Menu Plan Monday

Well, today is Menu Plan Monday. Don't know whether I will always be able to do this each week, but for this week at least we have a plan.

Monday - Spaghetti Bolognaise. We also freeze some in little pots for Eldest's lunches and nursery meals etc.
Tuesday - Sausage Casserole.
Wednesday - Chicken Thai Red Curry and Rice.
Thursday - Chilli Con Carne and Rice.
Friday - Sausage Pasta.
Saturday - Chicken, Steamed Veg and Potatoes.
Sunday - Dinner at my sister in-laws.

We're working on using up the things left in our freezer and cupboards this week and next until payday.

Two Small Jobs to Check Off

2. Sorting out an essentials pouch for my handbag / nappy bag.
CHECK!
3. Getting together a kiddies essentials pack for keeping in the car.
CHECK!

Now I just need to work on a place to store all the things I need to keep close at hand while I'm about the house. I know what kinds of things I need to keep there, but now where I am going to put them. This will require a little thought.

Here's what I did today.

This is the bag of stuff we will keep in the car for the kids. The logic behind this is that we're trying to shave time off our leaving the house routine. It's annoying that we have to think about what we have to take each time. Completely going through our one nappy bag to check we have all items takes too long. Partly because we often have to do it last minute. I am hoping that knowing we have this bag in the car will enable us to get out of the house faster at least for little trips.

In it, I have packed a couple of bottles of water, jumpers, spare clothes, nappies and wipes.

The other small job I tackled today was the cobbling together of my handbag bits and bobs. When I leave the house I either take my main nappy bag or if I am lucky enough to get to leave on my own for a while I will take a handbag. It's irritating having to completely empty all the pockets to switch between bags each time I swap over.

This problem has been fixed by getting all these bits into one easily portable cosmetics bag.

Ignore how tatty it is. I will keep an eye out for a nicer one on my travels. Here's what's in it. My apologies to any male readers - there are tampons and sanitary towels in here...

OMG! Blogger will not display that last photo the right way around no matter what I do! GRR!

Anyhoo, in this little handy bag, I keep an important key, comb, pen, paracetamol, aspirin, Rennies, tampons, contact lenses, sanitary towels, vaseline, hair bobble and grips, sweeteners, breast pads, plasters, clear nail varnish, tissues, mirror compact.

Most handy when out and about!

Here's what the other half has been doing today:

Those are the cupboard doors for the nursery wardrobe. We also went shopping for hinges and handles. Hopefully, the doors will be put up by tomorrow. If not I can at least get his clothes put away because the shelving is in place and just needs to fully dry overnight. WOOP! We're sooo close to bottoming this massive job and I am excited!! :o)

Can you help?

Are you thinking that you have a great way of doing some of these things I am sorting out? If you are please, please tell me! Do you have a blog post of your own that might help me? If you do I would love to see it! Just leave me a comment with a link to the relevant blog post or a description of your helpful ideas and I will repost and link to any that I use in my blog. I am really new to this and relying heavily on inspiration from blog land!

Sorting Out Paperwork

No one wants to do this job. Even when you quite fancy having a bit of a sort out the last place you want to go is "The Pile." It's an awful place. A real can 'o' worms job. All it does is remind you of how badly you procrastinate and which jobs you have been meaning to do, but have added to "The Pile" in order to do them later and then promptly forget. Letting "The Pile" build-up is an act of avoidance and repression, so it is inevitable that approaching this task will set a person on edge.

Well, last night after the kids were in bed I went through my usual routine of tidying up and did my ironing. I then got the office ready for use to paint the nursery cupboard doors today. After that, I considered sorting out the cupboard under the stairs but realised it would be too noisy and have the potential to wake the kids. Gasp!

I looked on here at my list of little jobs from the last post but offed them on the basis that several of the "ingredients" were in the kid's rooms or aforementioned cupboard under the stairs.

So, with reluctance, I got out "The Pile" and made a start.

First of all, I go through each item and assign it to a smaller pile in my immediate area. It's always easiest to do this on the floor. 

1. Cards I am going to recycle by using their embellishments for new cards.
2. Unused greetings cards to be stored for future use.
3. Documents to file.
4. Items requiring action asap.
5. Event invitations and dates to add to my diary.
6. Things that need shredding.
7. Paper for the recycling box.
8. Receipts to file.
9. Items for kid's memory boxes.
10. Things I want to scrapbook.
11. For putting into my purse.

Now, the trick is that you need to make sure you deal with all of these mini piles right away. So...

1. The cards I will be using I took into my craft room and placed on the desk ready for when I have a moment to butcher them. Okay, so this isn't really dealing with it entirely, but I consider this crafting time and something that I need to do during my "me" time and not while I'm supposed to be "working".

2. My unused greetings cards slotted into the pocket of my birthday card organiser. It's a little book with a pocket for each month and a calendar page where I can note down each important date. Very handy!

3. These documents to file were put into my filing tray in the office. Admittedly, this is another 'pile' I will be dealing with at some point.

4. Items requiring action generally go back into the wooden box that houses "The Pile" and I am rather ashamed to say that often they are still there the next time I tackle the job. I do need to come up with a better system for these things. It's not like work where I have a desk to keep these papers on so that they constantly jog my memory. I'll think of something!

5. Easy one. I just went through the invites and added their dates to my diary if they weren't already there. If it's one I needed to keep I staple it to the relevant diary page.

6. Things that need shredding to go into the shedder container for now. I plug it in periodically and shred when I can bear to. As a former office junior in my youth, this job still makes me groan. Maybe it's one to get my other half to do instead?

7. Paper that needs recycling just goes straight outside into the recycling bin. End of.

8. I have a very rubbish filing system for receipts that is in bad need of the organising touch. It's basically just a round box that all receipts get stuffed into and for some reason, I keep it in my bedside cabinet. Don't ask why because I've no idea. It should be in the office if I were employing any kind of logic to its location.

9. There are certain things I like to keep hold of to put into the memory boxes I have for the kids. Their hospital bands, special birthday cards, photos, etc. These are separate from those things I scrap about.

10. And that leads me neatly onto the pile of things I would like to scrapbook about. This pile is simply put into a box in the craft room/office and when I have a moment to scrap I root through said box for inspiration.

11. There are some things in the pile that need to go into my purse - vouchers, coupons, stamps etc. Another easy job.

Now I realise that some of these things weren't dealt with completely and maybe this is something I need to address. Perhaps this is my failing? Is this part of the reason for my disorganised home? A protracted avoidance of following through? Hmmm... "Clutter Agitation...?"

Obviously, the mini piles within your main pile of paperwork might be slightly different from mine. However, you will probably find, as I did, that the largest piles were those things to recycle and shred. Funny huh? Now if we could just learn to throw out that junk mail or shred that card statement as soon as it was finished with then we wouldn't have such a daunting task to complete. By "we" I mean "I" of course.

Who's betting I have to come back to this particular job a few more times before the year is out? :o)

While I was looking at home organising stuff on t'internet I happened upon what looks to be an awesome blog, orgjunkie.com. This chick went through her own home overhaul process and is now writing about all manner of mega useful home organisation and decluttering tips.

All this year she's doing 52 Weeks Of Organising and inviting readers to share their organising tales too. I think I might just link up and join in!

One reason I want to get organised...? There are so many! Mainly, it's to prove to myself that I can be organised at home. It's the difference between the person that I want to be and the person that I'm annoyed I am right now. If I don't strive to be this new, streamlining version of myself it would be all too easy to allow chaos to take over and I hate the chaos.

Last week I was busy with our son's room - restructuring and painting his cupboard. I also ordered my shiny new three-section laundry hamper and fell in love. I am amazingly happy with my new laundry system and can't believe I had to do it the awkward way all this time! The cupboard is yet to be finished, but I am very happy with how it is progressing so far. We have been painting the shelves and doors today, so hopefully, by the end of the weekend, I will be able to cobble it all together.

It's actually pretty amazing how much psychoanalysis I am doing of my personality as a result of this project. Just by writing down what I am doing and blogging about it I am discovering the traits that have meant a messy disorganised home for me so far. Traits such as my flitting and my lack of following through. When I think about it these are traits which colour my whole life, so it's been really interesting finding out about them and seeing how they affect even small, everyday things. I guess my real a-ha moment will be when I learn how to work with these flaws to help run a tidier home.

Big Unit

This is our "Big Unit." Sometimes when my husband refers to the Big Unit I cannot be entirely sure he is talking about this piece of furniture, but I give him the benefit of the doubt else I'd get a complex. Look! Mister Maker is on the TV!

Now, this was a genius buy intended to banish all clutter from our living room forever. We would just close the doors on it and forget about what was lurking inside while we watched Dr. Who or whatever. Unfortunately, being messy by nature, the Big Unit hasn't really fulfilled that role. Yet.

At the moment it's more of a "clutterattractamatron". Due to the shelves being really high up and out of the reach of our curious toddler, we end up sticking everything on there for now. Illustrated pretty well on the above photo. In fact, this photo shows an improvement cause we previously had all the top shelves open. I bought two new doors in order to reduce the cluttered space. It does look loads better, especially for the short time it is free from rubbish.

Now, I know you're as nosy as I am - why else would you be here!? :o) So I have some photos of what does lurk behind those doors...

Okay, so this was a typical messy day before adding those extra doors. As you can see, the abandonment of stuff is not limited to the shelving, we also leave random objects on the top.

These drawers will likely just stay how they are. The wires and things are fine in the right and drawer and we need the nappies within easy reach, so they can stay in the left-hand drawer for now.

Need I explain what is pictured below? The clothes were the Eldest's next size ones waiting to be ironed. They've now gone into her room. The rest is mostly man stuff.

This is my crap. Obviously, the main ironing pile belongs with my things, being the wife and all... ;o)

You're not going to get closure on this today because I have no photos of what it looks like now. I've tidied the top shelving, sorted out my side and rearranged the ornaments so less is more. The hubby's side remains pretty much the same. Meh. I'll leave him to it.

So, I will take some pics and get them posted soon.

Well, it's the end of January and you know what? I am pleased with what I have done! I have managed to get started on a lot of little organising and decluttering projects that were really starting to grind me down. I may have flitted a little too much and not managed to finish a lot, but it is only the first month!

By the end of February, I expect we will have finished our son's nursery and made a good start on our next big decorating project - the living room. Yikes! It is badly in need of it, but boy am I not looking forward to that task. It's a pretty big room, not to mention having to work around two young kids. EEP!

Other smaller things I have planned for the near future are,
1. Organising a place to store all my daily essentials - diary, breast pads, phone, etc.
2. Sorting out an essentials pouch for my handbag / nappy bag.
3. Getting together a kiddies essentials pack for keeping in the car.

I have been busy. Honest!

It's been a fair while since I posted anything, but that's because I was thinking that I should wait until something gets finished before telling you about it. Then it occurred to me today that if I always do that then this blog will just be a series of massive gaps with the occasional "here's what I've got done" posts. Rubbish!

So, here's what I have been up to this past few days...

I decided to tackle the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs and see if I could find a cheaper alternative to the expensive three-section laundry basket I was coveting from Next. 

As you can see from the next photo, the inside isn't very tidy and could do with some thorough organisation and the relocation of several redundant or weirdly placed items. The plastic box on the middle shelf is actually my sewing stuff. I have no idea why this is kept with the towels, so don't ask. There must have been a logical reason at the time of putting it there!

Well, no thrifty alternative was forthcoming, so I splashed the cash and paid the £30 for the laundry basket. So far I am very impressed!! In fact, it could be the best £30 I've spent and that makes me depressed. Seriously though, it's amazing. Once the hubby was trained with regards to which colour clothing goes in which section (no I'm not joking) the system works really well!

No more having to sort the washing to find out that you don't have enough for the load you wanted to do. Just peek inside the cupboard and if the washing reaches the top of it's hamper section then it's ready to go! But there's no need to transfer the washing into a separate laundry carrying basket - oh no! Simply pick up the relevant section using the handles and carry it to the washer that way. Brilliant!

I am in love with this laundry basket.

Yes, you may mock me. I am aware of how sad that is.

Looking at that last photo it would seem that my airing cupboard would benefit from a little freshening up. I feel a lick of paint coming up, and maybe some flooring...

Speaking of painting cupboards. I've been doing the inside of my baby boy's cupboard/wardrobe/closet to make it all nice and clean looking. The husband has kindly adapted and added shelving to make it more practical and he's also knocking up some new doors from sheets of MDF.

Here's what it looks like right now:

It just needs a coat or two more of paint on the inside, the shelves need painting and the doors need painting and putting on.

This is our first priority right now cause our little boy is rapidly getting too big for his moses basket and needs to be put into his cot in his room very soon.

Here's what his room looks like right now. A mess! :o)

Well, I've run out of steam for this evening, but I have more photos to show you of half-finished projects we're on with at the moment. There's also the inside of my daughter's newly rearranged clothes drawers and a forthcoming large decorating project to tell you about.

Til next time! It won't be as long this time. I'm still learning! :o)

Mwah! x

Flitty McFlitterson

You know what I'm doing? I'm flitting. I do that. A LOT. I start one thing full of enthusiasm and before you know it I've had a really fabulous idea for something else and *blink* I've flitted onto that thing, leaving the first thing half done.

So far I have loads of half done organising and decluttering projects on the go. The office was the only thing I kind of finished and even then, the cupboard in that room has been left on the sidelines.

My son's room will be the next thing to finish, which is fairly big. We have pencilled in this Friday to make a start on the cupboard remodelling. My husband will measure it to get the extra shelving I need and when that's in I will just paint it all white to freshen it up. I've bought the 'drawers' i needed to use as storage. I just need to get a couple more on my next trip to IKEA.

To whet your appetite here's a photo of my son's cupboard/wardrobe/closet and nursery before I started to get everything in place.

My Bunch of Keys

It's a silly little thing, but one with a decent enough impact. My bunch of keys was getting stupidly big. Each time I got a new key I would simply add it to the bunch with little regard for what was already there. I had too many keyrings, too many of those metal ring doodads and duplicates of keys where I only needed one.

So, I sat down for 5 minutes and took the whole thing apart to rebuild it. Now I just have the essentials - one front door key, one back door key, one key that is for something I've forgotten about and need to track. One keyring with my daughter's bounty photo in, my Clubcard barcode and a key club keyring for if I lose them. Job's a good un!

You may not be able to tell much of a difference, so I sexed up the second image a bit. The first image was taken with the flash on with a crap background. The second image was taken in natural light in a sexier setting (is a keyhole sexy?)

What's that you say? "My word what a difference! What once was a mightily shoddy bunch of keys is now a shining example of lock opening implement organisation!"

Oh yeah baby!

Okay, so I know that doesn't really make up for a week of silence, but truth be told I have been very busy with my decluttering! I am on with my daughter's drawers and working through filtering out all her too-small clothes. Our baby boy's nursery is almost finished and I will be ready to share a photo of that soon, followed a couple of weeks later by the gorgeously new tidy wardrobe/cupboard in his room. Oh, it's all going on!