Sifting through Memories

As part of project Get Rid of the Clutter, I cleaned out the shed this weekend. I had forgotten how many playthings were in there from the girls' younger days: sand toys from the boat shaped sand box, the Barbie® jeep they and their friends drove around the cul-de-sac while playing tunes on a battery operated radio, a myriad of water guns that no longer work, and tiny bicycles that have long since been outgrown. So many memories and so many treasures.

I was able to part with most things, but couldn't quite let go of these:

The twin shovels the girls used to help Paddy clear the snow. That usually lasted five minutes before they wanted to come in for hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of the fireplace.

The bird house the Lil' Diva made on a school field trip and the training wheels off her bicycle when she finally felt brave enough to ride on her own.

As I tucked away the remaining gardening tools in a cleaner shed, those memories brought a tear to my eye. Those days will never come again. But with God's grace, new adventures and fond memories are in the making. 

Mailbox Monday - Nov 26

Mailbox Monday is a meme started by Marcia of To Be Continued. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog.

With the crazy weather around here, I might have to switch my fall mailbox to a winter one soon. Gosh, we didn't even get a chance to pick up our leaves before the first storm hit us. Right now it looks like we will have rain instead of snow this week. There are still some frozen white mounds hanging around, but the snow is mostly gone. Sounds like the Midwest got slammed with the white stuff and high winds this past weekend. Are we ready for this?

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. The family was here, so that was nice. Project Get Rid of the Clutter isn't even close to done yet, so the house wasn't in as good of shape as I wanted. Hopefully, I'll make a dent in my office this week. The kitchen is done and two closets. The living room was cleaned this week and the new couch arrives today. The Lil' Princess made a huge dent in her room this weekend. Any progress is good progress as far as I am concerned.

I am reading, but haven't received anything new lately. That's okay with me. I have six boxes of unread books and a huge pile on my floor yet. I think that will keep me busy. LOL!

Hope you'll share your new arrivals with me. Have a great week!

Project De-Clutter Begins

Most of us have it. You know what it looks like. Somewhere in the house there is a closet or a cabinet or a drawer that is filled with all the stuff you don't feel like dealing with or think you might use one day. For some us, many of the closets, cabinets and drawers in the house are filled with things like that. For us, it's even our basement.

This year Project De-Clutter is my focus. While it is not on this year's goals list, it should be. By next quarter I'll add it. We are moving my mother-in-law in with us, so things need to get donated or tossed out. I'm in the process of moving my office downstairs. Maybe I had a premonition that this was going to happen when I began packing up my books last year and labeling all the boxes by genre.

Just like any big project, Project De-Clutter will be broken down into many steps. Today, the Lil' Diva and I started throwing trash and broken toys away in the bonus room above the garage. Then later on, I figured I needed to whack back my cooking magazine collection.

In that pile on the bottom left is years worth of various cooking magazines. I can count on one hand the number of times I've opened one of them for a recipe. Tonight, I went through every one and pulled out the few recipes I might actually make, so that I can scan them onto my PC later. Then I recycled the rest of each magazine. Here's what I ended up with...

Room for actual cookbooks. Wow! How did that happen.

This cabinet is still a work in progress. I'll go through all the cookbooks to see if there are any I can donate. Most of them are in a set, so probably not. After that, I'll go through the rest of the items in the cabinet and see if I can't trim it back some more. 

Next week's goal for the bonus room is to get most of the floor picked up. Not sure if I can do it with my work schedule, but I'll give it a shot. 

Are you tackling any large home projects right now? How are they going? 

Get Organized with Household Labels from Mabel's Labels

This time of year I feel the urge to get organized. From my home office, to the kitchen, to the playroom, sorting, donating, and recycling are the name of the game. But who wants to go searching through every bin in the basement to figure out what's inside once you're done? Not me, thanks. I am way to busy.

These adorable printed labels will help you keep track of everything, no matter if it's in the garage, the attic, or a closet. Make getting organized in 2014 a breeze with Bin Labels from Mabel's Labels.

Note: This blogger participates in the ShareASale Affiliate Program.

Tackling Clutter One Step at A Time

We all one of those "areas." The place where all the clutter gathers. If you're like me, you have more than one spot you swear grows into a mountain in the time it takes you to change your socks. When tackling clutter, it's easy to feel like you should get rid of it all at once. I've found I'm much happier and much more able to manage getting rid of clutter if I tackle it one step at a time.

The other day, that area happened to be the magazine rack which is filled with magazines, catalogs, and newspapers. We have a beautiful wrought iron magazine rack in the kitchen. I have several magazines I don't like to get rid of (history and gardening) and some I am willing to recycle once I've looked through them to make sure there's nothing else I need out of them.

I began by taking out all the magazines and newspapers. Then I created a pile of the ones that are must saves. They will be boxed in my office closet. Then I went through the other magazines and cut out any articles of interest, recipes, and tips I want to remember. I put them in my Inbox in my office to scan later. Then I recycled the remnants.

Not only did I reduce the remaining pile in my magazine rack by half, that corner of the kitchen looks much neater.

I'm not sure which area of the house I will work on next. Maybe one of the upstairs closets.

How do you tackle clutter? What is the most clutter-filled area of your home?

Getting Rid of Inbox Clutter

Well, my desk doesn't look like this, but if I printed off every email I receive and stacked it on my writing surface, it sure would. Between emails from companies I've purchased from, to blogs I've subscribed to, and to messages from various Facebook groups, I receive over 200 emails a day. That doesn't even count the emails from friends or business contacts I must respond to.

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed the past few weeks. It's left me less than productive, and I know I need to make changes. One of those changes was spending time yesterday and today unsubscribing from mailing lists. Whether it be the online retailer I purchased one item from a year ago or from a blog I haven't visited in six months, out they went. I also spent time reviewing my incoming RSS Feeds. If I have months' worth of unread posts, why am I having the feed delivered to my Inbox anyway? I also cut down the number of Facebook groups where I am a member.

Taking just a few simple steps will help keep your Inbox less cluttered and find you spending less time checking and deleting email.