project simplify week five: whatever i want!

First off, I have a confession to make.  After the paper clutter week and my embarrassment at sharing that mess with every one, I did something that my dear husband said was cheating.  I knew that my sewing and craft area was in such bad shape, that I whipped it into shape in case that would be one of the five categories.  Since it never was, I breathed a sigh of relief. :)  Then when this week's spot was whatever I wanted to choose, I wished that I had taken before and after pictures of that project.  I guess it is fine, because the bottom line is that it needed cleaning and it got done!  There confession over!  On with this weeks simplifying.

When the assignment was left up to me to choose the project . . . my mind was racing! There were so many things that I could have cleaned or organized. I settled on two things.

The first thing that I did was figure out our school lessons for next year. I have wanted to take the time, so this was my opportunity. Our home school convention is the second weekend in May and I have wanted to figure out exactly what things we have and what things we still need for next year. I know that we haven’t finished this school year yet, but we have progressed far enough to know what I do and don’t want to do next year. (at least until next year at this time!) This was a load off my mind. Now I don’t have to think about it anymore until lesson planning time. Yay!

The second thing had to do with the cooking area of my life. In case you are wondering if I need to simplify this area of my life. . . .

This is NOT the picture of simplicity in my estimation! When our dear friend, Ena, was visiting from Honduras, I sat down with her one day to find out what she cooks regularly at home. We love Central American food, and I was excited about learning more menus. Well, all she could think of for breakfast was one 3x5 index card full of things. Lunch, same story. Supper, same story. I can’t tell you how many times I have looked at those 3 index cards since she went home. I am jealous of her every time. WHY does everything she cooks fit on 3 index cards and I have a whole cabinet full of recipe books? The more I think about it, the more it bugs me. The more I think about it the more ridiculous it seems. The only problem is that it looks like a RATHER large job to tackle. But the bottom line is that SOMETHING has to be done. I think that if I fixed a different recipe every single day I still would never use all the recipes in that cabinet in my lifetime.

So to simplify, I guess that I have to start purging books. I have thought and thought and thought. I have come up with idea after idea after idea about how to go about it. This week I think I finally came up with something workable. I divided up what we eat into categories. I am going to just choose our favorite recipes and cut down in a major way. This may take some time, but this week I am satisfied that I put some real thinking time into it and got a plan made.

It seems a little hard to post before and after pictures of these two things. It was mostly brain work, but I can guarantee that it freed up some space in my mind.

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I have loved this project. It has been so fun to have a little extra PUSH to make six :) areas of my life a little more simple.