cleaning house

Over break Luke and I tackled some clutter around the house in a big way.  We went through textbooks that we had hanging around and have a fairly large box to take to the bookstore to sell back (if we can).  We filled up the equivalent of 2 recycle bins with papers and such from our office and basement.  A large garbage bag of clothes also made their way to the local Goodwill store.  It feels good to get rid of stuff that we no longer need.
We kind of also had to go through our stuff since we are getting our windows replaced soon and we need to have the area near the windows cleared for the guy to do his thing.  Perfectly good excuse for cleaning up in a big way.  After the windows are installed I am going to do a big cleaning of the rooms (we are talking dusting, washing curtains and such).  A little spring cleaning and I love it.  Time to start thinking of those goals for March since I slacked off and didn't do any list of goals for February.

Home Organization

Having spent the week home so that I could take care of Luke I continued with organizing things around the house.  I organized the file cabinet in our office.  All of our manuals for appliances and gadgets were in a file folder.  I put them in a binder so that it would be easier to find them.

 Easier to find because I put each manual in a plastic sheet protector in the binder.

 Having organized my clothes I decided to tackle Luke's part of the closet.  It is pretty organized from the last time I sorted through his clothes for donations about 2 years ago.  Probably also helps that I put away his clothes after doing the laundry.

 I took a hanging sweater thing and put it sideways on the shelf.  I have done this on my side of the closet with my sweaters and it helps with keeping things organized and from piles overlapping and chaos.

 Here is the after... his jeans sorted by size and use.  His "work" pants for tackling yard projects or messy indoor projects are in the back corner.  Jeans he wears most often are in the front near his Bill's shirt (that was scrunched in the sweater divider with a bunch of random t-shirts.

Those random t-shirts are now folded in the drawers that you see peaking out in the back corner.  This is also where I have put his summer shorts.  The organization and cleaning out continues!  We have another bag of clothes to donate (5th bag so far this year).

Luke did What!!!

So Luke decided to sit in a chair and play a vintage video game for almost 18 hours last weekend.  Sunday morning he woke up and couldn't walk... his back, hamstrings and calves were so tight.  This lasted until Thursday when he finally decided to go to urgent care and see if something was more seriously wrong (it wasn't getting better).  I was supposed to go with my mom to Vermont for our week off from school but decided not to go since Luke was in such rough shape.  Staying home to take care of Manfriend (who at this point became zonked out with the muscle relaxers they gave him) I decided to be productive.

 I hauled up some bins from my classroom last year that I never ended up using (they were too small for papers) and organized my laundry room cleaning rags and supplies.  Large "candy" bins house my running hats and mittens (I need a lot since they get laundered constantly and I run a lot).

 Under the sink in the master bath needed an make over.  Things just sort of got tossed in all willy nilly and most of it would be better stored in the guest bathroom linen closet.

 I swapped the cleaning bin for the one in the down stairs laundry room since it was smaller.  Voila, way nicer and easy to see everything in the cupboard.  At this point I am thinking, "what else can I organize?"

 I decided to hang up our Tinkerbell light switch plate in the kitchen... and proceed to organize the junk drawer.  I know, we all have one that seems to catch all our pens, pencils and other random stuff.

 More small baskets and such from my classroom last year.  The holes are large and pens/pencils were constantly falling out so I went with ice cream pints for materials (hot glue a few stones to the bottom to weight them).

 Lastly, I decided to tackle my clothes closet.  I've had most of my clothes organized into bins that I can pull out and pick a shirt to wear.  Unfortunately the shirts usually just get tossed into the bins or hap hazardly folded.  Thunder Paws decided to supervise.

 Apparently I took a long time since she fell asleep.  Folded and placed in the bins this way I can easily find what I am looking for and no shirt gets "lost" or forgotten in the bin. Yes, I love the color green and a few of my shirts are duplicates since they are "favorites."

Here is my clothes closest (I know, it is supposed to be the linen closet).  Love that all the clothes fit in their bins now and aren't over flowing every where.  I have the other half of the closet to work on, but love how it is looking so far.