Finally Finished with the Kids' Rooms!

I know I have been neglecting this poor blog and my organizing activities...although even though out of sight, it hasn't been out of mind!

Since I do my organizing and cleaning in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed (mostly), I find myself cleaning the kitchen OVER AND OVER AGAIN instead of getting back to the study reorganization project...which is still not done.

But instead of returning to the study, which is truly out of sight out of mind (it's the room I'm least likely to go into each day), this weekend I decided to finish the younger boys' bedroom first. I worked up there for hours yesterday and finished it off today, and I must say, IT FEELS GOOD!!!

I posted the "before" photos on this post--take a look. Pretty bad. And those photos were taken back in May--you can imagine how bad it got before I plowed into the mess. Each night, as I was putting the boys to bed, I got so tired of looking at the mess, I had to finally finish off the job.

The "job" not only involved going through boxes of junk, toys, and clothes, but also tackling our major children's book problem. We have myriads of plastic bins full of children's books--they spilled over into the attic crawl space. No more. (I also organized the attic crawl space a few months ago--I don't think I blogged about that. This was desperately needed!)

After I cleaned and organized Son #1's room, I noticed that in spite of the fact that I organized all of his books neatly into a bookcase, he pulled them out and stacked them on the floor in the order he wanted to read them. He also is not very good about putting them away--he likes to see the piles. So I asked him if he would prefer to just have plastic bins for his books in his room. They don't look very nice, but they would be easier to deal with--he could just toss the books into the bins. He agreed, so I moved the nice bookcase into the little boys' room.

Sorting through the books and dividing them into Paperbackswap, Goodwill, and "keep," I was able to get the remaining ones on the bookcases with some room to spare. It helps that the bunk bed set has some room for books, too.

Another big chore to tackle was the clothes issue. With three growing boys, it's quite a chore to manage the clothes they outgrow--so we can pass them on to the next boy. I spent a lot of time organizing clothing yesterday. I also had Son #2 go through all his shirts and choose which ones he liked, because he is quite picky and I had noticed that he never wore a lot of his shirts.

Then there was the toy and puzzle sorting, charity donation assigning, and garbage collecting. I finished most of the dirty work yesterday and returned today for the finishing touches (hanging up some pictures and vacuuming). We'll see how long they can keep it clean! At bedtime, Nick told me that he didn't like it all picked up! I think my children like chaos and mess. Lucky me.

Here are some photos of the finished product:

Kieran considers the desk "his" even though he shares the room with his younger brother. It's all arranged by him and adorned with his treasures (including the radish and tomatoes from our garden, which he helped plant):

Portland is in the midst of a heatwave, and this room is the only room in the house with an air conditioning unit!

Chris perusing all the chapter books that used to be his...

The closet, which needs a bit more work but is WAY cleaner than before! You can see the remnants of my clothing organization efforts.

So I'm completely out of order with One Year to an Organized Life, but now that I have the kids' room sorted out, it's time to return to the study. One day, I resolve to have it done!!!

Kids Bedrooms

The One Year to an Organized Life book covers kids' rooms in September, so I continue to be out of sequence here. I must be driving my husband and my friend Shelia batty. I still haven't finished the study--no. I will be lucky if I finish it by the end of June at this rate!

In the meantime, I've been focusing on other things. We did the big bedroom swap here a few weeks ago. We have a three-bedroom house with three children. The kids' rooms are upstairs, and one of them is bigger than the other. Chris, the oldest, has been in the larger bedroom since he was 3. We've told him that if he wants to have his own room, he would need to move to the smaller room.

We bought bunk beds for the younger boys, and Kieran (the middle son) was also not crazy about moving into the other room.

But once we finally made the move (and stopped just talking about it), they've all made the adjustment nicely.

I'm still working on cleaning the younger boys' room (including the annual swap-out-the-winter-and-outgrown-clothes routine, which can be time consuming with three boys...in and out of storage, organizing sizes, etc.). But I tackled Chris' bedroom last week. I convinced him to go through his books and put some aside to give away. The ones that were in good shape we took to Powell's (and he earned $24 in credit for them), and the others we donated or posted on paperbackswap.com.

I know that I should be engaging the children more in cleaning out their rooms, but honestly, it is easier to do the initial cleaning myself because I can declutter while I am doing it. I do wish my children were excited about decluttering and moving their seldom-used stuff along, but they are not (understatement of the year). I would have a very difficult time getting rid of anything if they were helping me. So I declutter and clean, and I will expect them to keep it clean, or at least reasonably clean.

Here is Chris' new bedroom:

And this what I have yet to tackle in the other room! (Leftovers from when Chris occupied it, in addition to various clothes, toys, etc.) Plus, I need to sort out the closets in both rooms. So much to do!!

We're very happy with our purchase of the bunk beds and dresser--we got the whole set for $750 via Craigslist, and they are solid wood. We're using the toddler bed for Nicholas for now instead of the usual twin bed because the toddler bed has rails.

Aye, aye, aye! Just looking at these photos is overwhelming! But I think I must tackle the rest of this mess before I get back to the study!!

Drowning in Paper!

Yes, I'm still working on that darned study! I found the kitchen and bedroom easier because I could compartmentalize the tasks. The study is one of the largest rooms in our house. I also find that when I declutter and organize, I tend to create more of a mess than I had before...just in the organizing process. So even though I'm actually making progress, it's not very easy to see it.


Last night when I was getting ready for bed, Mike asked what I had been working on that night, and it was hard to give him a specific answer. I've just been working through the stuff.



My usual habit is to have a dark garbage bag for "giveaways," a white plastic bag for garbage, and a brown paper sack for paper to recycle. This weekend is the school rummage sale, so a number of bags have been donated there. (And note: I am not planning to attend! Mike will be at a writer's conference this weekend, and the only way I might hit the rummage sale is without kids in tow. But with the kids along, all we would end up with would be RUMMAGE! So it's going only one way and not coming back.)



It's really astonishing how much time all this organizing can take when you've never had a sense of good organization in a room. For example, I've looked through old greeting cards and have a bag of them to keep--I've recycled a whole lot of them as well. I pile the children's best artwork in a pile. I stack photos in a pile (yes, they've been strewn all over the place!); same with bookmarks. Anything that belongs to Mike or that needs to be filed, I put in his corner of stuff. He's been gradually going through it, but the piles continue to expand.



I've organized most of my art supplies, the fairly large supply of gifts to keep on hand, the cards, the books, the office supplies, the photo frames, the stuff to hang on the walls, the gift bags and wrapping paper, the CDs (well, the ones we are keeping--are in a bag), and the supply of stationery. I've put toys into a bin for the family room. I have another bin for Kieran's art supplies. (We have several bins around the house--this, too, needs organization!)



One of the things I discovered last night is that we have a plethora of greeting cards and stationery. Plus one of my favorite things to do is to make cards, but I don't often take the time to do so. (I'm hoping that by organizing my art supplies into the plastic-drawer bins, it will make this easier in the future.)



I also love to make gifts--such as these margarita candles I made for Mother's Day.









When I listed one of eight things I would like to do (in my other blog), I listed "making more of my own gifts" as one of my things. I would love to do more of this kind of thing.

Gift giving and card writing is important to both Mike and me. (When I was a young girl, I collected stationery--each box was numbered, and at one point I have more than 100 varieties...but how often do I write letters any more? I still have some legacy stationery, though I got rid of a bunch last night.)

We tend to overpurchase when it comes to both gifts and cards. Mike is positively addicted to thank you cards! I've suggested that he use some of the other cards we have in plentiful supply, but he likes them to be small so he doesn't have to write as much! (My husband is King of the Thank You Cards. And the Queen, by the way, lives in Boise, Idaho.) I'm determined to, one day, make him a stack of 100!

We have enough other types of greeting cards to last us at least a year, and as I've written previously, I have a box of gifts for kids and another for adults. I am a perennial bargain hunter, so I see things that would be good for gifts on sale--and then they stack up. Of course, that doesn't stop me from going out and buying the perfect gift for someone if I feel the whim or the need!

So that's all for now. One of these days I really will finish cleaning and organizing the study and get back to Regina Leeds' book! I'm determined!

Poor, Neglected Blog...

I continue to plow on in my study-organizing efforts, but it's such a big project, it's hard to quantify the progress I've made.

In the past week, I've been organizing my art supplies into plastic cabinets, and today I stacked them one on top of the other in one of the cupboards. I still have more supplies in boxes to organize and sift through, but I've definitely made progress.

I found a couple of packs of FIMO clay that I think I've owned for 15 years--I bought them thinking I'd make FIMO beads for jewelry! Off to Goodwill they go.

I've also started stacking excess office and school supplies in one plastic box, in addition to sorting through memorabilia, etc.

Today I went through a bag of greeting cards and discarded a number of them. Regina Leeds advises that you chuck the Christmas photo cards (and presumably old greeting cards as well). However, I ended up keeping more than half of them--the ones from relatives and close friends, especially if they'd written something meaningful in the card. Yes, someday my children might hate me for it...but I do like to look back over those cards (especially the heartfelt ones).

I'm stacking lots of papers and other things in a corner for Mike to sort through.

It's a very gradual process and will most likely NOT be done by the end of April...thwarting my plans to get back on schedule in May...

I worked a bit on the study today but then decided to cook a nice dinner while Mike was working outside making raised beds for our garden. Mike does the cooking during the week, so when I cook on the weekends I tend to be overambitious!

I made a carrot-parsnip custard, mostly for Mike because he loves parsnips...and then I also made a broccoli dal for dinner, along with homemade mac and cheese for the kids. The broccoli dal turned out wonderfully! Mike and I liked the custard (although it was odd to have it for dessert), but the kids declared it a dud! No surprise there.

So a bit of a distraction this afternoon...but I am making slow, steady progress. Maybe I'll be done by mid-May? :)

Gift Boxes and Gift Bags

Over the weekend, I continued to chip away on the huge mess that is our study. (When hubby was out in the yard planting flowers, I was working in the basement study--poor me!)

I began on the second cupboard after finishing the frame and artwork organization...and organized our supply of gifts.

Buying (or making) gifts for people has always been one of my favorite things to do. In fact, I could see myself making a career out of it...but then I probably wouldn't enjoy it so much then. I also like to plan ahead for Christmas or other holidays, so I tend to buy a lot of things that would be good for gifts...ahead of time. However, I then end up with a lot of stuff in storage. Which needs to be organized, and reorganized, and organized again.

And I have to confess that I do not always use items in my gift boxes as a first resort, because (1) I sometimes forget what I have, and (2) it doesn't suit the person or the occasion. Some of the items in my gift boxes have been there for awhile. This weekend I relegated some of those items into my elementary school rummage sale or Goodwill piles.

The other thing I had to tackle was excess Christmas items (I swear we have several Christmas boxes all over the house--Christmas takes so much STUFF!!) and gift bags. Gift bags were a wonderful invention. However, I find them very difficult to throw away. But they do get ropey after a few uses. I keep them, and then I don't use them--either because I like wrapping gifts (and I have gift wrap) or they are not in good enough condition to use for gifts.

So I divided them into three piles: (1) honestly good enough to reuse, (2) still sturdy but wrinkled and unsuitable for giving--to be used for other items around the house or when I could use a bag, and (3) recycling or trash.

Beyond these two organizing projects, I continued to chip away at the piles. The next project will be to organize my art and beading supplies, of which there are MANY.

Making slow but steady progress...this is the biggest project of the year, I suspect...

March, Week Three: Create a Plan

In Week Three, Leeds recommends "speed elimination" again. I'm definitely a fan of this technique, and I have used it off and on through this program. In the study, I've used this technique more on a group basis: for example, speed elimination of books, or of children's CD-ROMs, or junk on the floor.

Specifically, Leeds recommends focusing on the following in speed elimination:

• Old magazines and newspapers. Mike has a habit of collecting old magazine and newspaper articles...I have to grant it to him that he is quite good about filing them away in three-ring binders. But I do wonder how often he goes back to refer to them? I'm more likely to clip recipes or home improvement ideas.
• Flyers and catalogs for sales that have expired. Not a problem for us. We are fervent, regular recyclers of that kind of thing.
• Old bank statements and bills. We could probably weed out more of these--Mike generally keeps track of our household files and stays on top of these.
• Invitations for events that have passed, expired coupons, warranties for items long gone, junk mail...
• Photo holiday cards. Now this is an area for consideration. Not just photo holiday cards, but cards in general. We are a card-giving family, both in our nuclear family and extended family, and we tend to keep most of the cards we receive. They are piled up in bags and bags. We don't keep every single card...but we keep many. Perhaps we need to develop some kind of rules to determine which ones to discard.

Then she moves onto paper organizing tools...Leeds says that file systems need to be cleaned out periodically, for example every one to three years. Here are some of the specific recommendations she makes that we can apply to our lives in this household:

• Get a paper tray to hold the open package of printer paper (will look neater)...
• Use plastic boxes to store files (roaches and rats love cardboard)...believe me, if we have rats, my paper files will be the least of my concerns!! But we do love those plastic storage boxes and use them for lots of things.
• Use a label maker to label files--makes them more readable and they look neater.
• Use drawer liners and organizers in the office as well as the kitchen.
• Assess the furniture and supplies in your home office--is your desk adequate and big enough? Is the chair comfortable? For us, we have two desks--one for the computer, and one for the other CRAP!! Honestly, my goal is to clear off the second desk and organize things so it could actually be used for writing! :) And to keep it clean.

Leeds also includes a text box about identity theft and recommends several useful steps to prevent this:

• Protect your accounts with passwords that would be difficult to guess. Change your passwords every 6 months. (I'm very guilty of not doing this!!! I have to change my password regularly for work use--I should use that as a prompter to change my internet passwords as well!)
• Never carry your social security card with you, give it to strangers over the phone, or have it printed on your checks. If a company wants to use the SSN for identification, ask to use another form of identification. (We just had to give copies of our SSNs for our refinancing...made me nervous to do even that!)
• Get your free credit report each year to check your credit. (www.annualcreditreport.com)
• If you are a victim of identity theft, write to each credit bureau and freeze your accounts. Include a copy of your police report, and alert all your credit card companies and financial institutions.
• Do not sign the back of your credit card. Instead, write photo ID required.
• Check the activity on your credit card accounts every week.
• Make liberal use of a shredder.

We have not been victims of identity theft, but twice in the past five years we have had close calls. The first was when JC Penney called us to tell us that a former employee had used our credit card # to purchase a $500 gift card. (We had used our credit card at the JC Penney photo studio.) By the time JC Penney contacted us, they had dealt with the issue (and fired the employee).

Then a few months ago we gave a check to a charity that provides cleaning drinking water in Africa. The person who was going to deposit the checks left them in his car, and they were stolen. We called our credit union to ask them to hold the check, and they informed us that the safe procedure was to close out our checking account. What a pain in the neck it was, and very distressing considering the fact that it resulted from a charitable donation. What was this person thinking? (Or not...)

We pay so many of our bills by automatic withdrawal, plus my paycheck and expense checks are deposited directly into our account, so there was no end to the number of companies and organizations we had to contact, on top of opening a new account, getting new checks, and getting new debit cards (with a new pin #, after we'd had our same one for over 10 years!). I can only imagine the pain and distress that identity theft causes, after we had this small taste of the hassles involved.

Frames and Artwork

I'm not exactly following the book this month (or shall we say LAST MONTH?)...if I were my husband, I just might be having a nervous breakdown right now. (As I've posted before, he is much more of a role follower than I am.)

The other night I worked on excavating through one of the cupbards in our study that contained frames and artwork. True confession time: much of the artwork had been stored in there SINCE WE MOVED INTO THIS HOUSE IN 1999!! Some of the other pieces, many of which we have collected on our travels, have never been framed or displayed. Beautiful batik paintings from Indonesia, woodblock prints from Japan, and folk art from Mexico. These could be eye-catching works of art if they were adequately framed and displayed, yet they've been stuck in a cupboard.

I also inventoried all of the frames we have--insane! Of course most of the frames are photo frames and not suitable for the artwork! But again, we have photos that have never been framed, along with quite large collage frames that I believe we've had for many, many years...blank. (Of course most of the photos I take nowadays are all in my computer, which I suppose is one way of reducing the clutter [not getting them printed out]...)

After clearing out the cupboard, I went in with a dust buster. Our basement is somewhat finished--we have carpeting and walls up, but some of it is still unfinished, including the cupboards and storage areas. The cement and plaster had crumbled away into dust in areas, and I just about asphyxiated myself with the dust buster! I had to stop and go upstairs because I could barely breathe. (Okay, I'm exaggerating slightly, but I knew it wasn't the right way to proceed.) I have yet to go back in--I think next time I will attempt to sweep out the plaster dust first.

Next I need to make a list of the sizes of frames we need for our artwork, and actually do something about getting these pieces framed. And of course, use the photo frames as well. What a waste they all are, sitting in the cupboard!