Tackle It Tuesday

During the last week I finished tackling the kitchen and tackled the bathroom. Both of them are completely clean and completely organized. I have also written down lists for each room of tasks that need to be done daily, weekly and monthly to keep those rooms clean and organized. I think those two rooms are the most important to keep clean and probably the easiest to get dirty.

Some of the items on my list for the kitchen are:

Daily - do dishes, run dishwasher, unload dishwasher, wipe down table and counter tops, clean sink, put out a new towel and sponge every day

Weekly - clean all surfaces (counter tops, table, stove top), clean inside of microwave, sweep and mop floor

Monthly - clean out the fridge, clean the garbage can, take a quick look through all cabinets to make sure everything is staying organized

Some of the items on my list for the bathroom are:

Daily - wipe down toilet, floor around toilet and sink with anti-bacterial wipes, put out clean hand towel

Weekly - clean toilet, sink and bathtub, clean the floor, wash the window

Monthly - clean the garbage can, take a quick look through the cabinets to make sure everything is staying organized

I'm sure as the days go by I might think of more things to add, but I think I've pretty much covered everything. Right now I can say that my kitchen and bathroom are perfect, at least as perfect as they can be until I have tens of thousands of spare dollars to redo them.

I've already informed my husband that I'm going to be a nagging bitch for a while until he learns to put things away where they go and not make a mess on a daily basis. He has a very bad habit of just putting things wherever. As an example, the weekend before last we had a football party and we took a vegetable tray. He knows where the vegetable tray goes when it's clean, but for some reason after it was washed he set it on top of the fridge where it sat for over a week. The cupboard it goes it is about two feet away from where he put it. Why he didn't just put it away, I'll never know. Anyway, it's hard to keep organized when nobody else will cooperate, so getting my family to cooperate is going to be one of the biggest tackles I have this year.

I also started planning a chore chart. It's still in the planning stages so hopefully that will be done next week. If anyone has any great ideas for what's worked as a chore chart, I would appreciate hearing it.

Tackle It Tuesday

I didn't tackle anything in the last week because we were out of town from Wednesday until Sunday. Monday was Hayden's birthday, which I was totally not prepared for. Yesterday my mom babysat Hayden and Amaya while Carson and I went and bought presents for Hayden's birthday. Before each child's birthday I like to go through all their clothes and toys with them and we decided which things to keep and which things are too small or for a younger kid. This will make room for their new clothes and toys and let us hand their toys down to their next younger sibling. I admit I haven't gotten rid of anything yet. Since Amaya doesn't have anyone to hand stuff down to all that stuff has just gone in boxes and bags in the garage. That is a future tackle, to get rid of all the baby stuff.

Anyway, I started yesterday helping Hayden go through his room. We didn't get very far because it is such a mess and we had other things to do for his birthday. I did manage to clean out and organize all of the inside spaces: the closet, the toy box, the dresser drawers (except for the two lowest drawers with clothes in them). He actually found quite a few things to give to Amaya.

Having the kids' rooms messy drives me nuts. I can't even say how many times I've organized them only to have them be messy again in a very short time. We have a new rule now, though. They can only have one toy each out at a time, and if they start getting more than that out I set my timer for 15 minutes and anything that's left out gets given away. Nothing has been left out yet. This rule has worked wonders for the family room, so now I'm hoping it works for the bedrooms, too.

I usually like to do my before and after pictures at the same time on my post, but getting this room clean and organized is going to take a good part of the day, so I am putting before pictures up now and will update as soon as we (Hayden is going to help me) get the room finished.

Here is the black hole before:

As you can see from this pigsty, there are portions of the floor (most of it) that can't even be walked on. To get clothes out of his dresser I have to make my way to his bed and then lean over it and open the drawers because I can't even walk to it. One thing that makes me crazy is when toys that have a lot of pieces are missing some. I am making a list of all the pieces that are missing and then when I finally get the whole house organized and haven't found the pieces elsewhere those toys will be trashed, unless the missing pieces don't really matter.

And, yes, I do admit that my kids have too many toys. I love toys.

It is now 10:00 and I will sign off for now and see how long it takes to get through this embarrassing mess. Check back later for the amazing results.

*****UPDATE*****

Okay, I did it. It took me five hours and 10 minutes, but I did it. Hayden didn't help much, but I think he would have slowed me down. Besides, without him in there I could get rid of a few things without first asking him. Anything I really thought he would want to keep I did ask him. Every time I would ask him he would say, "Do you think I'm going to say 'yes' or 'no'?" That's why it would have slowed me down to ask him every time. The thing that took the longest was the small pieces of things all over the floor: puzzle pieces, game pieces, small miscellaneous junk, etc. I did have to retake one of my after pictures because I realized the ice-cold beer I had to resort to in order to finish was in one of the pictures, so I took another one without it there so people don't think I'm an alcoholic.

Here is the finished room:

Here are a few afters that didn't have before pictures, but I am so happy with the room I took a few extra pictures.

And here is the mischief-maker himself (notice the ripped-off wallpaper border next to him).

He is excited that his room is clean because now he can play in there. There are two new rules, though. One is that he can only have one toy out at a time, and the other is that every night before bed his room must be picked up, which should be easy if he sticks to rule number 1. Of course, mom and dad will help him keep it clean by reminding him of the rules if it starts to get messy again. Carson is excited that it is clean, too. He wants to get the Hot Wheels tracks out and play in there. Carson shouldn't get too excited because his room is next.

Tackle It Tuesday

I had quite a few tackles this week, since it's my summer goal to get my house organized. Most of the work was in the kitchen and our one and only bathroom.

This drawer had a variety of kitchen stuff thrown in it. Most of the time when I would open the drawer something would get stuck preventing the drawer from opening and I would have to reach in and find whatever it was and get it out of the way so the drawer could open. It was also hard to find a specific item that I needed.




Here's what it looks like now. I did take some things out and put them in a more convenient area, like the can opener and vegetable peeler. Since I use them all the time I put them closer to the area where I use them.

Next was the junk drawer. I had a glitch with my pictures and I would upload the picture of the messy junk drawer, but when it actually loaded up it was this:

Now somehow the picture of the messy junk drawer is lost. I don't know if it is hidden somewhere or gone forever.

Here is the junk drawer after. I moved the batteries from the opposite side of the house in the basement to the kitchen because we need them all the time and it is really pain to go all the way downstairs to get them. Usually when the kids need a battery for a toy I will say, "I'll go down and get one in a while," and then I never do and their toys end up not getting played with when they want. I think this will help a lot. I just need to find a couple of extra screwdrivers to keep with the batteries for opening battery compartments.

Here is another before picture of a kitchen drawer with miscellaneous stuff in it.

Here it is after:

Another before of a kitchen drawer:

The after:

Now on to the pantry. Yes, this is my complete pantry. It sucks but it's all we've got room for. I have always grouped like items together, but eventually they would get all mixed up again.

So, I went to a couple of dollar stores (my new favorite places to go) and bought some cool, cheap baskets to help keep items separate.




Next was the bathroom. Here is the medicine cabinet. Notice the precariously positioned vitamin bottles. This cabinet was a mixture of medicines and hair products and lotion. It is right over the toilet. Every once in a while when trying to get something out something else would fall out. Since it is right over the toilet, it would fall by the toilet, thereby contaminating it, and I would have to throw it away. I hate toilets.

Here it is after. Only medicine and vitamins in here now. Hair products and lotions are elsewhere.

This bathroom drawer has hair accessories for my daughter, hair accessories for me, and an assortment of combs and picks for everyone in the family. You can't really tell from this picture but the large basket is hanging on the top of the drawer. There is another smaller basket underneath, which to get to it I would have to pull the larger basket out first. Very inconvenient.

Here is the drawer after, only combs and picks and my daughter's hair accessories. I want to find some kind of container to put her stuff in besides baggies but I haven't looked for one yet.

Here is where all of my hair products and accessories ended up. How cool is this?




It is made of a slick material so if something spills on it it can wipe of easily. It contains all of my hair products: gel, hairspray, curl enhancer, etc. in the inside pocket. The outside pockets have my combs, pick, barrettes and clips in them. I love this thing. This will sit on a shelf in the linen closet where I have my nail polish box and each person in the family will eventually have their own tote with their own personal hygiene products, since our bathroom is so small that there isn't room in it for everyone's crap. By the way, this cute little thing is from Avon.

So that is some of the projects I tackled this week. My tackle for today is to pack clothes for five days for five people in one suitcase, since we are going out of town tomorrow and instead of taking our truck (because of gas prices) we are borrowing my mom's car and we are very limited on space. I only want to take one suitcase, one toiletry bag, one bag per person for books, games, etc., a playpen and a stroller. We won't know until the last minute if the stroller will fit so that would be the only thing we leave home. Other than that, I get to take a break from tackling household projects while we are on vacation. Yeah!

Tackle It Tuesday

My Tackle It Tuesday for this week is my kitchen towels, hot pads and other similar items. I've always kept all this kind of stuff in my linen closet in the hallway by the bedrooms. About a year ago I realized it didn't make a lot of sense to keep it there and it would be better to keep it in the kitchen. So I cleaned out one drawer in the kitchen and shoved everything into it. Well, the drawer was too small to hold everything and eventually most of it ended up back in the linen closet. Why I didn't just clear out two drawers in kitchen then, I'll never know. Yesterday I organized my linen closet and, again, realized the kitchen stuff belonged in the kitchen. So today I cleared out the original drawer in the kitchen and the one above it. The original drawer had the kitchen stuff I shoved in it a year ago and the other drawer started out being Mike's drawer where he kept his beer recipes and other beer-related stuff. It slowly just became another junk drawer, though. Here they are before:



Here they are after:

The top drawer has washcloths, towels, hot pads and scrubbing items. The bottom drawer has a tablecloth, place mats, napkins, a bread bag and our aprons.

Eventually I want to get a decorative thing with five hooks so we all have our own hook to hang our aprons on so they are easier to get to than in a drawer, but for now they will be in this drawer. We all have our own aprons. Mike got his for a white elephant at a Christmas party and never wears his. I have two really cute ones that I wear when I think about it. The kids all have their own that they like to wear when they help me cook.

One sad thing is that I have never bought new kitchen towels or hot pads or anything. Everything we have was given to us either at my bridal shower or at our wedding almost 14 years ago. Some if it still looks good because I was kind of saving some of it until my kitchen "looked good enough" to put them out. I've given up on that idea so now I've started using all of it. Some day I will have a nice kitchen with new towels but for now I will use the ones I was "saving" for no apparent reason.

I like having my kitchen stuff in the kitchen, so we'll see how long I can keep it neat.

Tackle it Tuesday

This is my first time participating in Tackle It Tuesday. I think it is a great idea to tackle something you need to do at least once a week. Unfortunately, my whole house needs tackled. It it my goal to get my house and life totally organized over the summer so when school starts we can have a more relaxed, uncluttered school year and life. I am tired of being stressed out just from being unorganized. I am going to tackle at least one thing every single day, even if it is just one drawer or one shelf. If I don't do at least one thing a day I will never make it by the time the summer is over. I will try to do a bigger project for Tuesdays as I participate in Tackle It Tuesdays. I love reading about other people's jobs they are tackling and I get ideas from others' experiences. I decided to do this because I need to be held accountable. It is going to be embarrassing to post pictures of my messes, but I think it will help me to stick with it. Besides, from what I've seen on the internet, I'm not the only one with messes as bad as I have.

This week I decided to tackle my desk. Since our house is small, my desk is in the family room and easily accessible to everybody. I work there. I go on the internet there. The kids play computer games there. Everybody in the family sets stuff there when they are in too big a hurry or too lazy to put something away. It is the drop-off spot for everyone. Well, that ends today. My desk is now clean and it is going to stay that way. Already I've had two kids try to set stuff on it and leave it there. It is going to take a while for everyone to get in the habit of not messing my desk up, so I will have to be a nag about it for a while.

So, here are the embarrassing pictures of my desk, cluttered beyond belief:

Some of the interesting things I found that shouldn't be there are: a golf ball, dead flowers that have been there for about a week, stuffed snakes that I took away from the kids because they were whipping each other with them, an empty Big Gulp, an empty Dr. Pepper bottle, a bag of my daughter's hair ties and a few rocks.

I set my timer for 15 minutes because that's how long I thought it would take. It ended up taking 1 hour and 45 minutes. The reason for that is because I decided to organize all the cd's and floppy disks (yes, I am required to still use floppies for work). There were a bunch of program cd's, computer games, and worst of all, numerous cd's and a few floppy disks that didn't have labels on them. I had to go through and put each one in the computer, see what was on it, either copy it onto my computer and erase the cd or just throw it away. That was very time consuming, but it was worth it. Then I went out a cut a couple of roses, so I have fresh flowers instead of dead flowers.

Hopefully, having my desk cleaned off will let me work more efficiently, let the kids play computer games without getting into my stuff, and help our family room look much neater.

Here are the after pictures: