Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Spring Purging, Cleaning, Organizing, Repurposing

Ok, long time no blog. Sorry~ but I have excellent reasons for keeping quiet. Like a bout with food poisoning, an out of commission camera, a Memorial Day picnic and of course the fact that if I leave my children alone for extended periods of time the chance of a house fire goes up considerably.

Also, most of last week was spent re-organizing and re-configuring my laundry room and basement and logging volunteer hours for CHEC. The basement project is still not done although looking much better than it has in quite a while. We got a really great shelf unit that was needed for expanding our pantry and I love it because it reminds me of the ones you see in industrial kitchens. Next improvement for the basement pantry will (I hope) be the Cansolidator. *swoon*

Also, I completely disassembled my too big sewing table, sawed about 20" off the length (yes, I did) and reassembled it closer to the stairs in the front part of the basement and I already feel like I've regained my sewing room. I am so excited about this~ I've been sewing since my 16th birthday and it's killed me not to have my sewing machine accessible. Now that my machine is in it's rightful place, the sewing projects are already accumulating in my mind. I've also found some great crafty blogs lately and that really helps get the inspiration flowing. (What? You want links? Well, Ok, I usually start here, here, here, and here and then I blog-hop from there.)

The last step for the basement is getting all of Josh and David's outgrown clothes in the correct bin and put back into the crawlspace. I think I can get that done this afternoon and then I will dance in my "new" basement.

My laundry room tends to be the place where I shuffle things when I want them out of sight.
Not anymore. The top of my dryer is now clear and I really intend to keep it that way. I took a clue from Real Simple and I added an embellished corkboard to one of the walls for posting stray buttons, washing instructions, etc. and other pin-able things found in pockets that I would be tempted to let live on top of the dryer. (Excepts cash and change~ I count this as the laundress' commission.) And it is remarkable how your attitude towards your work when you are in a more organized environment.

Last Saturday, we took the kids to the park and like a good mama, I brought along my camera, but when I turned it on, there was nothing no "on" noise, no blinks, no nothing. I remembered that he last time I charged the battery it was acting sort of funny, so when we got home I ordered a new battery and charger online (my camera takes a special kind of battery, so no AA's or even AAA's here) but as it would happen, yesterday was Memorial Day so it was only mailed out today. I even missed the May Daring Baker's Challenge. Boo hoo.

I plan on posting random coupon thoughts soon, but I really can't tell you how much coupons have blessed our family. There's a reason we had to get a new pantry shelf for the basement. We've been spending much less and bringing home more. My average savings at the grocery stores have been in the 55-60% range.(With the occasional 85% for small trips.) While I'm linking, I might add that I've learned a lot about coupons from this lady and this amazing lady.

The kids are doing well: Dabney continues to write "notes" with random letters and then ask me "What did I write, Mom?" David touches everything and is constantly on the move. He loves to talk. Especially on the phone, as most of you know. Josh has been zooming around the house on his 2 hands, 1 knee and 1 foot. I'll post pictures when I receive my new camera battery. Have a good Tuesday.

1 comment:

Rebecca said...

Wow! You've really been busy! Glad to hear about the sewing area-can't wait to see what sort of stuff you come up with. Thanks for the links too, I found a few new ones! :-)

I laughed about the 'laundress' commission. I do that too, but I never had a cool name, now I will sound way more authoratitive when I swipe the money! :-)

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