clean and organize the linen closet
2)clean and organize the coat closet.

So the other update for all who have followed me all summer for the clean and clear it I am doing really well as I hope you are too. I have only the linen closet and the coat closet left. I have been working really hard on maintaining all areas that have been cleaned throughout the process. I am happy to say they are really easy now to keep up with and dont get that out of control that it takes forever to fix now it is at most a 10 minute tidy of the area.
My dresser is still clean too so that is good . I am working every day to hang up things or put them back . They say it takes 21 days to build a new habit .
Thanks to everyone that has stuck with me this summer . I will post about the two closets this week so stay tuned!!!!!!!!!!

This week is another bedroom

I looked at the calendar and realized I only have two weeks left till I go back to work!!
So although I was going to do my daughter's room later there really is not a whole lot
of time so this is the job this week. I want to go through all her clothes and get all her
laundry caught up and put back in her drawers. I will be doing that I did with the masterbedroom
except she doesnt have a pile of clothing like her mom did.
So really just doing some organizing and cleaning for her. She will help me and will have a say
to what she likes with her clothes and what needs to go. There is really no reason to keep something if she is never going to wear it. Although with that said we found out last year after doing this that we only had good clothing for her to take camping with her so we learned our lesson to keep some play clothes that might not be your favourite to take camping.
We did some back to school shopping today too. We bought two pairs of skinny jeans and two cute jumper type dresses too . I have been looking forever for some dresses for her but they are hard to find. So today one will do for the first day of school and she will still have the other for another time. Now we just need a pair of shoes probably ballerina flats. She is not a running shoe girl at all.
So it is all about clothing for this week!!!!!!!!! That way we will both be ready when school begins again for us !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next week will be the linen closet and the main closet and then for us we will be done !!!!!!!!!!!
Hope you are still all working with me to do small pieces to get a big result!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I already feel the peace, calm in my house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

conquer your clutter challenge

Okay I felt like I had not completed what I said I would do for the challenge
so I just took the time to go through the rest of the blogs that were left and
did the keep or go thing. It feels really good to be less than 1/2 less which are
the ones I truly learn things from or are emotionally attached to.
So cross number 1 off my list !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

conquer your clutter challenge

So to report last week I got rid of 12 garbage bags for donation out of the spare bedroom.
I also deleted about 1/2 the blogs I had. I am still in the process because I find it hard that people dont blog too much over the summer . So many are not even very active but through out the year they are busy and I liked them enough to keep them. So I have the keepers and I have a few more I will give another week go back through and then if not delete. But at least I did a good purge this week.

Okay so for week 3 my goals are
1) to keep cleaning up my blogs and then only have the keepers by next Friday.
2) laundry- I have a lot to fold and put away !!!!!!!!!!!
3) clean the linen closet

I love the challenge so we can all support one another. I won a gc too this week !!!!!!! Thanks so much !!!!!!!!

This weeks goal!!!!!!!!!

I havent stopped not yet. I finished up the master bedroom and now have moved to the spare bedroom. It is not really set up as a bedroom but a dumping ground really. So I didnt use the same steps I did for the master bedroom. For you what you need to do is go on to another bedroom and scroll back to complete the same steps for the master bedroom.
In our spare bedroom all I am doing is purging and purging for now. We donated 12 garbage bags full of stuff .
We found we still have the crib from our daughter so we will be donating this to a womans shelter very soon!!!!!!!!!!!
It feels really good but I must admit about 1/2 way through I couldnt see the head way I had made and if not for my hubbie would have given up!!!!! It is easy to get frustrated. If he was not around I would have taken a whole week to do what we did in one afternoon. We still have things on the fringes of the room but it is stuff I want to sell. I am going to be selling my daughter's toybox and bratz and barbie dolls. I kept it really simple I could have sold the 12 garbage bags but just easier to get it gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will admit there is one thing that is sentimental to me that I am having a really really hard time parting with and that is books inparticular childrens books. I used to work in daycare and have accumulated oh many many many books. I decided it was all too much to go through the books too so they are all stored away in the closet and I will do that one day.
WEll off to have a treat of mini- choc. cupcakes!!!!!!!! I think I deserve a reward for this.

conquer your clutter challenge

Last week I joined a challenge I found on another blog called Coming Clean. She set up a challenge for us to pick one challenge each week to accomplish. I love having the support and encouragement of others to accomplish our goals. So week one the pics above show some of the work I did on the master bedroom. I started by cleaning off the dresser that was the goal I picked for her challenge for week 1. Accomplished!!!!!!!!!!

Week 2
1) I have two goals I am starting to clean up the sparebedroom and really what I want to accomplish is to go through the room and fill bags I want to donate. I know this will leave me with what I want to keep so I then can work on finding homes for them.

2) The other thing I actually cheated and started yesterday was cleaning out and purging the amount of blogs I read. So the first step I did was make a folder called keepers. As I read them daily as they are updated I can decide if I want to keep reading the blogs or not. I use sage and love it to organize my blogs but on the other hand really easy to save them to so I have done this too much. So this will be ongoing all week and if the blogs dont make the cut and arent in the keepers folder at the end of the week they are being deleted. I have already moved some that I read and really look forward to reading to this folder. I also kept any blogs that if I only have a few minutes I go to those first. So by the end of the week I want to only have the ones that I enjoy, teach me something, or that I can not live without.

Sometimes life or sunshine get in the way

Image via Wikipedia

I must admit I havent really been working too much on my bedroom. I sure hope you all have been working on it. It does not look like I will get back to work on it till Sat. We have actually had a few days of sunshine. Weird no rain!!!!!!!!!! So I have taken advantage of this and not really done too much around the house. We went swimming , okay if you know me not me, my daughter and her friend and I sunned on my anti-gravity chair!!!!!!!!!! Today we went to a reptile show at the library. I was very brave and volunteered not having any idea other that a reptile was involved some how. They picked out 4 adults and we went up and then told us to hold out our hands and not to look back or peek. He took it out and the children cheered and some oh mys and oh ahhh.. Then he placed it our hands it as an albino burmese python. Here is a pic that looks just like it but is not the one from today. I didnt have my camera with me . :(
Okay if you dont know I am scared I mean scared of snakes. I like to test myself though and try to get over my fears. This was huge for me and I was worried I would get the head but thankfully I got the middle. This snake was huge it weighted over one hundred pounds and was not full grown. It was kinda cool to touch and rub it while he gave his talk to the children. Then it was the end and he said all the children could come up and pet the snake. Oh my that is where it got a little scary once they all started touching the snake it started moving and felt really weird.

Okay so back to the challenge really all I can say is keep cleaning the master bedroom. I hope to get all caught up on the master bedroom on Sat. Then move on to another room our spare bedroom yikes that might take awhile !!!!!!!!! Wait till you see the before pic you will understand.
Happy cleaning. Keep cleaning and de-cluttering.

works for me Wednesday - tips to make a school day easier

I have few tips and tricks I used last year that made the school day easier.

1) I have a wicker basket with a lid that holds my daughter's backpack.
Nice and neat and stays all together. It is big enough to hold a few things
of my daughter's like a gym bag to hold her gym clothing for school too.

2) I have set up a communication area too. So when my daughter has notes
I have to sign I have a folder she puts them in so we then know where they
are and are easily returned to her calendar to take back to school.

3) the last one has saved us so much extra time is what we pack for lunch
for her to take every day. Somedays it is hot stuff or a sandwich, next w
pack a cereal bar and lastly we pack two containers the same every day
one for fruit and one for veggies. No having to think about what you want
or need to pack. We alternate different veggies and different fruits but
I then know she is getting some good nutritious food into her at lunch.

Hope these tips make your day a bit easier!!!!!!!!!!!!!

continuing in the master bedroom

If you live in Canada I sure hope you had a great long weekend. I sure did. I got kinda
lazy the only thing I did was clean off all the clothes off my dresser. Pics to come.
So today I move on wash all of your bedding!!!!!!!!!!!! Fresh sheets to sleep on ahhhhhhhhh!!!
I also am trying the mattress spray by norwex. I did my daughter's a couple of weeks ago and she
doesnt get up sneezing or coughing and it hasnt affected her asthma either. I was a little worried about that but no side effects.
The other thing to do today is clean off your night tables if you have them. Take everything off put everything you dont need in the garbage and then find homes for other stuff. Wipe clean and then put back only the necessities.
Well sorta in a cleaning mood so going to go and take advantage of that check back tomorrow!!!!
It just might be the dreaded closet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Queen for the night

Okay so this weekend took a little break and went to have some
fun with a great friend in Toronto. Here are some fun pics of me.
Funny usually I hate having my pic taken but put a crown on me
and wow look out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!