Blogiversary

Today I:

got ALL my counters cleared off
got my dishes washed and put away
washed and folded 2 loads of laundry
rearranged the living room furniture and vacuumed
practiced counting with Boo
organized the Easter Bunny's goodies
fed my kids leftover pizza and cheetos for lunch
ate some pudding before 11am
got dressed
planned ahead for Little Man's birthday gift
spent too much time on the computer
wished for a miracle
talked on the phone...

and today I celebrated my very first blogiversary.

As I said in my whiny post, I'm not happy with my progress in the last year, but tomorrow is a new day. With the help of my friends, other bloggers and even strangers across the world that stumble upon my little site I've felt not so alone in my quest to get it all together. I've read every single comment, and appreciated each one... except those few about prescription meds. Those comments suck.

Anyway, today also wraps up March, the month with the most visitors to my site ever. Thousands of people in 20+ countries come to read the random crap I have to say every month and that just blows my mind. I'm just a little lady from Alaska blogging in my jammies who hates dishes... and laundry... and prescription med spam.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 5

Another week gone- how did you do? I've completely stalled out on the 40 bags projects since I can barely find a place to put down my cereal (for dinner) bowl, much less sort and purge. I did find some bonus uncounted trash bags in the garage that were left behind from the game room projects, but I'm still going to have to bust my butt tomorrow to get my bags done although it is technically past the 40 days. I'm no theology major, but I'm pretty sure that God gave us more than 40 days between Lent and Easter because he knew I would need a few days off.

*That was a joke, please don't send me e-mails with big words in it!*

I have no pictures, again, because my camera card hasn't left my laptop in 2 weeks, much less taken a photo. I need a day off of life to catch up, but I'd probably just collapse and take a nap instead.

Here's my totals:

Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags
Week 5- 3 bags
Total on Day 42- 38 bags

How are you doing in the home stretch? Leave your progress in the comments so I don't feel so alone!

Whine & Dine (A Whiny Post)

I'm down with a case of can't get my life together syndrome. Obviously I was never good at getting it together, but the last few weeks have been pretty interesting. I can clearly see what needs to be done, and I can even take the first step to get things picked up and put away, but then I just stall out.

Earlier this week I cleaned the living room. I tipped up the couches, vacuumed everything, organized what stays in the living room and put everything that doesn't belong in a laundry basket to be sorted and put away. Those 2 laundry baskets are still sitting in my dining room. If I just sorted them it would take maybe 10 minutes, but my brain can't focus on that since I feel like I could do 10 minute jobs for the rest of my life and still not get it all done.

As a "good mom" I'm supposed to remember that my kids won't remember whether there were laundry baskets in my dining room for 2 weeks and do something fun with them instead. As a good time manager I'm supposed to schedule a time when I do my cleaning and organizing that still allows for family time. Unfortunately I tried that (remember the living room cleaning!) and didn't even get one room done. As a good housekeeper I'm supposed to be Spring Cleaning using one of those never ending lists that include taking pillows outside to air out and wiping heating registers. I'll get right one that...

With my 1 year blogiversary coming up on Wednesday it's become more clear than ever that not only am I no better at life than I was a year ago, but looking at my dining room it's almost worse. I don't want to be super mom, and I'm fine with never airing my pillows or wiping the heat registers, but keeping up on the dishes and laundry still seems like a fantasy.

I wanted to do a giveaway for my blogiversary, but fittingly I didn't get my crap together in time... there's always next year!

Sheet Folding 101

Yesterday after baring my soul on my dirty little secrets I finally got around to folding all some of that pesky laundry. I had been avoiding it since it was the last of the laundry room stuff so it was basically a giant load of fitted sheets. Anyone who enjoys folding fitted sheets needs therapy, but this video from Life As Mom made folding a billion fitted sheets suck a tiny bit less, so I had to share!

How To Fold A Fitted Sheet- Life As Mom

Check it out!

Dirty Little Secrets

It's Friday again, and that means it time to tell you that I've made NO progress on any of my dirty little secrets from last week.

I've had laundry baskets filled with sheets and towels for almost 10 days now sitting unfolded in my living room. When I pick up I just stack them on top of each other.

I have a million things to do, but I can't help but sit around and watch tv or movies after the kids go to bed. I should be folding, editing, cleaning or purging, but I'm just mush these days.

The previous confession makes me feel really old.

I got my glasses this week but I can't decide if they make me look cute or like a librarian.

I was scared that the garbage truck wasn't going to pick up my trash because I can't remember when I last payed the bill. I made a point to get home so I could bring it in before a lot of people saw in case it was still full.

I hate making lunches so I try to talk Sweetie Pie into eating hot lunch everyday since I don't have to do anything.

I can't wait for real Alaska spring so I don't have to keep track of hats, gloves, snowpants, and boots.

I ate an entire box of red beans and rice by myself yesterday. And just typing that makes me want another one!

What's your dirty little secret!? You know you want to share...

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 5

I've had a week that just wouldn't stop 'giving' so I totally forgot to post my 40 bags in 40 days update!

I'm really regretting upping my personal challenge to 60 bags last week like a dummy. I'm sure I could do it crap-level wise, but I didn't really account for all these disasters taking up all my free time and energy. I did manage to get a few cabinets in my kitchen decluttered, but other than that the progress has been slow. With the challenge wrapping up next week I'm starting to panic a bit about making the original 40 bag finish line, much less the cocky 60 bag challenge I gave myself.

Here's my updated totals:
Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags
Week 5- 3 bags

Total so far: 38 bags

I still have a coat closet, 2 bathrooms, my bedroom and some stragglers from the big game room cleaning to go through, so my goal is still attainable if I put in the work, but that's a scary place to be when I'm kinda known for not putting work into anything. The good news is that I seem to have a pattern in my decluttering style that allows for one slacking week, then one panicking week. Hopefully the panicking will really kick in on a day when I actually have the time to devote to finishing up!

How is everyone else doing in their quest for less crap?

A REAL Dry Spell!

We got to stay up really late Sunday night and wonder what was going on when all our faucets started spraying sandy water. After a midnight visit from my father in law (who tried to look down the well with those darn moose who are wearing out their welcome just a few feet away!) we were instructed not to use any water until he could come back and check it out in the daylight. Not an easy task with 3 kids, and inevitable cooking and cleaning to do. My awesome sister came to the rescue and brought me a few gallons of water in the morning, but it really showed me how unprepared we are for a real emergency! I do have storage water in the garage, but I never put bleach in it so I'd only be able to use it for toilet water and washing anyway. So if there was a catastrophe today, I'd have NO water!

I've always kept a MAJOR disaster plan that we'd use the 800 gallon water bladder under my house that my well feeds to, but unfortunately my father in law discovered the bladder was the culprit of our sandy issues. Apparently my well is pretty dry this time of year so the bladder was completely full of AIR, instead of water. That would have really sucked in an emergency!

I'm just glad that for now, hopefully, we'll have water as long as we try to conserve and not leave the well pump on all the time. And I also want to point out that I've never wanted to shower more than right after I haven't been able to...

So, my mission for this week is to fill up my empty 5 gallon water bags with bleached water so I'll be more prepared for next time. My life has always followed the "if you have it then you'll never need it" philosophy, so I like to look at my future water supply as insurance against 2012 and zombies. My friend linked me to this awesome emergency preparedness blog that lists the amount of bleach per gallon for storing drinking water. I immediately subscribed because the whole blog was filled with great ideas!

I'm thanking my lucky stars that my supplies were tested without the consequences of a real emergency and now I'll be able to get my act together! Being prepared with even basics like water Works For Me!

Friend Making Monday!

It's Friend Making Monday again, and I love making new friends!! Check out Amber's blog at {AEFilkins} to catch up with how everyone else feels about Spring!

1. Favorite things about Spring:
Hearing the birds come out, and the SUNSHINE that we don't see often in winter!

2. What I'm doing for Spring Break:
We already our official school spring break. We sat around in our jammies a lot.

3. Favorite Spring flower:
Tulips, but I rarely have fresh flowers in the house.

4. Do you have a garden?
We have some bulbs started, but it's still too cold to put them outside.

5. If so, what do you grow?
We planted peas and wildflowers this year just for fun.

6. Do you do Spring cleaning?
Yes, I'm doing the 40 bags in 40 days challenge for the clutter, but Spring just always make me want to actually clean stuff.

7. What is your weather *really* like right now? {Just b/c it's "officially" spring, doesn't mean that it feels like it for some of you}
It's been 30-40 degrees here which is a heat wave in Alaska in Spring, but we still have a bunch of snow on the ground.

8. Snapped any weather related photos lately? Share one with us!
I took one for this post of my moose in the snow that are STILL HERE, 8 days since that post!

9. What's your favorite thing to do on a sunny afternoon?
Yesterday we played at my brother-in-law's house and it was so fun to play in the snow without totally freezing my butt off!

10. Favorite TV show right now?
I've been watching all the Big Love on my DVR, so I love that show right now, but I'm also loving Undercover Boss, The Amazing Race, and The Biggest Loser. And I LOVE Tori Spelling, so I'm already counting down to the season premier of Tori & Dean in April!

Dry Spell

There's still dishes in the sink.

And crap on the counters.

Sticky stuff on the floor.

Laundry to fold... and put away.

Bills to pay.

Errands to run.

Games to play.

Rooms to organize.

But... there's no longer a diaper to change.

I can't decide if I'm happy or sad. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled at the prospect of never wiping a nasty tush again, but it is just one more sign that my little munchkins aren't so little anymore. After being day trained since we did 3 Day Potty training last June she's been wearing diapers only at naptime and bedtime. It's better than all the time, especially since she rarely did more than pee in them, but it still sucked to buy diapers. Finally this week I decided to try again and put her in undies all the time. She did pee one night, but only because I forgot to take her potty before I went to bed. Other than that we've had 6 dry nights which makes me very happy... and sad. Now I'll have more time to not clean or organize!

Dirty Little Secrets

It's that time of the week again- where I share all the happenings of this week that probably shouldn't be happening. Here we go!

I've been keeping up with washing and even folding laundry, but I haven't put any away for over a week and there's folded laundry everywhere but in the drawers.

My kids spilled milk all over the counter and our census, but didn't tell me until I found the dried milk and shredded census... 3 days later :-X It smelled SO bad.

Sweetie Pie hasn't had a sheet on her bed in a month because I washed it and didn't put it back.

We ran out of bread and I packed a 'turkey on hamburger bun' treat in Sweetie Pie's lunch yesterday. I accented with stale chex mix and some Valentine's candy. Mother of the year strikes again.

You can hardly walk in the kids' bathroom because there is a SHALLOW layer of laundry on the floor.

The other day I ate eggs, Resses cups, and tortilla chips... all day.

Little Man has needed a haircut for a month, but I just keep letting it grow.

Do you have a dirty little secret? Share in the comments!

Still Sewing

I spent yesterday sewing a new purse instead of purging and organizing, but now that I have a clean craft space I can't keep on task to do anything else. I just want to sew, sew, sew! I'm not scared for my 60 bag goal though, since I know as soon as I get my act together I'll fill a bunch of bags. For now I'm going to craft away and plan out my attack on the clutter in the rest of the house... from the couch anyway!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 4

28 days in... how are you doing? I didn't get anything bagged up last week so I had a huge week with 2 week's worth of crap ready to get shipped out. Here's my progress:

Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags (10 bags of donations, 5 bags of garbage from the game room, 4 bags of kids clothes to the consignment store)
Day 28 total- 35 bags!!

I've decided to up my goal to 60 bags since I still have SO much stuff to go through. Plus it's a tiny bit more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter anyway. I am THRILLED with my newly cleaned and organized craft space and I can't believe that I robbed myself of that experience just to hold on to *crap* that I don't even miss. Yes, it was a lot of work to sort everything and get rid of it, but it's a lot of work to maintain a ton of crap too.

I'm looking forward to cleaning out my kitchen cabinets and washing them all out this week. Did that really just come out?? I can't wait to grab something out of a cupboard and not have to pull something off the top of it first. And I'm SUPER excited to be able to grab a utensil out of my huge mess of a utensil drawer without playing a minute-long version of Spot The Spatula. Depending on how much time I find for purging and organizing this week I'd also like to hit the bathroom cabinets and the scary pile of junk in my coat closet.

Are you participating in the 40 bags in 40 days challenge? How's it going? How are you feeling about your progress? Did you find anything cool that I may want!? JUST KIDDING... unless it's SUPER cool.

Random Sewing, Organizing, Moose Stuff

Ta-daaaaa!!


After weeks of cleaning, sorting, purging, organizing and stressing my game room is now spot.less. {See the before picture here} 10 more bags of donations were dropped off the other day, and 5 bags of garbage went to the dump this morning. I celebrating by slacking on cleaning anything else and SEWING instead. It's been months since I was able to sew on my sewing table- in fact, when I cleaned off the table I found HALLOWEEN projects on the bottom layer. Halloween, people. It's almost Easter.

Here's the laundry room already buried in 'to be folded' laundry. Notice my new ironing board "cover" that I hot glued on to match my folding table :P



Today I made this adorable ruffled camera strap but made it into a slipcover like I learned how to do here. I attempted my first slipcover way back when I didn't have a TON of fabric, so I used some Hello Kitty scraps just to try it. I ended up leaving it on for a really long time until I finally ditched it and had a naked strap again. And it's been naked. And cold. For a year. Until today.
Please don't look too closely as I don't really have my 'A-game' on...





I also wanted to share our little friend who is stalking us and preventing us from bringing the trash can in the ONE week I really want it. I've gone to get it THREE TIMES and had her there every time. Take note of the "Spring Break" weather we have going on... practically tropical.



I'm taking the weekend off and then starting bright and early Monday morning on kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Maybe.

Dirty Little Secrets!

Slow week since I've been too busy to cut corners... here's this week's Dirty Little Secrets:

I still have books from the school library from over a month ago.

Sweetie Pie really needs a bath.

I still haven't watched any of the 60 hours of stuff I have on the dvr.

I'm dreading school starting again. I've been enjoying Spring Break since I didn't have to get dressed and leave the house every day.

I spent our anniversary money on stuff for myself. Shhh.

I kept a TON of scrapbook supplies but don't know if I'll ever scrapbook again.

My entryway has looked like a hurricane came through for the last 3 weeks at least.

After organizing all my fabric I've decided that I have a problem with buying fabric with no purpose.

I have at least 10 loads of laundry to fold that I've been avoiding because it has sheets in it and I HATE folding sheets.

My kids hardly got any dollars for being good this week because I've been in a bad mood. To be fair, sometimes they are the reason that I've been in a bad mood.

I've been shutting the door to my bedroom when we have people over instead of just cleaning it up. Because that would make more laundry... that I wouldn't fold.

I have 15 books on my 'to be read' shelf that I NEVER get to.

I waxed my eyebrows yesterday and then walked around all day with fuzzies stuck to the sticky residue that got left behind. It rocked...

Do you have a dirty little secret to share? Leave it in the comments!

Folding Table Re-do!

I was browsing blogs the other day and came upon this post from the Thrifty Decor Chick where she hot glued fabric to an ugly table. My heart began to beat a little faster as soon as I realized I too had a fugly table, 2 yards of the perfect fabric, and a (stolen) hot glue gun (thanks Mom!).

Yesterday, an hour before we had to leave for a party, I decided to bust this project out. I put the fugly table on it's side and dusted it off. I think this came from my brother in law, and I remember it spending a winter on my porch which explains it's gorgeous appearance!


I glued the selvage edge right along the underside of the table about 6 inches at a time so the glue wouldn't cool too much before I could get it straight.


All the way to the end...


Then I trimmed all the other sides of the fabric about 3 inches from the edge of the table.


I flipped the table over, and stretched the fabric to the other long side. I glued the second long side just like the first making sure to pull the fabric taut and even all the way across.


I did the short sides the same way, then kind of squashed the corners and sandwiched some glue wherever it would stay.


Then I realized that I'm an idiot who forgot to IRON the fabric, so I turned my iron on super low and got as many wrinkles out as I could before the burning plastic smell became too great... this step is not pictured. Also not pictured is me eating a Thin Mint between each step. Shhh!

Then I put a few scrapes in my newly painted walls trying to wrestle it into the laundry room without collapsing it because I'm lazy.


Someday I'll put the skirt on it like Sarah's so I can hide crap under it, but for now it is just what I needed! Welcome to your new life Table Formally Known As Fugly!


*** If you liked this post check out my matching hot glued ironing board 'cover' or some of the other Crap I Made! ***

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 3

I haven't made a whole lot of progress bag wise since last week, but I have made some headway in getting crap sorted into piles that will eventually get bagged up and shipped out. This week has more been focused on getting the laundry room finished so I can put away what I'm keeping, and have a clearer picture of what I realistically have room for. Check out this post for the messy before and the empty before. This is the framed stage:



and how it looked this morning:



As for the rest of the crap... there is SO much that it still looks really bad in there even though I've put tons of stuff away, and donated all that stuff from last week. Here is the 'before' from last week:



And how it looked this morning:



Hopefully I'll make more progress 'bag-wise' this week as I hope to have it all decluttered and finished by next Tuesday. Then I'll FINALLY be able to move on to the more everyday clutter in my kitchen, bathroom, etc. which is strangely more exciting. If you're participating in the 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge leave a comment with your progress!

Friend Making Monday!

Today's FMM is all about the Academy Awards... I'll try and be positive and not completely rant, but I have to get a little something out. I am SO disappointed in whoever schedules these types of things to air on TV. I knew what everyone was wearing and who had won what by 6:30 pm, a full 30 minutes before it STARTED in Alaska. I didn't even dig... everything was right there on the Yahoo home page. Why on earth would I waste an entire evening wading through the boring stuff when I had already seen the best parts? Ok, rant over.

Who's ready for dresses!?
Best dress
Queen Latifa- Gorgeous!


I liked Cameron Diaz's dress also, but Blogger didn't apparently so you'll have to click through or imagine :)

Worst Dress
Miriah, honey, you're too OLD to wear things slit up to your lady business. Try leaving SOMETHING to the imagination... just once!


Jennifer, people constantly make fun of your giant ass. You know this. Why would you wear a dress that makes you look like your smuggling midgets in the back of your dress!? WHY??


Zoe, all you need is Charlize's rosey bra and your Chiquita banana lady costume would be complete!


Whew, that was fun :D Head over to Amber's blog to see what everyone else had to say about the fashion disasters 82nd annual Academy Awards!

Check Out My New Look!

After over 2 hours of ignoring my kids I finally got my blog's new look working. It was a lot of trial and error, but in the end I did it all by myself and I LOVE it! I apologize to anyone who stopped by during the rearranging and wondered what I was smoking since it was quite fugly for a while as I was mixing, matching and re-coloring items. If you read the blog in a reader I recommend you come over for a visit for my poor children's sake. They've sacrificed so much for me to be able to do this... okay, so they just drove me nuts for 2 hours and didn't really sacrifice anything, but you should check it out just the same!

Kickball Kid

You know that kid that's always picked last for kickball? I'm not even that kid, I usually "had to go to the bathroom" right then so that I didn't get a team and had to sit out. I'm that bad, and I hate kickball that much.

Now that I'm a somewhat-adult I should be way more adventurous, but I just like my life how it is, and I REALLY like sitting on my couch. Craftastrophe (a rockin' site that makes fun of crafts gone wrong) was looking for featured writers and I happened to be feeling extra couch-venturous that day, so I sent in a writing sample. Imagine my shock when I got picked for the kickball team!

So.... I guess this is my big announcement that I'll be writing for Craftastrophe once or twice a week while I try to keep up with this blog, my family, and hopefully, the laundry. So check out Craftastrophe when you get a chance!

Dirty Little Secrets

The stuff no one wants to share, but that we're all doing...

Boo was screaming for "fwoot nacks" yesterday but we didn't have any. I gave her gummy bears at 9am instead.

I have ONE of my four boxes of Girl Scout cookies left and I only got them on Monday.

I haven't folded laundry or done dishes in 3 days. I ate my dinner with a toddler fork due to the dishes situation.

We finally planted the seeds last night that I've been promising the kids we would do ALL week.

I've been making my kids do 'homework' after dinner since Little Man needs to step it up before kindergarten.

I joined Twitter and have no idea what the heck to do. I'm thinking of buying that tiny "Twitter For Dummies" book in the Target Dollar Spot but that makes me feel old and out of touch.

Mr. Wright and I were walking through Target when he noticed a hot bra and commented. I didn't see it because I was checking out all the jammie pants.

I've been craving red beans and rice all week, so I'm pretty sure I've filled my recommended sodium intake for March already.

I've 'broken' every.single.one of my New Year's Resolutions. Better luck next year!

What's your dirty little secret? Share in the comments!

Mommy's Log, March 2nd & 3rd

Tuesday, March 2nd
I woke up tired since I had stayed up sewing my fingers to the bone for Sweetie Pie's Dr. Seuss costume, and had to have all three of my angels up, dressed and not smelly and AT Sweetie Pie's school by 8:15 am for the "Muffins for Moms" event. Normally she goes later in the day, so 8:15 sucks.

At 9 I head back to the house, load up all the donations and cover half with a sheet so Little Man won't scream that I'm donating the 8 sizes too small shoes that he "loves" even though they haven't fit since before Britney was psycho. Then I drive to get my sister because creepy thrift stores scare me, then I donate my stuff and instruct the elderly gentleman working the donation bay how to spell 'easel' and 'printer'. Creepy.

Around 10 we get to the glasses store so I can pick out my glasses that I've been carrying around the prescription for since January. The saleswoman agrees that I can't pull off grown up glasses and starts handing me Spongebob adorned frames and some with Wiggles lyrics on the sides. I love me some Wiggles, but wearing them on my face isn't really what I had in mind. After trying on every pair but the Spiderman version I settled on some saucy six year old's dream glasses.



I came home, fed the kids, started cleaning up, etc when Boo and Little Man come flying out of their rooms screaming. Apparently Boo has electrocuted herself and blew the fuse to shut off Little Man's tv. They were both screaming so loudly it took a few minutes to figure out who was actually hurt. Boo was shaken up but okay, so I put them back down for a nap.

I was so worn out that I made sandwiches for dinner and went to bed halfway early.

Wednesday, March 3rd
(Our 7th anniversary)
Mr. Wright had to be at work at 6, so I got up when he did at 5am. I've been so excited to paint my laundry room, so I figured I could get a bunch knocked out before the kids got up. It actually kinda worked out because I was so tired that I would start daydreaming and continue to paint without realizing I was still painting. Score!

The kids got up around 7:30 so I went about my usual routine of breakfast and e-mail. Of course my internet was down so I starting doing my 5 point routine to resuscitate my connection. Nothing worked. After running Sweetie Pie to school I call tech support so I can pick up a new modem.

Mr. Wright got off work at 11, so we decided to go to lunch instead of dinner out. We ran to the internet company, stopped by his work, hit Lowes and then had a quick lunch. Uh, because that's what old married couples do on their anniversary :P

I came home and hooked up the new modem which is hard when your shaking so hard from internet withdrawal. I plug that sucker in and...... nothing. I could have cried. CHOOSING to not be on the internet, and being FORCED to not be on the internet are two VERY different things. Call #2 to tech support ended in "I don't know what's going on" and a referral for a manager to call me back.

I ended up taking a well deserved nap on the couch, microwaving some popcorn chicken for the kids, and ignoring any other wifely or motherly responsibilities. Mama ain't very happy without her e-mail. I get the phone call I've been waiting for and the manager just asks all the SAME questions over again even though I know they're on my account already.

FINALLY close to 7pm I get a call that everything should be up and running. And then my laptop officially stopped charging from the wall plug so I feel like I'm blogging this post while racing the clock like in Crank.



Whew! Long post!

Here's the Cliff Notes in case you just want to read this- yesterday sucked. Today sucked. But tomorrow is going to be WONDERFUL! Why? Because if I get off my butt right.this.second I could have a completely painted laundry room tomorrow. And then I could do laundry. And who doesn't love warm, clean, folded clothes!? I hope the maid shows up!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 2

Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Total- 16 bags



This week was much easier since I pulled out ALL the stuff that's been lurking underneath my stairs. Some of it was even already bagged up and labeled 'donate' and the old me just chucked it back to the depths. I went through a lot of old clothing that was under there 'just in case' and let go of tons of it. Some is going to be donated and some of the nicer kids' clothes are going to a consignment store. Mr. Wright has been very patient with the fact that I turned our game room into this Hoarders-like mess since I pulled everything out and then promptly got too sick to drop it all off at goodwill. Today seems like a good day to leave my house for the first time since Wednesday, so hopefully he'll see an improvement soon!



I'm excited to see all the 'stuff' go and even more excited to get my laundry room finished and painted this week! I'm going to keep working on my remaining 24 bags while working a little Spring cleaning into the mix. I am hopeful that by the time Easter rolls around I'll have a purged, clean and organized house! And Mr. Wright will be a lot happier too, I'm sure...

How are you doing with the 40 bags in 40 days challenge!? Leave a comment with your bag total and anything else you want to share!

Internet Junkie

At 11:45 pm on Saturday night I realized I was an internet junkie. My family had gone to bed long before, and I was hanging out by myself, in the dark, on a Saturday night. I wasn't really alone though, I had the world wide web at my fingertips. Unfortunately I was jumping back and forth between 4-5 sites to check for new updates... not exactly my idea of productive. I thought about how many times I had checked my e-mail Saturday alone, and it had to be over 20! Is that really necessary? Do I really need to constantly check for new junk mail? I had a problem.

I decided that Sunday needed to be an entirely computer free day. I panicked that I didn't update my Facebook status or anything to alert people used to getting an almost instant response from me that I'd be offline. I stayed strong and went to bed. I woke up on Sunday morning at 7am. My first instinct was to grab the laptop and get caught up, but I prevailed. I must have gone to grab the computer over 10 times over the day but each time I reminded myself of the other things I could be doing. I'm not going to pretend that it changed my life, but I got more cuddles, more dishes done, more snacks eaten (YES!), had dinner in the crockpot by noon, and even fit in a nap!

To my surprise when I logged on this morning the internet world had not collapsed with my absence. Facebook didn't shut down, my e-mails were all patiently waiting for me, and no celebrity gossip had gone down that I didn't know about. I did miss printing out Sweetie Pie's new lunch calendar so I had to wait until this morning to plan the week's lunches, but if that's the worst that happened then I guess this 'less internet' business isn't all that bad.