Catzlover’s Cooking

Organizing Wednesday!

My biggest accomplishment this week was sitting down one morning and making appointments.

This sounds simple, but for some reason I must have a telephone aversion that makes calling people a chore instead of something commonplace. I can email until the cows come home, but dialing a phone – yuck!

The call that produced some mild anxiety was canceling my appointment with the gynecologist I had been seeing and making a new appointment with a new gynecologist. Why is it that switching doctors can produce feelings of mild guilt? It shouldn’t, but it does.

Regardless of the guilt, I decided I need to keep looking until I find someone who “gets” the menopause thing. When I asked my now former ob gyn about HRT, she said I would have a stroke on hormones and prescribed an anti depressant without so much as mentioning side effects. Boo Hiss! I felt dismissed and I just don’t have the patience for that sort of thing these days.

Speaking of appointments, why is it that doctors and dentists all have the same hours? Is it a union thing? It seems to me that medical professionals would make as much money if they shook up their hours and made it convenient for more people to get there. And where I live, the new thing is for dentists to be closed on Fridays. What’s up with that?

Okay, done with mini rant.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

First, I want to give a shout out to my congressman Tom Periello who voted yes on the Health Care Reform bill. Thank you for doing the right thing!

I really did not get much done in my home this back week. Instead, I spent the time helping some tenants get their living space in order since, unfortunately, we have to sell the house.

I did not have the time, nor was it appropriate, to go through everything. But it is amazing the difference that containerizing things makes! Baskets in the kitchen made the odds and ends look tidy. Pink containers in the little girl’s room brought some order to the toys. Canvas containers in the bedroom minimized the clothing piles. I was pleased with the result of some very small changes.

Of course, I am not completely certain that the order will be maintained. I can help some one organize, but I can’t force them to change his or her habits. Sigh.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

Who would have thought that giving away books could be such an ordeal!

Last week I sorted children’s books and decided to give a boxful of them away on Craig’s List. Well, right away I realized I made a mistake having people contact me via email. My inbox filled with all sorts of folks wanting to pick them up. Then I found myself playing email tag and came to my senses. I revised my ad to include my address and a first come first served message.

Did the emails stop? No.

I have to confess I was the most weirded out by someone who asked me to meet them with the books. Call me hard, but I am not driving 10 miles to GIVE away books!

Finally, I took down the ad and made arrangements with one woman to pick up the books in the morning. A woman arrived, I gave her the books, and I thought my Craig’s List adventure was over. Wrong! An hour or so later a man arrived on my door step and said he had been sent by his wife to pick up something – he wasn’t sure what. I told him the books were gone. Then I got one more email from the woman to whom I had promised the books. She would be sending her husband to pick them up.

Oops! I had given the books away to the wrong person!!!

The lesson here? Always list Craig’s List giveaways first come first served and NEVER respond to emails. Or better yet, just take the stuff to the Salvation Army or some other charitable thrift store. My next batch of books will be going to the local book recycle.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

My daughter inherited a new set of furniture for her bedroom last summer. I finally got around to clearing away some of the piles of things that were shifted around to make room for the furniture.

In order to do this, I had to clean out a few shelves of books in her room. What a painful process!

I did a major purge of my own books two summers ago. Out went the textbooks from college and some books I just knew I would never read again and the classics I could find in the book store if I just had to read them – will I really ever go hunting for Moby Dick?

But clearing out my children’s books was harder than I thought.

Okay, there were duplicates that I could purge without too much pain. And there were some non-fiction books that were probably out of date. And some books that were just written to promote a television show or movie.

But, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of Eric Carle and Dr. Suess and so many others.

I know I will have to continue peeling out these books. My younger daughter doesn’t read and my older daughter moved on to mature literature long ago. The process will just be slow and a little sad.

And I plan to give them away. No fussing around with selling and bartering. Take them and enjoy!

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

Slow progress this week, but progress nonetheless.

I tended to focus on kitchen drawer and bathroom cabinet clean up this week. The goal was not to do major upheaval, but to practice a little maintenance.

Some things just needed to be thrown out:

Expired dog shampoo
Empty medicine containers I keep to send medication to my daughter’s dad’s house – how many do I really need!
Half empty conditioner tubes
Two bottles of cologne that lost their smell
3 packages of fortune cookies
3 wine corks
rubber bands from veggies
twist ties

It’s fascinating the way these things creep into my tidy places! Why do we keep this stuff?

I also managed to take a tub of stuff to our local SPCA Rummage Store. Let’s face it, if you don’t actually get the stuff out of the house, it does not count as purging.

I once was the queen of tubs! Instead of actually getting rid of stuff, I would stick it in a tub. There! Out of sight and put away! Wrong!!!
My house soon overfloweth with tubs. Now when I send a load of stuff out the door, I send the tub along with it. You can’t rely on filling up tubs you don’t have.

My other project this week was to make a candle.

I love candles! The trouble with most candles that I buy is that they never completely burn to the bottom. I decided to try to salvage the remains by remelting them (in old clean cans over water). I had enough leftover wax to make a whole new candle – with three wicks so hopefully it will burn all the way. It felt good not to waste all that wax!

If you need any inspiration, go to Organizing Junkie and check out all the 28 Day Challenge entries.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

I finally got 99% of my miniatures organized. Okay, I still need to do some fine tuning – especially with tiny accessories – but I feel good about getting things into LABELED tubs and containers. Instead of jumbled piles, I finally have like things with like things. Kits are with kits. Doors and windows are in one place. Pieces that need repair are together in one tub. The bottom line is that I can FIND things!

I was happy to be able to get two Amvet bags out of the house last week. My mother is always getting Amvet bags and she gives them to me to fill. I can fill them, but I never seem to get over to her house to drop them off in time for a pick-up. I finally had the opportunity to take them to her house in advance and found out there was a pick-up that Monday! Hooray!

Getting things out of the house has been a real issue with all the snow this month. My mission for March is to make at least one trip a week to unload some of the things I have designated to be donated. It is not really purging if the items sit in piles taking up space. Let’s hope the weather cooperates!

Something I have been noticing lately is that odd things are finding their way into organized drawers. Twist ties, spare rubber bands, etc. etc. My goal for this week is to throw out all these odds and ends that end up in tidy drawers. Getting organized is one thing. Maintenance is just as important, I think, to keep things from descending back to their former state of chaos. I need to work on maintenance!

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

Another week another drawer cleared out!

This week I sorted through a computer desk drawer filled with vintage software. I did keep some since my daughter is still using my Mac Performa circa 1996. But, there was a lot of stuff that I don’t need any more or is backed up on something more substantial than floppy disks (do you remember floppy disks?). What is really exciting is that I saw that there is a vintage computing section on eBay and I may be able to find someone who wants vintage software. (You know how I hate just throwing things away!)

I totally lost my momentum with miniatures sorting, but intend to get back to it this coming week.This weekend may be a great time to sort as we are expecting more snow (12 to 18 inches!!) this weekend.

I worked at a coffee shop for a while where the owner was an absolute labeling fanatic. It amused the employees a bit and someone even labeled a stool “stool” for a joke. However, labeling is a most useful tool.

Believe it or not, I used to put things in tubs and NOT label them. When I wanted the Halloween decorations or the Christmas ornaments, I would end up peeking in many tubs to find the right one. Now wasn’t that silly!!

Now, all my tubs are labeled and I go staight to the one I need.

I also use labels to help my sweet husband find tools or know where to put them back. We have a couple of utility closets that have clearly marked shelves. No more searching for paint supplies or the spare 18 volt battery.

Something else I learned is that it really is worth the money to invest in a good label maker. Scraps of paper and scotch tape don’t last as well as the real deal. And our labelmaker can be fun – I can label old kid’s toys with candy wrappers for example. Way cool!

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

After bemoaning my lack of progress last week, I was determined to accomplish something this week.

I have a desk drawer/junk drawer that had become a catch all for all sorts of miscellaneous items. I finally cleared it out and put it in some order. Enough so that I can look in it and find the stapler and the scotch tape.

Something I have found to be both fascinating and disturbing is all the beads we have. I have two daughters and my older one was quite craft minded. Now it seems that everytime I clean out a drawer or a storage container I find beads.

Last summer I finally got smart and designated a storage box to the bead finds. Now when I find beads in a drawer, I put them in a sandwich bag and into the storage box they go.

It’s funny how it’s not the big things that cause the most clutter in our house. We don’t have a pile of chairs sitting in the living room or a shelf full of beds in the bedroom. It’s the small things that accumulate. The beads, the safety pins, the thumbtacks, the buttons, and so on. Someone with a lot more intestinal fortitude than I might just throw these things away. I can’t quite get there yet so I just gather them all together in one place. The good thing is I will never have to buy another safety pin or thumbtack for the rest of my life.

If you are under forty you can skip the next section.

My other big accomplishment for the week was finally clearing out the tampons in my bathroom cabinet. Early next month will mark the end of that phase of my life i.e. I am officially in menopause! Okay, I kept four of them – just in case – but the rest are gone and my bathroom cabinet is a little less cluttered. Now, my question is what can I do with the tampons. Does anyone take tampons that are wrapped but not boxed? Would my daughter want them? Do I suck it up and throw them out? It is back to my Organizer’s Guilt!

Oh well!

Sandra

I’m interrupting my Organizing Wednesday since, frankly, this was not a week of progress.

I was thinking recently about how we all seem to gravitate towards schedules. Especially Stay At Home Moms (or Homemakers, or Domestic Goddesses, or whatever term you wish to use).

Back in the day we had Wash on Mondays, Iron on Tuesdays, etc. etc.

Now we have Menu Plan Mondays or Mommy Mondays, Tackle It Tuesdays, Wordless Wednesdays or Vegetarian Wednesdays, Inspire Me Thursdays, and Frugal Fridays or Friday Funnies.

(I almost chucked the whole idea of Organizing Wednesday, but since I am not going to be wordless and I am vegetarian every day I think I will keep it for a while.)

I read a whole organizing book once that even focused on the concept of schedules via a card file. There was supposed to be a card for every day of the week and cards for all the chores that needed to accomplished that day. Just follow the cards and you will be organized.

While I am not psychologically prepared to follow a card file every day, I think I appreciate schedules. It is way too easy to get up and check email, and blog, and putz with a little of this and that, and clean up after cats,and run some laundry, and cook dinner, and then – oh my! where did the day go!?!

So I have my own little self imposed schedule so that at the end of the day I can look back and say – well, I got that done.

Of course, the best thing about having a self imposed schedule is that you can chuck it all at any time and just enjoy your life. And that is what I plan to do today.

Sandra

Did you get any worthwhile organizing accomplished this week?

The cold and less daylight can be real energy drainers. But, I have noticed that getting a put-off job finished can be a lift.

One thing I kept putting off was organizing our VHS tapes. We don’t have too many left since we switched to DVDs, but the ones we did have were tossed into a cabinet with no rhyme or reason. I took them all out and sorted them into categories (drama, science fiction, comedy, and so on) and placed them back in the cabinet so that the titles were clearly visible. A simple change, perhaps, but one that will make it much easier to find what we want to watch. And it took all of ten minutes!

So many helpful hints about organizing talk about alphabetizing things like DVDs and spices and books. If this works for you, great! For me, however, I find it makes more sense to organize by categories. My spice cabinet, for example, looks like this:

On the left side, I have Italian/Pizza herbs on the bottom, Chili powders next, Indian curry spices and Cole Slaw fixings next, and on top are the herbs I don’t use often like tarragon. Also on top is spare salt and pepper for refilling shakers. On the other side are baking supplies starting with measuring cups on the bottom and ending with muffin papers and colored sugars on the top.

(Did you know, by the way, that you can make cheap colored sugar yourself with plain sugar and a drop or two of food coloring? You can get even more vibrant color if you use cake decorating paste colors.)

In addition to having less clutter, being organized help me find stuff faster!

My miniature sorting is still coming along. Definitely, a two week project.

Sandra