New Bookshelf

Ever since Brianna was a baby we've had this bookshelf up in her room:

I love it (it matches all her furniture) and it was free (thanks, Leila!) but I kept seeing a couple of flaws with it at this age. It's not very sturdy, and the kids could only use the bottom two or three shelves. Even the third shelf was a bit high for the kids and it made them want to climb up to it. This entire bookshelf actually fell on top of Brianna one time when she did that! So I told Stephen I wanted to move it to the attic until she was old enough for it. But then just a couple of days later, I was looking on Facebook at our online garage sale page and came across a bookshelf that was TOO CUTE, but the best part was - 41 hardcover books were included with the sale! It was just $45 and I grabbed that sucker!

The best part is, Bri's old bookshelf didn't have to go in the attic - we just passed it on to Kaleb!

I was super proud of my buy, as sometimes I have a tendency to splurge on things that end up not getting used (yes, even those of us with frugal mind-sets have mess-ups!).  We love the look in Brianna's room and I love the books!

Christmas Spirit

It's hard not to get into the Christmas spirit around here - Stephen starts singing Christmas songs around the Fourth of July and stops about the 3rd of July, if you get my drift, and Brianna's so doggone excited about Christmas she just can't contain herself!

Every year our family from Georgia comes to see us for Thanksgiving. Usually a few days after they leave we start setting up for Christmas. We actually don't get into decorations that much (we will do a lot more the older the kids get) but we always have a great time decorating the tree and dancing around the house singing carols. Tonight at dinner we were talking about Christmas after our family had just left a few hours prior, and while Stephen bathed both the kids I had a burst of energy. By the time they got out of the bath I had turned this:



into this:



And also, Christmas window decals were put up on the windows, the piano got decorated, and some of Brianna's Christmas presents were brought down from the attic so I can wrap them in the next couple of days.

I love this time of year - I feel so inspired. :)

Bathroom Remodel

If you're on Facebook, you've already seen these pictures. We just finished getting new ceramic tile in our bathroom and we love it already! We got the tile from J.B. Short Carpet One (a local business) and we're so happy with the finished product. Brianna fell in love with the tile guy which is just too funny. He finished the work yesterday and today she was saying, "Where's Mr. Jeff?"

So these are the "before" pictures. We actually loved the tile in the bathroom (which came with the house) but it had stress cracks which were just getting worse. And we didn't even have any arguments about which tile to pick! This was the most stress-free home repair ever. Actually, it was our first major home repair, so that's not saying much. Anyway, as I was saying... "before":

Finished product!

Now it looks so good we are talking about repainting and getting new blinds so the rest of the bathroom looks that good... which means we are going to have to remodel the whole house to keep up now! :)

Honestly, we are extremely glad with how it turned out. It was so easy for us to make decisions on this, it was a small job so only took three days, there were no glitches, it went so smoothly, and we love the look! So I'm super happy with this project. And best of all for a cheapo frugal gal like myself? We're able to pay for it in cash, so we didn't take on any debt by doing this project! Now that's what I consider a win-win-win-win!

Spring Cleaning - The Kitchen

Note: I began this post on March 17 and am just getting around to posting it. So sad. It took me forever to load the pictures!! Oh well, better late than never.

I have really been in a cleaning frenzy lately. I kind of went into it on my frugal blog, but I think this post goes here, on the personal blog. Who knows? Basically what I'm saying is you should follow both blogs so you don't miss anything. :) So my spring cleaning adventure begins in the kitchen. Now, I had already gone over the counters on this section of the kitchen, so that was one less thing for me to do. First step - the baking cabinets.

Basically, the top shelf was a mish-mash of stuff - duplicate herbs, sugars, and other random items. The second shelf is measuring cups, sugar for the coffee, and more herbs. The lowest shelf is for items I use very frequently. It had all just kind of gotten out of order as I move things around hurriedly when I'm cooking, or when Stephen puts things back, or just because there's so much stuff in there!

I took everything off the shelves and wiped them down. Then I put everything back on the shelves (discarding some old herbs and sauces, and I combined all my powdered sugar into one large container which gave me some extra room).

Ahhhh, so much easier on the eyes! I also keep a list of what I have in here so I don't go and buy baking powder when I don't really need it or yet another box of powdered sugar! That has been really handy to me. Next to be cleaned were the cabinets. This was pretty easy. I started a box upstairs that will go in the attic of kitchen items we haven't used in a really long time but I'm not quite ready to give away yet. This includes a couple of bread baskets, extra bowls, our wok, and extra pans, but I'm not saving the extra cookie jar or the sixth (or more) cake pan I saw. Space was immediately cleared up and I'm already breathing easier!

I am loving these great chalkboard decals I got for just a couple of bucks! They are so cute, and now no one is confused about what is in the jar!

I was able to convert this unused cookie jar:

into a jar for powdered sugar. Voila!

Another thing that you just have to do is clean the oven and refrigerator! Now I clean the refrigerator every other week. But moving the oven and scrubbing it down is a once-a-year affair! I wish I had a "before" picture... actually, no I don't. It would gross you out. Tell you what, move your oven and look at the floor and post your picture. Then I will feel better about my oven's dirty little secret. BUT, my oven is clean now! At least for this year!!

Next on the agenda: the cabinets. Most of the cabinets just needed a little straightening, but one of the ones that was out of control was the one above the stove. It was half cookbooks and half miscellaneous eBay items.

Oh, and not to mention the random cookbooks in the living room.

Found a home for all the ebay stuff, and now my cookbooks fit here. Much better!

If you recall, my computer crashed several weeks ago. I finally got around to ordering a new one, and I decided when I was setting it up that this area needed a makeover.

Before:

After:

The other cabinet that was out of control was the tupperware: I got rid of a bunch of sizes we never use and some miscellaneous items in this drawer and it's much better now!

Here is my kitchen spring cleaning list, if you haven't started yet and are needing some ideas:

• Clean the oven. Clean the stove top. Move the range away from the wall and clean the floor and cabinets around it.
• Empty out the food cupboards. Throw away old food and old spices. Wipe down the shelves. Reorganize and restock. Make a list of items needing to be replaced.
• Empty out the refrigerator. Wipe down the shelves, wash the drawers. Throw away old food and condiments. Make a list of items needing to be replaced. Clean the outside of the refrigerator. (Note: I do this once every two weeks so that it doesn't build up and makes for a fast clean-up job!)
• Remove everything from the counter tops. Wipe down the counter tops, backsplashes, appliances. (Note: I try to do this every night right before going to bed. It, too, makes for less cleaning in the long run!)
• Break the garbage can down. Clean and sanitize.
• I have a large bookshelf with cookbooks: Pull cookbooks off shelf. Wipe down shelves. Dust cookbooks. Restock and reorganize.
• Steam mop the floors and baseboards.

Some other things that you may need to do that I don't do just because it's not necessary:

• Vacuum any vents.
• Clean any walls, door frames and door handles.
• Wash the front of the cupboards.
• Polish your stainless steel.
• Wash curtains and windows.
• Remove any light fixtures and wash them.
• Pull furniture away from walls and clean behind the furniture.

And most importantly, don't let your cleaning overtake you! I came home one night to see an item added to my checklist... Stephen had written in, "Enjoy your husband!!!!!!!!!"

Obviously I was spending too much time cleaning and not enough time with him. :) Lesson learned. I'll never clean again. Just kidding!!

Eventually I will post the rest of my rooms as I complete spring cleaning!

Just Another Manic... Saturday??

Today was another chore-filled, activity-filled, hard-working-filled day!! Seems like I have had a lot of these lately!!

This morning Brianna got up early (8:00am people!!!) and I never fully recovered. Stephen and I both got up to support each other. Actually he should have been totally fine - that is over 2 1/2 hours longer than he can sleep when he is working!! And really, I should have been fine except I have been sucked into the Dark Tower series and can't quit reading at a decent hour. I need to quit finding my way into the kitchen at 1:30am, book in one hand, peanut butter brownie in the other...

Anyway, all that to say, it was fine that Bri got up early anyway because I had a Fed By Faith delivery this morning. It went well, it was just far away so it ended up taking quite a while to do, but that's totally fine with me. On the way home I stopped by Fifi's and picked up a check (cha-CHING!) so I can't complain. I also called Granny to wish her Happy 80th Birthday!! Seems like just yesterday she was 79...

I have a list of "every day chores" that I try to do, well, every day. I know my blogs lately have been very boring about all the housework I'm doing. Would you rather read about my housework or not have a blog to read at all? Don't answer that. I didn't get home until almost 12:30 so I was already behind on my chores. Luckily many of them are just about keeping the clutter off the floor. Here are the things I try to do every day: make the beds, wash the dishes, sweep the downstairs, make sure the papasan chair is not hoarding any junk, make sure our bedroom dresser is clean, clip and put away a certain amount of coupons, make sure I haven't left anything on the stairs, make sure my nightstand is clear of clutter, make sure the laundry is done for the day and put away (if any), and make sure the corner next to our bedroom dresser is clear. So most of these things are just checking to make sure the clutter doesn't begin again, only a few are actual chores.

When I got home I put Brianna down for a nap, and after I scarfed down some lunch I started cleaning the bathrooms. I cleaned and mopped the downstairs guest bathroom but after I cleaned the upstairs bathroom I got distracted by the attic. I needed a big box to put some of my yard sale items in and I ended up moving around some items in the attic to clear some space. That took quite a while and after spending so much time in the attic I was incredibly hot and tired. So to relax I just clipped coupons and watched Stephen play a video game instead of cleaning the last bathroom.

When Brianna woke up I made a run to Walgreens to get some school supplies for Fed By Faith. I blogged about it here. Then I still had some coupons that were going to expire today so we went to Harris Teeter so I could use those. I blogged about that here. Brianna always plays with the balloons in Harris Teeter and sometimes I get her one of the free ones in the "Balloon Corral" they have there. They happened to be out today but no big deal - the balloons don't really keep her attention once we're home anyway. Well, the lady in front of us in line saw how much she was enjoying playing with the balloon and told the cashier that she wanted to purchase one for Brianna! Stephen and I politely refused (those balloons are expensive!) but she insisted that she really wanted to buy her one. It got to the point where I thought it would be rude to refuse further so I picked out a Get Well balloon that says "This balloon will keep you busy until you feel better (please turn)" and on the other side it says the same thing. I thought it was appropriate since the balloon was definitely keeping Brianna busy. We thanked the woman profusely and she said, "It's so worth it to see that smile on her face!" I was very proud when Bri promptly marched up to the woman, grinning, and pulled the balloon down for her to see. Then she marched over to the bank inside of Harris Teeter and proceeded to play with the beach ball that was a prop for some deal they had going on. An employee immediately rushed out with another beach ball for her to play with and a lollipop. Not that we are crazy or anything but Brianna does not know the thrill of lollipops if you know what I mean. So once she got her hands on that thing she sucked and sucked and drooled and sucked. She was in hog heaven in Harris Teeter. The cashier said, "You don't even need to go on vacation! You can just come here to have her entertained!" So true. We had to take the lollipop away from her once we got in the car of course. Not ever having a lollipop I was scared she'd accidentally bite it and choke on it going down the road or something. Yeah, I know, I was actually paranoid about something.

When we came home Stephen needed to do his workout so I was doing some work on the computer and watching Bri when suddenly I realized I had just dozed off sitting straight up. I guess I was tired once I actually sat down! I logged off work and dozed for the rest of Stephen's workout which was about 10 minutes - the perfect nap for me. When he was done and I was awake we started discussing dinner. We really wanted to go out as a treat, so we decided to go to Chili's. Stephen wanted to call Steve and Kathy and invite them along - we hadn't seen them in quite some time. They were able to meet us out there and treated us to dinner. Very nice!!

When we got home I realized the counters desperately needed to be cleared of clutter. I had been just laying things on the counter all day. So I spent a while clearing the counters and then I finally went and cleaned the last bathroom while Stephen bathed Brianna.

It was a long day but well spent. And the best part is I got enough things done during the week that I can RELAX tomorrow between church services! Other than my every day chores I will have NOTHING to do! And I am going to enjoy it because starting Monday Stephen is working 20 days straight and overtime many of those nights and I'll be going crazy so I better enjoy our relaxing day tomorrow while I can!

It's Friday!

Still trying to get stuff accomplished around here! (And yet, I am taking a break to blog. Go figure.)

I had to get up at the unearthly time of 7:15 this morning. Oh wait, that's what time I was supposed to get up. I set my alarm wrong and didn't get up until closer to 7:30. So I was late, as usual. Back up....

There is a lady that has been coming to our church for the last nine months. She came up from her home in FL to visit her brother here in Seven Lakes for two weeks. While she was here his health took a turn for the worse and he ended up passing away. She has been in limbo here for nine months trying to settle his estate and move all of his belongings. Needless to say she has given so many items to FBF, so for that I am grateful! When I heard her plight I volunteered the youth group for moving services. After all, they can take the time to go to Carowinds as a group during the summer, so they should learn to do some Christian service during the summer as well!! We finally settled on today at 8:30am as Moving Day. Unfortunately after setting that time I realized how early I was going to have to get up to get this party started! I was going to have to wake up Bri and take her to mom and dad's by 8:00 so I could get to Brenda's by 8:30. (Thanks mom and dad - the perpetual babysitters this crazy week!!) So any youth members that were groaning about having to wake up early... I feel you! My child doesn't normally wake up until 9:00 or 9:30 so I am so used to sleeping in! But it was for a good cause. We had several youth members show up and within two hours we had cleared the house of all the boxes and furniture that would be making its way to Florida! It was really a lot of fun and I know Brenda truly appreciated the help. I know she is ready to get home!

I knew poor Bri would nap soundly when we got home since I had to wake her up so early. I absolutely hate doing that, but I knew she would survive. Especially staying with her Grandpa and Grandma. :) So when I got home, as much as I wanted to take a nap, I chugged two glasses of caffeine-filled Wild Cherry Pepsi and got to work... after I gobbled down lunch of course!

I was able to complete my every day chores and other things that needed to be done today:

• made the beds
• checked to make sure certain areas are still clutter-free (papasan chair, nightstand, corner next to dresser in bedroom)
• cleared off the staircase
• clipped and put away 75 coupons
• put away five items in my car
• made a run to Rite Aid and blogged about it
  
• cleaned off the dresser in our bedroom
• read a magazine to relax
• wrote a letter to a very good friend I haven't talked to in months (like, she doesn't even know I am pregnant...)
• dusted our dresser
• took two Bookmooch packages and two eBay packages to the Post Office
• washed, dried and folded one load of towels
• counted up the amount we are donating to our FBF family this month
• vacuumed the living room
• swept
• washed the dishes

Stephen, Best Husband Ever, was such a huge help tonight. After working all day and then doing a long workout session he still went to church with me to help with the Fed By Faith room. It had gotten out of control and was taking too long to organize in the couple of hours on Wednesday nights I have in there. We were really needing things put away NOW because the whole building has to be inspected before August 30 when school starts. We had major fire hazards in there and were blocking the only window exit. We stayed at church 2 1/2 hours. He loaded the entire truck for the delivery I'm making tomorrow as well as some things that were trash and need to be thrown out. He also watched Bri whenever she would get to a point where she was tired of entertaining herself. He lifted heavy boxes that I'm not permitted to lift (actually I'm not sure I could ever lift some of those boxes!!) and he helped me find the best places to put everything we're storing in the room. I wish I had before and after pictures because it is a totally different room now. It's so nice to just be able to go and DO IT. Just to have the time to set aside to get it organized and done and now it's such a relief!

Today was certainly a busy day right from the beginning, but I definitely love getting so much accomplished! Now I'm going to try to get some work done so I can catch up a little bit!!

Organization: Baby Steps!

I am so tired of all the clutter around here! I feel like I say this every single day but it is really overwhelming to try to organize everything and try to interact with Brianna as much as I think I should! I have done pretty well at organizing in baby steps though, like I blogged about here. Last night I was thinking about how to go about organizing the house and decluttering at the same time, and I thought, the easiest way is just to start in one room. Finish that one room and then move on to another section. That way it's not so overwhelming. So my goal today was our dining room. Our dining room really doesn't have the appearance of being cluttered but I have things hidden in our drawers that are not at all organized and don't need to be taking up space in the dining room!

Our buffet/server has become overloaded! You can visibly see all the photo albums:

and inside is an ugly secret - records, copy paper for the computer, picture frames and random coupons!

The drawers contain miscellaneous electronics, magazines, and more coupons!

The first thing I did was go through the picture albums. The empty ones that I'll never use are going to a friend who can use them to help with speech therapy clients. The hard copies of pictures are going in our fireproof safe.

I next tackled the records. I separated them into two piles - keep and give away. Whichever ones I can't give away I will sell at our next yard sale, or give them away there if I can't sell them!

I only kept the best of the best - Beatles, CCR, and select Eagles, Bad Company, etc. I grew up listening to these types of records thanks to mom and dad, and I would love for our kids to grow up jammin' to these classics! I then made an inventory of the records we have, took a picture, and put the list and the picture in our safe for fire and robbery reasons.

The magazines have been read and are going to make their way to mom's house this afternoon.

Next up: The bags of stuff next to the buffet:


The white bags (courtesy of Leila) are going to FBF this afternoon. The other bags are going in the hall closet until I can take them to Fifi's to try to sell them. Finished buffet table: (Yes, the puzzle is still in progress.)




Next up: The hutch. Drawer #1 contained a cookie jar, 16 cookbooks and several loose-leaf recipes. The cookie jar is going to the attic (I do want to eventually use it when our kids are older, but we have no need for it now), 8 cookbooks and some loose-leaf recipes are going to the yard sale pile, and all the cookbooks which don't fit on these shelves are going to my other cookbook location which is taller. The rest of the loose-leaf recipes went into my binder of recipes.

Drawer #1:

Drawer #2 contained 32 cookbooks, a lazy susan, and approximately 100 recipes on index cards. Whew! I actually only discarded one cookbook out of all of these, but they all fit in the other drawer with my other cookbooks. The lazy susan is on the dining room table where she belongs, and the index card recipes were sorted alphabetically and filed or thrown away. Unfortunately, my camera messed up when formatting this picture and it was deleted. Trust me, drawer #2 was much worse than anything you could imagine.

Completed drawer #1:

On to the middle three drawers: Disaster!! Drawer #1 contained another twelve cookbooks and bubble wrap for my eBay items. Bubble wrap was moved to my mailing supplies drawer. Five cookbooks will go to the yard sale pile and the rest will go to side drawer #2.


Drawer #2 contained more coupons, paper bags meant for FBF, and 8 cookbooks. The couple of coupons that hadn't expired will be clipped and put away. I actually kept all the cookbooks, and I'll take the paper bags to the FBF tomorrow night.


Drawer #3 is my eBay drawer. I'm going to keep everything in here, but it definitely needed to be tidied up! Actually, I moved all the items to the middle drawer and I will move them down to the third drawer as I list them. That way neither drawer will be cluttered.

Completed middle drawers:

Last but not least, the room is swept, chairs pushed in, Brianna's bibs put back in their rightful place (she loves to drag those out!).

And my dining room is ORGANIZED!!!

(P.S. Next time I will not try to do an entire room in one day! It took me several hours during today to complete this room!! But it is a relief to have gotten so much done.)

Declutter Project

It seems like I am always on a mission to declutter our house, but somehow we always have more "stuff". I have sold things at secondhand stores, made numerous donations to the coalition, given away items to people at church, had a yard sale, and organized drawers, closets, and other little things along the way. It's always such a relief when you can open a drawer or door and know where things are! It's particularly nice to be able to open a cabinet door and not have something fall out and hit you on the head.

So. Surely I am not the only person who has a pantry that looks like this:

Ack! I know! The sight alone is burning my eyes! I realized that maybe my couponing skillz are a waste if I can't even tell you how much of what we have in the pantry. I would go buy the mother load from a triple coupons event, give half of it to Fed By Faith, and still be pushing stuff out of the way in the pantry to fit what we "needed". So I made it a 24-hour project to organize our kitchen pantry, which is not that big to begin with.

The first step was getting Stephen to buy me shelves and install them on the doors of the pantry. We bought those from Walmart for under $20 - I can't remember the specific cost now. They are super easy to install and hold a lot of items! Once I was able to get multiple items off the shelves and onto the doors, I could really move things around inside the pantry.

Finished project: I have categories - breakfast, snacks, pasta, sauces, baking ingredients, box dinners and even a couple of boxes for "miscellaneous" items (Kool-aid packets, a few Butterfingers from a friend at church, etc.) On the doors are more categories - canned items, jarred items, jelly/salad items/other baking ingredients, created by my own discretion.




MUCH better! I will never be able to have a clean floor (although I was able to mop it for the first time by doing this project) because we will always store drinks down there I'm sure, along with some other items. But at the very least it is much neater. The shelves on the door are pretty overloaded at the moment but I'm trying to eat out of the pantry more often than I normally do, especially when Stephen is working and I can make something simple for one person out of there. I do realize Harris Teeter is probably going to have another special coupon event in the next couple of weeks... what will the pantry look like after that???