Weekly Update Septrmber 30th

I want to do a weekly post every Sunday to track my progress on the many projects that I am always working on. Life keeps going on an even though I am on my feet running around most of the day it is hard for me to see any progress.

I am hoping that through these posts I will see that my life is not just unproductive chaos. I do get dinner on the table each night, the house cleaned up and laundry completed like any other stay at home mom, but I am talking about things in addition to those normal daily chores.

So for this week I obviously got quite a bit of work done in our "office" which I posted about here.

I also started working on a Tennessee blanket for Mike. Even though I jokingly told him to expect it for Christmas next year I'm really hoping to have it finished before the end of their season this year.

So here it is so far... it is 4 ft wide and will be 6ft long when it is completed. Don't worry it's not just going to be all that orange :) we have plans. 

Since I am not at all an expert crocheter this has taken quite a bit of time to get though. Mostly that time that I spend on the couch with Mike after the kiddos have gone to bed.

Other than that I am on my second month of once a month shopping or in this month's case it will take two days since on Friday we made a trip to BJ's and Tuesday I plan to get over to the commissary. Planning all of the meals and shopping lists took quite a bit of my time, but I am so glad that it is over and I know what I will be preparing for the entire month. And no more running out to the store wasting my time since we will have it all at the house already.

A pretty productive week in my opinion and I hope I can say the same about the next :)

Week #4 Office

I will admit I did have to spend some money to complete this room. I did try to keep it as low as possible though. My husband has been giving my crap about this room pretty much since we moved in. He obviously had the right to as you can see from the pictures and this isn't even at its worst point.
This room has caused me so much frustration because I could not figure out how to use the space wisely for all of the things that go on in here.

First of all this is not just an office, but also my craft space, computer room for both my son and I, game room for my son, sometimes a play room for the little one, and I also teach my son preschool here. I obviously need this room to be very multifunctional. The furniture has been moved many, many times and I never end up satisfied and more frustrated than when I began.

 Before...

and this is actually an improvement from what it used to be like in here

This is what you used to see when you first walked into the room.

and... the closet... YIKES!

I didn't clear out the room, but I did fill up the truck again with recyclables and donations.

I was sitting in here one night just looking around trying to figure out where to put the furniture when I realized how much space was being wasted by having the tv up on the table. How silly! The table is exactly what we need to be able to work on! As soon as I realized this the rest just fell into place. 

I wanted the table to be white, but I didn't feel like painting it so I covered it with white contact paper and then some clear plastic fabric with a design on it that I found at Walmart. I figured that this would be very easy to clean paint, markers, or glue off of from crafts with lil man.

My sewing machine has a home now where it can actually be used and I won't have to drag it out to the dining table to use it.The green tote is for coupons and sale flyers and the clear one has all of our papers organized in hanging folders. Then the black shelves have lil man's school books, kid crafting items, and my laminator. Finally the white one has my fabrics and sewing items.

Desk is cleared as well as the night stand beside it. This is where I keep paper for the printer, photo paper and extra ink.

Lil man has a gaming and tv corner. I cleared out the dresser which used to have a whole drawer stuffed with photos, another filled with cooking magazines, and another with random cords and electronics. All of that stuff I have a separate crate for in the closet now. The bottom two drawers now have lil man's games, movies, and accessories. 

Yes, the closet is still kind of scary. I use it as kind of a holding place. I promise I did empty the entire thing and attempt to divide things into the totes and this was the result. There are two totes that are filled with my old text books that I have for sale on amazon, that huge dog will be going back into the kids room once we get the bunk beds built, cushions will go on dining table chairs once I get them painted... my to do list goes on and on :)

So there is still a lot of work, but I do think it was a huge improvement again this week. At least the room is useable now so I can knock out more of my to do's :)

Make your own training panties

I've been starting to potty train the little one and she's doing pretty well at it for only 14 1/2 months. So I went to Walmart today looking for some training pants for her. There were none to be found and I didn't really feel like ordering them online and waiting for them to be shipped or paying what they are asking for them. Next best thing is to figure out how to make my own :).

I got some of the smallest panties I could find for girls which were still 2T, but I was hoping they would fit her. For a pack of 6 it was about $5.50 with the tax. They did have to be taken in just a bit. I would still just rather do it my way instead of paying $15 for 4 though.

When I got home I cut two of her cloth diapers into thirds.

Then I sewed them into the bottom of the underwear.

Trimmed off the extras between the legs.

I got three done today and it will be very quick and easy to make a few more.

*Note- They are not waterproof and only intended to tolerate small accidents.

Once she's done with the training I hope to be able to just rip out the stitches in the bottom and where I tightened them  a bit so she can use still them as they were intended.

Little One's New Clothes

I've been wanting to get my sewing machine out for a while now, but I wasn't really sure what to make. I've been seeing a lot of cute toddler clothes so I figured I'd give it a try since it looked pretty simple and I am not a very experienced seamstress. 

My mom stayed with us for a few days a couple of weeks ago and we went a little crazy making some super cute tops for my daughter. They are almost long enough to be sundresses on her now at 14 months. Next summer and maybe even the one after that as well they will probably be more like cute shirts.

The first one took a little figuring out, but then we got going so good that night we pumped out four of them for her. They are so quick and easy my mom has even made three more since she's been back home to send down for next year.

She doesn't slow down much so it's hard to get good pics of her :)

Supporting Tennessee with daddy.

Week #3 Pantry

Before

I had shelves that I was trying to designate for types of food, but everything starts to run into each other and fall over with these type of shelves. 

I started by taking everything out of the pantry. Then I dusted and vacuumed the floor. 

 All the way at the top my husband put in a smaller shelf so I can keep the turkey roasting pan  way up there and out of the way. My husbands chips are in the white stackable bins and we still have at little my son's candy left from last halloween since he doesn't eat it often at all.

I like hiving these big crates that I can easily slide in and out to get to what I need. I can easily

fit everything in them and keep them categorized.

 And here's a look at the whole thing.

Week #2 Garage

Well this is the week that I was most scared of. The garage is a man space in our house, but my husband is sweet and I do have a few shelves out there that are in desperate need of organizing. My husband and my dad built all of these shelves for us a couple of years ago now, but we really haven't been maximizing their potential.

I really wanted to get through this challenge without spending any money since I did not budget for it and only have a small amount in my "home" fund. Luckily I do have some totes no longer being used and I hope to find some other useful things out there to get me closer to an organized space.

So here we go... I know its horrible. Once I get through this week I will be so proud and the rest of the house should go pretty smoothly.

Here are the before pics.

Left side

Back wall

Right side

This is my husband's side with his tools and work bench so it  pretty much stayed the same except for me getting my stuff out of there.


The improved garage...

 

I filled the back of my truck with quite a few bags of trash and a lot of recycling, swept out the entire floor and moved things around a little bit.

I know I did a lot of work this week, but don't really feel like I have a lot to show for it. I organized my things into these colored totes that are no longer needed for separating our recyclables. I also took a lot of measurements and did some browsing at Walmart to find the perfect totes that are bigger to fit my stuff better. My husband also just told me this morning that half of those boxes at the top right are empty. He is willing to get rid of them and organize the rest of the stuff into matching totes as well. 

To help make it easier on the budget I requested a check from Send Earnings for just over $38. I should receive that by the end of the month so along with about $15 from our home budget I should have the garage looking even better than this by early next month. I plan to have an update post then. 

New Cash Envelopes

I am very excited to be starting Dave Ramsey's cash envelope system. Even more excited since I found a great tutorial through a Pinterest search and was able to make my own envelopes! These are so simple to put together and I love that I was able to customize them to fit our budget. Making more for changes in our budget in the future will also never be a problem.

One note about the gas envelope, it doesn't actually have money in it since I have two little ones and taking them into the store to pay with me every time is just too much of a hassle. I have a piece of paper in it with the monthly allotment for gas. Each time I fill up I can just subtract the purchase from the total. It is also very simple to pull out the envelope before pumping to see how much is available in the account so I never go over.

Carrying a lot of cash does make me a little nervous so I love that I can just take the envelopes with me that I know I will be using that day.

There is a small zippered pocket in the back of my purse so I just dump the coins in there so they are not a problem. When I get home they go in a jar, which is another sneaky way of saving money.

Week #1 Kitchen

<a href="http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com" title="abfolbutton by abfol, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8297/7844547136_48b81fc455.jpg" width="250" height="250" alt="abfolbutton"></a>

I have been working on organizing our home for a little over three years now... since we moved in. That sounds kind of horrible since it is still so completely not organized.  I am really hoping that joining in with the 14 week Home Organizing 101 challenge at A bowl full of lemons will help to correct all of this. I am also hoping that a blog will keep me more motivated not only to continue the organizing challenge, but to finish other projects that have come from my own inability to relax and leave things alone and my addiction to Pinterest.

The challenge starts out with week one in the kitchen. This is surprisingly one of the more organized areas of our home so it was a pretty simple week for me. Most of the times a get an urge to organize I end up in the kitchen and burning out so no other rooms get done. Good for the kitchen bad for the rest of the house and a rough next couple of months for me with the other zones covered in the challenge.

So on to the room... what exactly did I complete this week?

I moved the sippy cups out of the cup and coffee cabinet and down into the drawer (middle drawer from the pic on the left) that previously had lil man's bowls, eating utensils, and my cooking pots. Just makes more sense to have all of his things in one place, duh! Why hadn't I done this when I put his other things in there I have no idea :) but I'm happy it's done now. The other two drawers were not changed except that we do have flatware in the top one again from the dishwasher.

This cabinet really didn't change much I just moved some things around and made room for the wine and another bottle of oil so they were in the same place. Just a baking/spice cabinet.

This is definitely my favorite change I made to this room! My husband has had his own drawer on the right since we moved in and now I have my own and I have no idea why I never thought of doing this before.

This was the cabinet above our fridge but now it is empty except for the turkey roasting pan and the styrofoam things. I did stick that plastic pitcher in there as well.  All the ziplocs and foils were moved to the cabinet above the stove for much easier access. No more dragging chairs over to get baggies for me :).

 This cabinet is to the left of the stove and was pretty organized to begin with from my previous attempts. Pretty much just moved those pots in here from the now sippy cup drawer and moved the rice cookers over for easier access.

We are very lucky to have a lot of cabinet space so it's not too hard to find good homes for everything. I am hoping that my changes will make me more productive and our days go more smoothly.

And here is a view of the whole space now that it's cleaned up and more orderly. All ready for me to do a few more craft projects to add a little decoration to it.

Thanks for checking it out! :)