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.

project simplify week four: pantry & fridge

. . .make that just fridge for me.  I don't really have a "pantry", just a canned food storage area and I don't usually throw too much out of there unless a jar comes unsealed.  I had company last weekend, so this worked out really good for me.  It seems like when we have people around for a whole weekend, the fridge gets TRASHED.  Leftovers from this meal, snacks from this moment, food someone brought from home, etc. etc.  I always love cleaning out the fridge and getting it a little emptier.  We ate some leftovers, threw out some things that had hibernated in the back corner under everything, and wiped the whole thing out.  What a good feeling!

Before                                                                                             After

YAY!  Looking forward to one more week of this cleaning business.  I feel like a load has been taken off!  These are all little jobs that are easy to ignore. 

project simplify week three: toys and/or kid's clothes

Okay, this was a fun one for me.  It is always so much more fun to have help for these projects, and for some reason, Ethan was a VERY willing helper.  It is not always this way when we purge toys, but this time it was.  The clothes issue was a no-brainer for me.  We have ZERO storage space for old clothing.  When Ethan outgrows things they go in a pile for a dear cousin that gets some use out of them.  I only keep what I can wear on Elisa later without making her look too much like a boy.  Same story with Elisa.  When her clothes are too little, they go in a pile for dear cousin's little sister.  They always say, "Mom, this is too little, it is time to give it to Corbin & Natelly."  (I have kept their clothes that they were wearing when we got them in our arms forever and a very few of the things that are handmade gifts for JUST IN CASE, but probably mostly because I am sentimental.)

The toys are mostly the same story because of room, but there is always something broken or trashy that we can get rid of it seems like.  I have a son who (even though he doesn't have my genes) is just as big or even bigger of a keeper than me.  :)  He digs in the trash and rescues every empty cleaner bottle/container that he can get his hands on to play in the water with.  I can NOT throw away cardboard boxes without them first being turned into trucks, skidloaders, wagons, airplanes, etc.  He uses pipe cleaners for just about everything.  (making cardboard boxes into carseats for baby dolls, pulling wagons behind tractors after they have lost their hitches, making dog collars, making belts for his little sister so he can lead her around like the animal of the day, shoes for stuffed animals, and on and on and on)  Anyway, enough about that.  Elisa on the other hand is not so much attached to "junk".  She didn't even help or care the day we went through the toys.  I told her I was throwing a baby out that was missing an eye-ball.  Ethan didn't think that we should, but Elisa just said, "okay!"  (it probably helped that her Grandma Dora was here.  she was busy bossing G-ma around and G-ma was just letting her.  RIGHT UP HER ALLY!  She would MUCH rather boss someone around and play house with them than be attached to "things")

Anyway, long story short, we dumped every container of toys and put them all back nicely.  We threw out one garbage bag full of stuff.  Examples:  an OLD floppy disk (remeber those?), chopsticks from our dear friend Yuka that Ethan had been playing with, little cars from an old Life game, helicopter with no propellers, fake credit cards that you get in the mail with applications, pieces of cardboard from previous boxes, used pipe cleaners, appliance manuels that the kids pretend are books, etc.

It was fun to get all the crumbs out of the boxes too.  I have no idea how toy boxes can get such dust bunnies in the bottom!

Here a few pics:

ready to get started

before 

after 



I am still so glad to be doing this and looking forward to next week's challenge.  Although I was glad for a little easier week this week.  :)

project simplify week two: paper clutter

Tsh really thought that she had it together when she posted inspiration for clearing paper clutter from our lives, and I do want to thank her for that. . .but I have a different set of directions.  I will share mine here.  (this is probably the area of my life that is the MOST need of simplifying, because as I already said last week, it is hard for me to "throw it out")

Here Goes:

* Monday:  take before pictures, sigh DEEPLY and walk away, realizing that you will never finish this monstrous task in one week!

* Tuesday:  hold your breath while you get a laundry basket to put ALL your papers in. Keep holding it as the laundry basket turns into 3 boxes.


Smile because you know that you have the first step accomplished.  Have lunch with your kiddos while trying to decide if you REALLY think that this is possible or not.  Immediately after lunch, start sorting!

* Wednesday:  sort everything into separate piles:  memories, addresses, magazines / articles to read, books, to shred/recycle, honduras paperwork.  YAY!!!  A big step!

* Thursday:  spend the afternoon helping bake communion bread with dear sisters & don't take one thought about paper!

* Friday:  once back at it, go through each separate pile and trash a VERY GOOD portion of each one.  (after all, who needs ticket stubs to events that you don't even remember now & ticket stubs that the writing has faded completely off?????)  Then you are FINISHED!!!

* Saturday:  watch husband burn paper in the burn barrel and SMILE!  (sorry no picture for this step, just trust me, it was a SWEET smelling fire)

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I will have to say that this is probably THE most embarrassing area of my house, but I am SO thankful for the motivation that I had this week to GET IT DONE!  This is something that I have wanted to do for a while and always think that I don't have time for that big of a job.

project simplify week one: master closet

So, this week I was challenged to clean out my closet.  I sort of groaned at this assignment, because I just did several months ago and didn't think I had much to do.

 

Well, I was wrong.  A while back when I was "cleaning out" I set the number 20 for the amount of dresses to own.  I started out with 14 (enough for one week of summer and one week of winter) and then thought maybe I should have a couple of extra for each.  Maybe I should make it 14, but I just couldn't quite do it.  :)  Well, I counted my dresses, and yes, I already had more than the 20 that I had set for myself.  I can't quite decide how they add up.  When I made that number my goal, I determined to get rid of one if I got a new one.  What happened?  This week when I counted, I had 26.  So I pulled out 3 to give away, and 3 to trash.  The trash ones were fun for the kiddos, because they cut the buttons and zippers off for me.  I love to involve them in throwing away things.  I am NOT very good at it and I have a son who keeps EVERYTHING, even down to the confetti from one of my good friends wedding that he DIDN'T even attend!  When I was cleaning out his "personal drawer" with him one day, I picked out all the paper confetti to throw away.  He very sadly asked me not to throw it out, because it reminds him of Melanie's wedding.  I talked him into it after I told him that he WASN'T EVEN THERE!  :)  So I think throwing away things is an activity that we can ALL benefit from.

A few months ago when I made a rule to myself about how many dresses to own, I also made a rule about shoes.  Well, same story!  My shoes no longer happily lived beside my dear husbands in the closet.  There were a couple of pairs that lived under the bed and a couple of pair that lived on the shelves in the laundry room.  Well, how many garden shoes do you need anyway?  Is it really necessary to keep the pair that have big cracks in the soles just because the upper part is still whole?  I don't think so.  Even though it was HARD, I actually threw them away. :)  I threw one pair of my husbands that were in the same shape.  (i had been keeping them because i thought SURELY he could still wear them and since he isn't quite the "keeper" as me, he was more than glad to move them out)  I put 2 in a pile to give away, and now I am down to 9.  I am happy with this, since my husband's shoes and my shoes are once again living happily in the closet together.

Here are my before and afters:

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My closet before.  Joe's clothes on the right.

 

My pile of shoes before.

Ethan &; Elisa cutting buttons and zippers off one of the "trash" dresses

My closet after.  I like having more room between dresses so they are not squished and wrinkly when I'm ready to wear them.  (ironing is about the same interest level for me as trashing things that I think are perfectly usable)

My shoes after.  (i actually got rid of one more after I took this picture)

The finished project!  A clean closet and shoes all in order.

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I loved this inspiration.  Knowing that there were so many other out there doing the same thing gave me a little more incentive.  I hope that I can keep it up for a long time.

I'm a little nervous to find out what is next on the list.  I have some pretty raunchy areas in my house that are going to be embarrassing, but very good for me to clean out!

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On a more serious side.  We are so sad about all the destruction from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  We are remembering the Japanese Labo students and chaperons that we met last summer, especially Yuka that stayed with our family for a time while she was here.  We will be keeping them in our prayers and hope to hear something from Yuka soon.