Finer Things Friday!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Amy's blog, The Finer Things In Life.  I seem to star every post she writes in my Google Reader.  Her posts always remind me to cherish the little things, which is one of my most important goals to become a better mom and person.  She started a link up where she shared the little things she cherished this week, and I thought it would be a good contrast to my Dirty Little Secrets posts.  A little good karma never hurt anyone, okay!?  Swing over to Amy's and link up if you want to count your blessings this week!

1. The Basics.  Obviously this has been a HUGE week for counting blessings since we've all see the devastation in Japan.  I couldn't imagine not knowing where my family was, having no home or basic necessities, or any real hope in the near future.  I am so glad that I have a home, food, and my family all near me!

2. My bed warmer.  It seems so stupid after #1, but I hate getting into a cold bed, and my electric mattress pad makes sure that never happens!

3. The look on my kids' faces when they learn something new, or are proud of themselves.  I wish I could can it and ration it out for the rest of my life.

4. My dump run.  It felt SO good to stuff my van with empty boxes, crap I'll never use, etc. and GET RID OF IT!  Who knew you could have so much fun for the $5 dump fee?  I felt so much better once it was out of my life.

5. Facebook.  I know, but seriously, I love that I can feel like I know a little about what's going on with my circle of friends even if we don't have time to personally call each other all the time.  Plus I can fit it into my life when it's good for me.

6. My new family room, and my husband who motivated me to get it done.  We finally swamped out our old "game room" and repainted to make it a nice room for everyone.  The kids love playing down there, I hopefully will have less of a mess in my living room, AND I gained a photo studio space out of the deal.  Mr. Wright got a happy wife and kids- what more could he ask for!?

7. That I'm a Stay At Home Mom.  I'd love to actually stay at home one of these days, but I'm am so blessed to be able to not work while my kids are young.  I love that we can actually spend quality time at home together while they're on Spring Break, instead of me needing to work during that time.

8. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  I can't end this all sappy!  Peanut Butter Cups are like mommy fuel... or maybe like Mommy crack, I'm not sure which is more accurate.  All I know is whenever my kids get them they know to hand them over because they'll end up disappearing from their stash eventually anyway.  They're just dang good!  Mmmmm!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In!

Is anyone else participating in the 40 bags in 40 days this year?  I have to admit that I've gotten off to a less than stellar start this year, but it seems to be motivating me to "catch up" since I've only donated 4 bags so far, and they were already filled with stuff even before I started the challenge.  Plus it's spring break so I have more free time to work on the house instead of playing chauffeur all day!  Sooo, as long as I'm decluttering it doesn't matter that my kids are living off Lunchables in their jammies, right!?  Yeah... you can get back to me on that one!

I know I have enough crap to donate, and none of it is currently getting used anyway since I can't find anything, but I have to fight that constant feeling of "needing" that, even if it just wastes away.  I'm trying to break through that cycle and ditch anything that doesn't get used or loved.

As soon as I publish this I am heading down to my hoarder like laundry room to get rid of the "easy" stuff that's just in the way.  Hopefully I'll have some better totals next week!  Clearing out my life one garbage bag at a time sure worked for me last year, and I'm hoping it will again!

Total bags (Week One) 4
Remaining bags             36

How's your 40 bags in 40 days going??

Merit Gone Wrong

Okay, so I totally blew it with the Merit for Moms thing, but who is really surprised?  Life got in the way... I started working a few days a week, the after school activities started again and my family reminded me that they prefer clean dishes to dirty ones.  They're all snooty like that...

Mr.Wright and I have been redecorating the family room to change it from the unloved ex-game room to a room we can all enjoy.  We painted part of the room this fantastic shade of blue that is so buttery you just want to swim in it.  We're still finishing up the painting, and since we had to clear the room to paint all my crap ended up in the garage.  You never really realize how much stuff you have until you have to take it out load by load.  Then you realize that you have a LOT of crap, and since we never hang out down there it's pretty much wasted crap.  Keeping up so far!?

Tomorrow happens to be Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent ( I think, I'm kinda a Catholic drop out!).  Last year for Lent I did 40 Bags in 40 Days and got rid of a different ton of crap (yes, there was MORE crap).  So, starting tomorrow I'll be taking the challenge again.  Since I actually finished that challenge last year it should be more promising than the Merit challenge!

If your interested in joining the 40 bags in 40 days challenge with me link up your progress on Wednesdays (starting tomorrow!) and we can cheer each other on!  I'm excited (and a little disgusted) that after this challenge I will have dumped EIGHTY BAGS of stuff.  Don't tell my husband or he'll just tell you that I have at least 80 more hidden ALL over this house.  Shhh!

Merit For Moms!

I totally fell off the wagon this week- I really should have built in some "off" days!  No real excuse for why, but I just did.  I'm back on track today and spent over 2 hours cleaning my bedroom, so that kinda makes up for it I guess.  I was going to take pictures but the thought of literally showing all my dirty laundry on the blog was too much.  Sooo, you're just going to have to trust me ;)

I'm also doing tons of laundry since I unearthed lots of clothes that might be clean, so I rewashed everything just in case.  My kitchen has been staying halfway clean, and I've been keeping up with the dishes, so that's good news too!

We're headed out to a "bouncy" birthday party so I'm glad I got my organizing done for today since I may not be able to walk later!  How's your organizing going?

Merit For Moms! A Clean Slate

Finally, after who know HOW many 30 minutes sessions, I got my craft room clean!!  It's so inspiring to not only have a clean space, but to have unearthed all my cool stuff that I forgot I had.  I really want to craft all sorts of things, but I also just want to sit on my spinny chair and stare at the one uncluttered, organized, all MINE room in the house without messing it up.

Remember that craft table before?  The one that held all the crap that I had NO idea what to do with?



Well, here she is now!



And I didn't just shove any of it into the cabinets either!



Now I have a nice place to organize all my batting, interfacing, scraps and random 'not pretty enough to display' fabrics! (Notice my brand spankin' new Silhouette that doesn't work :(  I'm waiting for a reply from tech support.)



Fabric shelf pretty much looks the same



All my photography stuff tucked away waiting to utilize that blank wall at a moment's notice



I'm not used to having an organized closet, so I just couldn't bear to shut the curtains!



My little helper Georgia guarding the door from room trashing munchkins!



Are you sticking to your 30 minutes a day?  I'm thinking of moving on to my laundry room since it will probably provide me with MONTHS of 30 minute sessions :P

Merit For Moms! Purse Clean Out!

 {What I had}

What has 29 receipts, 2 packs of gum, 9 lip glosses, 2 granola bars, 3 suckers, a first aid kit, $140 that I didn't know I had, a pound of change, wet wipes, a tape dispenser, recipe cards, and an emergency peanut butter cup?  My overstuffed purse of course!!  The funny thing is you don't know HOW MANY of those things I've wanted but "didn't have" since my purse was so messy. 


{What I needed}

Target won the award for oldest receipt from 11/16, and I had coupons for shampoo that expired on 10/30.  I'm still missing a $30 Target gift card that I'm hoping will turn up, but it's so nice to want gum and to actually know where it is!


{All tucked away!}

Dirty Little Secrets!

I downloaded a trashy romance novel onto my Kindle since it was free, and ended up really liking it!

I didn't have the energy yesterday to do my 30 minutes of organizing on my craft room, so I sat on the couch and cleaned out my purse!  Yes, sadly, it did take 30 minutes!

Everyone in Alaska was complaining about the lack of snow and the weird 40 degree temperatures, and I was in HEAVEN!

My kids had Campbell's soup, PB&J and hot dogs for dinner last night... in their bedrooms.  Shh!

I air dried something that I needed because I didn't want to take the stuff out of the dryer and fold it.

My laundry room looks like an episode of Hoarders... again!

I would rather push my groceries in a broken cart through 12 inches of snow than let the people "help me to my car" at our small local store since my van looks like a dumpster.

I spent $175 on a Silhouette cutter and have barely touched it.

I spent another $100 on North Face jeans that I can't wear until I hem them... right around never.

I think it's funny that my kids' school has recycle bins in every classroom for scraps but sends eleventy billion sheets of information overload home every day.

I had an inappropriate dream about Vanilla Ice and felt sick to my stomach when I woke up.  Seriously subconscious!?  We couldn't do better than Vanilla Ice!?  Luckily I woke up before anything happened.  NO MORE Vanilla Ice Project before bed! *barf*

Merit For Moms- My Progress!

I've been moving my craft crap back into my old craft room and spending my 30 minutes of organizing in there mostly.  I don't have a before picture since it wasn't in this room before, but picture the dumpster behind a goodwill store and that's pretty close. 

I was proud of myself that I organized as I brought things into the room instead of my normal plan of dumping everything in a huge pile on the floor and sorting it out "later" with later never coming.  All the stuff left on the craft table are things that don't really have a home, but I still have some cabinet space left to fill, and I guess I could get rid of some stuff... if I really had to.







I was also proud that I ACTUALLY used an idea from 'My Favorite Things' by making the mini fabric bolts from foam core board.  I swear I don't live in as small of a town as people think, but I bought the last 2 pieces of foam board in existence and still need more to wrap the rest of my fabric.  Also, I've never been pissed that I owned so much felt until I had to unfold, smooth, refold, stuff and organize it to make it look cute.  Don't be holding your breath for any felt projects any time soon either since I'd rather buy new felt than unfold and refold those babies.

All my neglected scrapbooking supplies, clothing for repurposing, and other crafty stuff that isn't "cute" found a home in the closet.  I'm thrilled to report that the shelves were $90, and the foam board was $10, so I only spent $100 to transform my stuff from a pile of crap to a cute (and hopefully functional!) space.  I'm also hoping that having all my fabric out in the open will remind me to use it instead of buying new fabric for every single project that I think I'll "someday" finish.

How are you doing with your organizing??  Are you tackling a giant space or a different little space every day?

Merit For Moms!

So Sweetie Pie recently decided to become a Girl Scout, and even though the Daisy patches are kind of lame (Be Fair and Honest instead of camping patch, etc.) she is still really motivated and driven to earn her patches.  She can literally show everyone what she's learned and done through Girl Scouts, all with the patch "reward" at the end.  That should have been enough to give me this great idea, but it wasn't.

Have you ever just wandered around the library and found something that you were never, ever looking for but it kind of found you?  That's what happened with this patch idea.  I'm not sure why I was even in that section, or if my backwoods tiny library just shelves things differently than the rest of the world, but it jumped off the shelf.  It was You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown Up Girls.  I flipped through it and checked it out, even though the "badges" were earned through hobbies such as dancing and wine tasting- not really what I was looking for.  As I read the beginning it really touched me, as the author passed away on September 11, 2001, and her sisters finished the book and got it published.  It really drove home the "live every day like it's your last point" even if the ways I want to improve my life are a bit different.

The book sat on my counter for almost a week before all the ideas mashed up in my head and collided like my kids hopped up on Red Bull.  Why couldn't I earn badges for doing my dishes!?  Or laundry?  I'd do almost anything for a little credit...

So, I thought it was a great idea for the beginning of the new year, and frankly I didn't have time to think about it with Christmas, Sweetie Pie's birthday and New Year's plans.  Instead of making lofty resolutions that will be gone by February I'm going to break up my long term goals into smaller chunks that are easier to work on every day. I decided that every month I would work on a new "badge" starting with organizing, since it is the most obvious choice after the toy storm.

Every day in January I'm going to spend at least 30 minutes organizing ANYTHING in my house, whether it's my purse or a huge room.  As long as I spend 30 minutes, every day, then I earn my patch.  I made a button in case anyone wants to join me, but really this is something I'm doing for myself and my family.

Stay tuned for way more frequent updates about my progress earning my patch, and I'd love to hear from you and your progress if you decided to try it!

Hello??  Does anyone still read my sad, neglected blog?