Clutter Control (Week of Feb 19-25)

We're drawing near the end of the Clutter control month here....and I haven't maintained consistency like I had originally hoped.  My purges are coming in spurts.

I already mentioned and Kellen and Daddy did a great job of cleaning Kellen's room....and in doing so, they came across a cute outfit that Kellen had outgrown...It was his Easter suit, complete with tie. So on Sunday, we took it to church and passed it on to another couple whose kiddos can use it for their boys. (We'll count that as one item.)

Sunday was also the donation day for the Princess Project, so three dresses that had been bridesmaids dresses in their former life were donated to this project. Hopefully in this phase of the dresses life, they'll be utilized by a high school girl so that she can wear a dress to her prom. I was still able to wear them, but every time I tried to, Matt simply saw them as bridesmaid dresses and couldn't get past that mental mindset.

So off they went.  Better to be used and worn again than for me to wonder, 'What if I could wear it to.....'

Then on Saturday, I went through ALL of the shorts, skirts and pants in Jacey's drawer to see what fit/didn't fit her.  And I ended up purging some items from that drawer. (The girl is just a skinny-minny and some of things she inherited from her sister were for a completely different body type....'nuff said, right?) That totaled 18 items plus one pair of shoes she's managed to outgrow.


Total weekly count =23
Total February count = 228

Clutter control (week of Feb 12-18)

Continuing on with February's clutter control theme.....I will say that this week was a little better (from my perspective at least).

A group that I work with was having a yard sale on Saturday, so we were able to donate our old BBQ grill for them to sell, and I played 'middle man' for another friend as she went through a her boys toys in her own purge mode (her toys don't play into my count)....Another friend had given me two large garbage bags full of clothes for Jacey not too long ago, so I (finally) went through those, pulled out the stuff I wanted to keep for her, and donated the rest for this particular sale.  I have NO IDEA how many items were left in that bag, and they weren't in my posession all that long, but still....let's just say ~75 items left the house in those bags.

I actually had to work an event on Saturday, but when I got home, I discovered that Kellen and Daddy were deep cleaning Kellen's room.  Deep cleaning.  As in, there was an ENTIRE garbage bag of STUFF ready to be dumped out.  Trash, broken toys, papers, wrappers, and I even think there was a banana peel.  Don't ask.  I didn't begin to even count, but let's say that was an easy 50 items.

Total weekly count - 126 items
Total count for February = 205 items

February Date Night...weekend?

Moving on in our years worth of date nights....our February date night was really more of a weekend.  You see, I signed Matt and I up for the Love and Respect Marriage Conference. If you're interested, you can read more about the Love and Respect Ministry here.

What I didn't realize when I signed us up was that the conference was really a video conference and that we would be watching the conference on a screen. Oops.

But bless Matt...bless him a thousand times...he didn't complain at all.  Just asked if I had realized that and when I said no, I must have had a horrible sheepish look on my face, but he said not a word.

And I believe we both enjoyed the conference quite a bit. We learned more about ourselves and each other (if I may speak just a little for him there...)

It was a WONDERFUL conference and I highly recommend it.  EVEN if you have to watch it on a screen.

And the kids had a wonderful time with Maw Maw and Paw Paw (thank you!!) while we were at the conference. The timing was perfect and we made it back just in time for Kellen's basketball game.

Clutter Control (Week of Feb 5-11)

To continue with my February goal of clutter bustin', I took some additional items to Kellen's Kids Klub (newspapers...no real count on those...we'll say a weeks worth).

I also re-purposed some existing candy into Valentine's Day treats for each of the kids to give away for next week at their respective parties (the candies will be out of the house, so that counts, right?? ;) ) [See posts here and here for Valentine's Day ideas]

It wasn't the best of weeks for managing our clutter.....

If I count the individual candies, then we're at 63 items....add in a few days of newspaper and we're at 70 items for the week. (I just realized HOW MUCH CANDY THAT IS!!!)

Total count for February is 79 items.

SUPER Valentine

In my continued attempt (while home with a sick wee one) to not go crazy come up with cheap cute Valentine's Day ideas for the kids, I came across this idea both on Pinterest and also in my Family Fun magazine.

Sidenote: it's AMAZING what happens when you actually read the appropriate magazine in the appropriate month, huh?  See my Clutter Bustin' post for catching up on that particular problem in my house.

I scoured the house to see how many suckers we had....you know...to see if we had enough for a class set.  Luckily for me, we had that and more.  (Apparently I can no longer say, 'We don't really keep candy around the house....')

Then you make the cape and make templates and begin the cut out phase (after deciding on your caped crusaders color scheme, of course).

With carefully placed folds, you only need 2 sheets of construction paper for 24 capes.  And you need only 1 piece on construction paper for the masks.  Yup...very minimal supplies for this oh-so-cute project!

Then you get to cuttin'!

Decide on your SUPER saying.....

Then you make the eye portion of your masks (no quick way that I could think of on this one other than drawing in the eyes on each one of the masks).

With all of your materials compiled, you begin the 'construction' phase.  Get a hole punch (and in the absence of a single hole punch, one of the holes from a three hole punch works just fine).

And here you go!!

Clutter Control (Week of Feb 1-4)

Remember my February goal for clutter bustin'? 

Well....here are pictures of (some) of my first attempts to purge unwanted and unnecessary things out of the house. 

There was another one or two that didn't get captured in photograph form, but you get the point.  Luckily for me, Kellen's Kids Klub wants and uses magazines, newspapers, old toilet paper and paper towel rolls, etc., so some things can be reused rather than thrown away (yay for going green!)

My 'official' count was 9 items.

What have you managed to purge this week?

Valentine Sweetie

In trying to figure out what the kids were going to take for their Valentine's this year (you know, instead of my normal, last minute, Dollar Store cards), I have been pinning numerous cute items on Pinterest.

Apparently it got my creative juices flowing.

I came across some SweeTarts that we had at the house, and luckily for me, we had just enough for a class set for Jacey.

So, I designed a card, printed it out on regular printer paper (if you wanted to get fancier, you could always use card stock).

I glued the card to construction paper, then simply added the SweeTart with some tape in the space I had designed.

Easy as that and oh-so-cute (if I do say so myself).  And here is the whole stack of them, ready to go (in advance, I might add...go me - for once).

And I think it took me less time than signing names, folding, and sticking red hearts onto the Dollar Store valentines....and the best part....this project cost me nothing out of pocket...everything to do this was already in the house.

Whoop!

What do YOU do with Christmas cards after Christmas?

I have wondered this for years.

And for many years I have wanted to make a book of them, so that we could remember who sent us cards the previous year pray for the families during the year.

After making my hubby crazy too many years to count regarding this issue, I finally decided to DO SOMETHING with them this year.

I knew that there with this ring thingy's that could hold stuff together, but had NO IDEA what they were called...and that was oh-so-helpful as I was trying to explain them to the guy at Wal-Mart so I could find them.  {Just so you know, they're called book rings}

I finally found them ($1.50 for a package of 8, and they come with 2 sizes in the package), with the help of another female Wal-Mart employee {I'll leave those comments alone} and I was off and running.

When I made it home, I realized that I don't own a single hole hole-punch.  Or if I own one, I can't find it.  Or didn't look hard enough.  Or was too impatient to look very hard at all.

At any rate, I made do with two parts of my three hole hole-punch.

I gathered my Christmas cards....

Used the two holes from the hole punch and made my holes for my 'book'....then stacked and put them on the rings.

Easy peasy and oh-so-cute!!  So now I have contained and organized what was once my Christmas card clutter.

And I am curious....what DO you do with the Christmas cards you receive once Christmas is over?

Couponing

So I have a few goals for my couponing/thrifty endeavor...

The most obvious goal is to save money on things my family already buys.  In case you don't know it, expenses for a family of 5 can add up!

Another goal is to create a stockpile.  I have a vision of our garage shelves lined with toilet paper, paper towels, diaper wipes, toothpaste, easy mac, and enough cereal in stock for my kiddos (among other things, of course) to last for 3-6 months.  I'm learning, so I have no illusions that I'll get there next week, or even next month, but I'm trying, which is really what counts. (In case you're wondering, I don't find this goal in conflict with my declutter goal....I want to stock up on things we as a family love and use....so there are fewer stressful moments when we realize that there is no more toilet paper in the house.  Not that I have experience with that or anything...)

Another goal is to {once again} cook in bulk and store meals in my freezer.  I had been doing this for a while - and had even been organizing meal swap parties for the Sunday school class - and it makes dinners and meal planning so easy.  {Quick realization is that I didn't host a single solitary one of those meal swaps during the fall semester...and I don't think I had one in the summer either.  Shame on me!} So if I combine the freezer cooking with buying some of the ingredients in bulk and on sale, I'll be one happy mamma.

Of course, a lofty goal that I have is to hit the deals so that I ultimately get various toiletries for free (because apparently that is possible), but I know that's lofty and it will probably take a while before I'm ever at that point, so whatever.....any savings is good!

My final goal is to use the money we're saving from being thrifty and couponing and put it to good use.  Whatever that good use might need to be at the moment.  What I don't want to do is save money in this area and have this effort and those savings amount to nothing in our grand scheme of finances.  What a waste that would be.

It's the start of a new month, which means most of the online coupons just reset.  Who is on the couponing bandwagon with me??

February Goal for Clutter-Bustin'

It may not seem like much, but I will be purging 5 items a week for the month of February in an effort to contain clutter and purge items.

I feel like I just did this, but in my efforts to get organized, I am continually coming across posts that insist you cannot organize clutter.  I agree.

I have decided NOT to organize what I do not want or need.  

Instead, I will get rid of those items.  Yes really.  I will.  And they can't be 'trash' items (you know, empty milk cartons, etc).

So, even though the first week of February is a short week, it counts.  So my deadline is February 4th to purge 5 items from my home. 

I'll post a count update and perhaps even a picture of the items (assuming I can remember to take a picture before they're recycled or thrown out).

Care to join me??  Come on....you know you made some sort of New Year's Resolution to get more organized....

Quick & cute weekly calendar

I knew that once I succumbed to pinterest I would be in trouble, but I think I've done a fairly good job at making some of my pins into reality. (This is not to say that I have even completed 1% of the projects I've pinned...not even 1%, but I've done some. Some is good).

I saw one yesterday that was so cute that I decided to take the plunge with it today. 

I saw this incredibly cute idea to make a weekly calendar using a collage photo frame, and knew that this would be a quick and easy way for the entire family to know who needed to be where for the week.  Depending on the space, I may decide to incorporate our weekly dinner menu onto this as well, but we'll see.

I picked up the frame at the Dollar Store ($8)

...then I rummaged through my paper scraps trying to find inspiration for the insides of the frames.

After some experimentation, I decided that I liked the thicker paper better, as it made the frames tight.  Considering that I was going to be writing on the glass with a dry erase marker, I decided I didn't want the glass to be 'wiggly'.  You decide what's best for you.  I played with the color scheme.

Then had what I was comfortable with for a finished product.

Add the days of the week and your calendar with a dry erase marker after you hang in the spot of your choosing and you're ready to go!

January Running Review

My overall goal for 2012 is to average a mile a day for the year.  A secondary goal, considering how the months went in 2011, is to meet that goal at least half of the months of the year in 2012.

I am taking a 90 day challenge to start off the year....run/walk for a minimum of 30 minutes every day for 90 days.

1 - 3 miles (31:50 - 10.36 min/mile)
2 - 3 miles (32:08 - 10.42 min/mile)
3 - 2.53 miles (32:52 - 11:13 min/mile; 12:17 min/mile, walked .53 mile)
4 - 2.04 miles (1 mile @ 10:49 min/mile pace; 20:11 - 1.04 mile walk with Jacey in stroller)
5 - 2.52 miles (31:03 minutes, walk/jog)
6 - 2.5 miles (34:31 minutes, walk/jog)
7 - 1.65 miles (30 minutes, walking with Kellen while pushing Jacey in stroller)
8 - 1.5 miles (34:15 minutes)
9 - 1.5 miles (30:30 minutes)
19 - 1.5 miles (30 minutes)
20 - .5 miles
22 - 1.5 miles (30 minutes)
23 - .5 miles
29 - 3 miles (33:16 minutes; 10.26, 12.35, 11.15)
30 - 3 miles (50:47 minutes, walking with Jacey in stroller)
31 - 1 mile (have no idea about the time because the app when wonky on my phone - Jacey & I walked to pick up Kellen from school)

January mileage total = 31.24 miles
Average per day = 1.01 miles/day

January Review:  I obviously didn't make the 90 day challenge I was initially shooting for, but lost out on that goal when we hit some rain on January 10th and I lost my particular running window of opportunity.  That seemed to kill my motivation for this month, but I ended up eeking by with meeting my goal of averaging a mile a day, so all-in-all, I'm not too upset.  And this was a rough month...we have had a lot going on, so I was able to work this in along with life.

And really, isn't that the goal?