A Clean Closet

We have his and her closets in our bedroom. My husband joked the other day that my closet must be bilemic. What he meant was my closet tends to purge itself of all of its contents by the middle of the week. It's true. During the week, I'm in a rush to get out the door and when I get home, I'm too tired to even think about cleaning, let alone actually do it.

Do any of you have this problem too?

I'm a pretty organized person but when I'm in a hurry, organization goes flying right out the window!
All of my neatly stacked shoeboxes usually end up in front of my closet by weeks end from a morning when I couldn't find the right shoe to wear. Clothes don't seem to get thrown in the hamper inside of my closet, instead they land at it's feet because picking the lid off the hamper is just too much work at 9 o'clock at night. Oh... and if I tried on an outfit that didn't work out, most likely it wasn't hung back up but thrown on the chair next to my closet.
Every weekend I clean it up and put it back in order. It's a good thing I don't have a lot of clothes/shoes or a walk-in closet. This past weekend I made an effort to organize the shoe boxes in a manner which should be easier for me. I also switched out my winter clothes for the summer. Somehow I am able to keep my clothes in perfect order. I have a section for sleeveless shirts, tops, dress pants, skirts, suits, dresses and in the very back are my sports jerseys (RIP my cute little Manning Colt's jersey). That I am good with keeping in order. We'll see if this will last...

In Perfect Order until.... Wednesday?

Spring Cleaning- Attic Style

I was given quite the spring cleaning challenge this year! Cleaning out the attic of an entire family. Luckily my own family, or that would have be an impossible challenge. That means 30+ years of marriage (my parents) and two grown children's (my brother & I) worth of boxes, and all of the sentimental kiche that comes with. My parents are always complaining that I have so much stuff in their attic, and well, I admit-I do. But I also found out they have a lot more.

I'm preparing for a garage sale in a few weeks and I wanted to dig out all of those items to sale. I'm also throwing out loads of stuff in the process that we don't need, and sending some of it to goodwill.

Tip #1- Put any old clothing in a garbage bag and get rid of it! Unless you have recent or expensive, quality clothing- it's best to bag it up for Goodwill. It's difficult to sale all of your unwanted clothes at a garage sale. If I do, I put them in a box and say anything in the box, $1 each. Try to think of anyone or any other charities that could use those bags of clothing. It may make you feel better that someone will be given these items instead of having to purchase them from Goodwill.

Before Shot

I can't show you an actual panorama shot but you get the idea. Just imagine stuff piled up with absolutely no pathway. Do you see all of my mother's Christmas stuff? It's out of control and taking up at least 50% of the attic space. Also my dad has a bad habit of putting stuff right at the door and not organizing it. Gosh, I hope my organizing doesn't come undone within months.

Tip #2- Create a path if one doesn't exist. I literally had to start sorting and throwing out as I entered. We have some hard to get to space that wasn't being used and I began clearing a path to it. I pulled out anything blocking the way and began using this space for anything we wouldn't touch for a while.



Garage Sale area



On one side in a small area I began clearing out a space for what would be my "garage sale only" side. (Somehow one of my brother's racing trophys got stuck over there for the picture.) Luckily most of it could stay put. This now provides me a space to put these items as I move along through the rest of the madness. I came across a lot of "keepsakes" which then created a whole other section called "keepsakes" (duh).

I tackled one section at a time, slowly moving along the wall... clearing out and organizing. Going through the items is the tough part. When you haven't seen something for a while, it's easy to sit and reminise. That's the great thing about the "keepsake" section. I can move it there and go through it another day.

It took several weekends but I finally got it finished this past weekend, just in time for the May garage sales I have planned with my aunt. With our attic, it's not protected from the heat/cold so working in the attic only happened when the weather was between 50 and 70 degrees. This is really the only comfortable times to be in there so that's why I couldn't work in it every weekend.


Once all was said in done, I had a large area for garage sale to the left of the door, a clear area in front of  the door, keepsakes on the back wall, and christmas stuff to the right. I have temporarily placed my belongings that will move out with me and my husband (hopefully, soon) in front of the Christmas stuff in an easy to get to location.

It may not be the cleanest attic but it is now organized!

Ready for 2011

I picked up my 2011 planner this week at one of my favorite stores- Paper Source! I chose the Curry color--an uplifting, sunny yellow which (I think) brightens my outlook on 2011. I need positive vibes in my life right now even if it's as simple as the color of my planner.

In my previous blog, 2011 Planners, I was considering other options because I'm not too crazy about the boring cover. Once I opened it up, I was pleasantly surprised to find some improvements from last year which made the planner's cover a minor detail.

One of the my favorite features in the 2011 planner- the stickers! There are more than the 2010 and also more variety including stickers for dental, doctor, haircut & nail appointments; a beach chair for vacations; popcorn for going to the movies; and an alarm clock to name a few! I know, I sound 8 years old right now. I don't care. Like it says under my blog title, "it's the simple joys in life that make me smile."

The notes section expanded to "Doodles & Notes," "People & Places: Contact Information" and  "Curiosities"which includes four different sub-sections: "websites to visit," "blogs to explore," "restaurants to visit," and "books to read." 

The planner is also eco-friendly, made from recycled leather and 100% recycled paper! Half way through 2010 I started making efforts to be more earth-friendly and I want to continue that into the New Year!
See ya in the New Year!

2011 Planners

I love a good planner/calendar to keep me organized throughout the year. I can't function without one.

For a while I was using the Kate Spade planner.  It had everything I needed from monthly calendars in the front, weekly diary throughout and notepad pages in the back.

My Kate Spade collection 2007-2009

Then in 2010 "Kate" decided to leave out the weekly diary section which is my whole reason for needing a planner! Thanks "Kate" (heavy sarcasm). If you were to open the weekly diary section on any given week in one of my planners, you would see that it is filled with little reminders and to-do lists. I NEED this section. So I had to make a change. Very sad, because these planners are only $20-and are pretty much the only thing at the Kate Spade store that I can afford. (FYI-They still charge $20 without the weekly diary section; notepad pages replaced those).

After a lot of searching (just ask my husband), I found a great planner from papersource.com for $29.95. I love it! This planner has everything the Kate Spade had and more (even stickers in the back).  I may choose this one again if I can't find anything else. The only negative is that the cover didn't change for 2011 and the other color options aren't that great. Here's a link to the 2011 to check out the inside.

This is also what my 2010 looks like.

*********************************************************************************

So, I'm keeping my eye out for that perfect planner to get me through another year. I came across these day planners recently at Tiny Prints by Erin Condren.

I thought the below would be cute since I have a new last name this year that I'm still getting used to...



Taffy:Waterfall from $50 each.



... or this cute one that you can have your picture printed on the cover.



Zen Gems: Chocolate from $55 each.



I'll keep my eye out for some other ones since these are on the expensive end. I'll let you know what I find for 2011.

How do you stay organized? Let me know if you see something I might be interested in!