Hoarders

My new favorite TV show is Hoarders. It's on A&E, and exposes peoples homes who have way, way too much stuff and a boat load of emotional baggage to go along with it. The disorder is fascinating and the show truly intends to help those people break through their emotional patterns that are causing them to accumulate so much stuff without disposing of what they no longer need, along with the chronic disorganization that goes along with having more than you have space for.

I love that our house isn't any bigger, and I try to embrace minimalism and getting rid of things as new things come in. Every time I watch Hoarders I want to give or throw something away. So over new year's weekend, I did just that.

When we moved here, I started putting things aside in a yard sale pile. We have lived here about a year and a half and had a mound of trash bags in our basement. I can't honestly imagine we would get much for the old easter basket, clothes, fake flowers, and other odds and ends if we were to have a yard sale. I also despise actually having a yard sale. After every one I have had, I vowed not to ever have one again, and we live in a terrible location for a yard sale.

As I was putting away our Christmas gifts, I started bagging things up for the yard sale pile. Out with the old, in with the new. It occurred to me that we were probably never going to actually have a yard sale, so I called the Christian County Family Violence Center and asked what kinds of things they could use. She went through a whole list of things they need. Although the Christian County center doesn't have a website. This is the link to Springfield's Family Violence Center, and they have a wish list that is very similar to the things the Christian County group needs. Because I had so many other odds and ends, she suggested I bring everything to their thrift store and they would sort what they would sell in the store and what the women needed.

I filled a box full of personal products and cleaning products from my couponing days. After sorting through the basement and every closet in our house, I filled twenty trash bags of things to donate. I also filled four boxes of Ben's things to send to a friend expecting twins. It feels so good to have all of the closets and cabinets cleaned out.

When we go through our storage in the basement of Pam's shop, I'm sure we will have even more. I also didn't go through the garage because it's so cold. This fall we are going to go through the Christmas stuff and come up with even more from there.

Ben's Nursery

When looking at pictures of the curtains, I decided I should snap a few pictures of Ben's room to preserve the memory of how neat and clean things stay when he's too little to crawl or walk. His room is my favorite in the house because it has so much light from the two big windows. I've tried to keep it very simple, because too much going on in the way of colors or decorating is really overwhelming to me.

I love having the bookshelf and nightstand in the closet. His clothes are short enough, that the bottom half was wasted, and now we have space in his small room for his books, baskets containing his toys, and some of the older kid toys are stored in the nightstand. Instead of the pinch-y bi-fold doors, we used a tension rod and tab-top curtains to close up the closet if needed.

We found the crib at a Just Between Friends sale, and then found a close to matching nightstand, dresser, and chest of drawers at Furniture Factory Outlet. They are all adult-sized, because they can hold so much more and might even last a little longer. This caused the room to end up wall-to-wall furniture, but Ben doesn't seem to mind. Instead of a changing table, we found a dresser-top changing pad that is attatched, but removable for when Ben needs the dresser alone. All of the cloth diapering and bathing things are kept in the dresser, and the clothes, sheets and blankets are in the closet and chest. It has been so important to us, to not let the baby stuff take over and get more than is reasonable. This has helped us have room for everything, and has helped us keep everything organized.

The rocking chair has been in my family for generations. My mother made the quilt draped across the back. I wanted to paint the walls, but I couldn't decide on a color and then it was too late and he was here. I'm thinking a light green would balance out the light blue, but I have no idea when that would happen. I can't really imagine moving everything around and keeping Ben out of there long enough right now.

Ben is in the excer-saucer, if you're looking for the picture of Ben today. :)

pantry organization

As I continue my spring cleaning / organization kick, I decided to tackle the pantry today.

Before:


I measured my shelves and found a good deal on baskets at Big Lots to get me started. I printed the labels on card stock and used packing tape over them to stick them to the baskets (the same label system I use in my classroom.) We buy a lot of the same things, so it was easy to sort everything into categories:
breakfast, snacks, pasta/bread, baking, desserts, drinks, crackers / taco shells, soups, beans, corn, broth, jello, candy, sauces and paper products.

After:


We still need to organize the spices, fridge, and freezer, but I now have a very clear picture of what I still need to look for in stocking up, and what we have plenty of. I'm still looking for deals on beef broth, tomato paste, tomato sauce, tomato soup and canned tomatoes. I hope our tomato plants do well because we go through those products so quickly.

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Ben barely cat-napped a few times today and I managed to work on the pantry while carrying him in my baby sling. By the time Josh came home from Jefferson City I was pretty exhausted and cranky, but I'm so glad he could come home today and help me out.

Josh ended up giving him a bottle because I pumped immediately before Ben wanted to nurse again.

shop at home first

Today was a beautiful day! We took a walk outside to check on the flowers. They survived the freeze, but I'm not sure they will last much longer with the dogs running through them.



As I have started my stockpiling project, storage and organization has become the new focus. I worked on the laundry room cabinets and the hall linen closet. My first thought was developing a long-term system which means keeping everything up high and out of toddler reach. I pulled most everything out from under the kitchen and bathroom sinks and divided the toiletries and cleaning products, then tried to group by smaller categories. In the linen closet, Josh has a shelf and I have two. In the laundry room cabinets I grouped by category / room - bathroom, kitchen, laundry, dusting, outdoors, and there are several odds and ends like light bulbs and spray paint in there too.

before



after




The idea is now that everything is organized and grouped, I will know not to stockpile anymore of certain things unless they are next to free. Also, as we need things, we can easily find them and not purchase them again. (Hence the "shop at home first" title.) The next biggie is the food. I'm going to need some plastic tubs to conquer that, though. And maybe a label maker. The long term plan is to store extra food in the basement after I get into canning.

The towels and toilet paper are now under the bathroom sinks. They are much safer than toilet cleaner for a kid to get into.

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We did some double coupon deals at Dillons, then stopped by mom's Bunko group to meet everyone.

*Coupon tip of the day - Price Cutter on Republic Road doubles coupons up to and including 50 cents, but not the one in Ozark (I called them.) Dillon's doubles coupons up to and including 50 cents AND if the coupon is between 50 cents and less than $1, they will round it up to $1. This resulted in quite a few deals, but it took forever to hunt for the items that matched the coupons.*

Ben was pretty fed up by the time we got home, but he calmed down after a diaper change and nursing.

closet cleaning

While in Jefferson City, Josh and I visited our friends in Columbia and I came home with a trash bag of clothes. Katy recently hosted a clothing swap and shared some of the leftover clothes with me. This gave me the opportunity to box up the last of the maternity clothes (minus two pair of maternity jeans I'm still wearing until my size stabilizes). I also went through all of my pre-pregnancy clothes and determine what fits and what doesn't. Of the articles that do not fit, I kept the clothes I really liked and put them in a piece of luggage at the top of the closet to reevaluate in a few months. I kept almost all of my pants although very few fit. I'm five pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight, but my body shape is so different and still changing. I plan on doing another wardrobe overhaul before school starts and I will determine what pants are worth keeping.

Although it seems a little OCD, I keep my clothes organized by lightest to darkest and sorted by type (tanks together, t-shirts, then long-sleeved shirts, then pants). Before today I had almost all of my pre-pregnancy in luggage on the top of the closet shelves. And before I was pregnant, I tried to get rid of one thing for every new thing I bought. I also kept a drawer rule that I could only own as many clothes as would fit in my drawers, on my shelves and with the number of hangers I have.



I now have tons of room in the top of the closet and I would like to add a second shelf above that to store maternity clothes and our wedding keepsakes.



The clothes on top of the dresser are what I'm giving away. I'm considering having a clothing swap of my own, but I'm not exactly sure how I would go about it. For now, these clothes are going into the basement with the maternity stuff. The laundry room or garage is my next project, depending on the weather this week. Spring cleaning is in full swing!

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Ben had his first bottle last night. Josh was amazed at how quickly he downed it. It made me a little sad and at the same time, reminded me how much I need to pump. I stopped for the last week or so because I hadn't had time (was getting lazy about pumping and it's really not very fun).




Ben's new favorite activity is bouncing. He is cooing and making so many noises as of the last week, especially when you bounce him on your lap.