Backwoods Wife

31 Days to Clean - The Reboot

Hi hi!

I thought I'd join in on Sarah Mae's "31 Days to Clean - The Reboot".  Sarah Mae will be listing a new challenge every day (Monday through Friday) beginning on June 4th.  I figure a little extra motivation and "we're in this together" feelings can't hurt!  Here's the link to Sarah Mae's page about June's cleaning adventure.  See you Monday with the first installment!

 

 

 

A little more elbow room

Today I took a good sized box of children's books to the library for their book sales and a green garbage bag full of assorted clothing and household items to our local thrift shop.  I moved two bins outside (out of season outerwear, soccer gear, backpacks, etc).  I also took the equivalent of two green garbage bags full of garbage and old cardboard outside.  I've started a pile of items to list on our local facebook buy/sell/trade page.  I also compiled a bag of rags for Dwayne to use at the shop.  When Dwayne gets home from work I plan on getting him to help me move the treadmill out of the house.  I'm so happy to have some extra wiggle room!  The next step is reorganizing our toy storage so that the open bins contain Emma friendly toys and all of the itty bitty toy bits go into lidded containers to avoid tasting by our littlest family member.  

 

 

Paper jumble

 

The kind of paperwork I'd rather be doing - drawing with Riley in the woods.

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Ugh.  I don't know why I have such an issue dealing with paperwork.  The bills get paid on time and important correspondence is attended to, it's just the filing part afterward that I seem to have a problem with.  I have stacks of paper.  I have boxes filled with stacks of paper.  I even have boxes filled with filed papers.  Most of it is probably no longer relevant or more valuable than firestarter.  However, I can't actually know that until I look at each paper, file, and box.  Sigh.  Time to get it done.  I have been sorting and throwing away papers a bit this week and have been amazed at the energy returning to me.  I'm not sure if it is the dealing with the papers themselves that is so freeing or that I am finally acting on that which has been nagging me for so long.  In any case, the resulting feelings are good ones.

 

Spring fling!

I am in the midst of spring flingning - all matter of things are being flung out the door.  Some are donations to the library and second hand store, some are contribution to my husband's rag stash at the shop, and there are a lot of garbage bags being tossed out there too.  I'm already feeling like I have more room to breathe.  To top it off, I'm shifting the furniture around again as well.  This must almost be a record for me.  Usually being pregnant doesn't keep me from moving the furniture but this time around my back was just too sore for that.  I think the furniture has been as it is for about 3 months!!  Can't have that - hee hee!  The couch, a book shelf, and Dwayne's "man chair" all have new locations.  I'm also reworking the kids' play area in hopes of adding the trains back to the downstairs toys to make it easier for Hendrik to play with them.  They are currently on a board that slides in and out from under his bed but it doesn't allow him to access the board from all sides.  It makes it hard to share with your little sisters, whether you want to share or not! ;)

I also decided to move things around a bit in the kitchen.  I've switched the fridge and the dishwasher so that the dishwasher is closer to the sink.  It will also allow me to put my plants on the dishwasher where they will now get sunshine from the kitchen window.  I am have plans to change the direction in which the fridge door opens.  I've wanted to do that since we moved in but have gotten so used to it that it slipped my mind until recently.

Pictures will follow once I get the chaos reined in a little bit more.  There is still a fine scattering of toys and books across the house, several big piles of clean laundry, and the stacks of papers waiting to be dealt with.  One thing at a time...

Plus there is an adorable newborn that needs to kissed and cuddled and generally fussed over frequently.  She is just a little under 11lbs now and is giving us a wide assortment of gorgeous smiles!  :)

 

Home again!

We're getting back into routine again around here after assorted comings and goings.  I was in England for the Sense & Sensibility Historical Costume Tour and with travel days included, it was 16 days away.  I had a wonderful time but it was also great to get back to Dwayne and the kiddos.  Dwayne picked me up on the return portion so we could combine travel home for me with a supply run for the shop.  The kids stayed with Mom & Dad for the duration of the time as Hendrik had just started kindergarten and Dwayne was working long hours at the shop.  Everyone is home again and we are sorting through clean and dirty laundry piles, wiping noses (the kids all caught a cold), doing homework, and trying to get into some semblance of routine.  So far things are going well, today is the first day the girls and I have had home together since big brother started school.  A different dynamic - no boys!  However, I just heard Riley  and Abby suggest that they fix a broken puzzle piece with duct tape! :)  Now there is some sort of marching game happening and I'm sure there will be wands and fancy dresses and tea parties later.

We are tackling the living room today.  There are a lot of clean towels to fold and put away.  We do have a couch somewhere under the pile!  We purchased a new rug for the living room this trip as the floor can be cool in the winter for little ones.  I also found a screaming deal on a silk plant.  $20 from $100!  Not too shabby.  In celebration of that sale, I spent more money on some seasonal silk flowers to brighten up our upcoming winter days.  I found a floor lamp at Ikea to make reading easier in the evenings but will wait until a certain mechanically inclined little boy comes home from school to assemble it. :)  Then there are the books!  Time for another clear out.  Too many books, too few shelves and no room to expand at the moment.  Hopefully the living room will look completely different at the end of today than it did at the beginning!

Off to put on some music, fold towels, and brew a pot of tea to share with the girlies!

P.S.  Blogging of the trip will follow once the house looks a little bit more orderly.  In the meantime, check out our fearless leader Jennie's blog In Jane Austen's England to see what we got up to!  You can also get an idea of our itinerary here: Sense & Sensibility Tour 2010.

Photo taken in front of Bath Abbey by my delightful roommate Karen.

Sliding puzzles and house organization

Remember those sliding puzzles we used to play with as kids? (Or maybe still do as adults!) You know, the ones with all the little blocks confined in one larger square, and you have one free space that allows you to shift the blocks up and down and side to side until you get the picture just right?  Well, that is what tidying and organizing our home feels like to me.  As a family of five living in a small space (650 sq ft), things tend to pile up.  (It doesn't help that I tend to keep things "just in case".) Today I was SUPPOSED to finish unpacking from the holiday we got back from ten days ago.  The problem was - I couldn't get to my dresser.  I had stacked up boxes of other things in front of it, and then there was other stuff thrown on top of that.  Not pretty, but at least all laundry involved was clean!  I didn't want to add to any existing piles so my only option was to clear the path to my dresser.  Fast forward to 10pm this evening. What was actually accomplished? 1. I found my dresser.  I also found clothes stashed in it that my kids had either a) grown out of, or b) not worn in a very long time.  Two out of three drawers had children's clothing in them.  The top drawer had jewelery and underthings that I never wear in it.  (Sorry if that is too much information for any of you, but I'm going for honesty here!) 2.  I moved my dresser to make it more accessible.  Maybe now my clothes will actually make it into the drawers! :) 3.  I vacuumed Bravely the Bear.  Bravely is an old family friend of Dwayne's.  He lives on one of our support logs in the loft.  He was looking more like a polar bear than a black bear.  It was time. 4.  I vacuumed the floor, the cracks in the floor, the support log, the window frames, the railing looking over the living room, and also the deer head - antler dusting will have to wait until tomorrow! 5.  I moved all four beds and one crib to new locations.  I was trying to work out logistics for when we bring in H's twin size bed and I thought it would be less work to do all of the furniture moving now while I already had everything torn apart and an unusual amount of energy! 6.  Just before bedtime I got Dwayne to help me move the remaining large dresser to it's new location. Tomorrow I have to deal with the stacks of boxes I generated whilst doing all of this cleaning and shuffling around.   Hopefully, in a day or two everything will be put in it's proper place, even if that means I have to figure out what that means for a lot of things.

Sorting and folding

My mom, grandma, and middle sister have been over the last couple of days helping me sort and organize the ever growing pile of clothing around here.  Yesterday we got everything sorted and folded.  Now I need to put it all away.  We filled two bags full of children's clothing to take to the local second hand store and filled another bag of garbage.  We also packed away all of the too big/too small items into plastic storage bins for future use.  This should make things much more manageable around here.  Now Dwayne and I need to go through our clothing and see what we can get rid of! Thank you Mom, Granny, and Lindsey for all of your help!!!

Some decluttering tips

I like the show "Neat" on hgtv with Helen Buttegig. Helen is a professional organizer and is great at helping people find systems that work for them, not just imposing her own organizing style on them.

Here is what I'm thinking about today as I try to unpack more boxes into our little house (650 sq ft total!!!):

3 Questions to Help Make Purging Decisions
1) Have I used it recently?
2) Is there a specific use for it?
3) Would my life suffer if I didn't have it?

If the answer is no, let it go!
~From the Neat website.

I particularly like #3. There are so many things that I don't need, never use, and if I didn't come across them every now and then I wouldn't even know I had them.

After Photos

Here are some pictures I took today from Monday's challenge. My camera's battery is low and there are a few things to put away still on the other side of the room so more pictures will be coming later. I have 2 little helpers in the after pictures. :)

The bins beside (and under!) the crib have some of my fabric stash in them. I didn't realize how much I had until I put it all in one place! I better do some sewing before I aquire anymore.


Riley's crib, part of our bed, and Hendrik squinting for the camera. :)


Riley's crib, our bed, Hendrik's big boy bed.

Making Your Home a Haven - January 7

Crystal is hosting another "Making Your Home a Haven" segment.

Today's challenge is creating a morning routine. Life here is starting to take more of a routine form now that we are getting settled so I have a hope of trying this out this time.

1) Get up earlier to spend time with Dwayne before he leaves for work.
2) Read for 15 minutes to half an hour.
3) Breakfast for the kids and I.
4) Dishes right after breakfast so we can avoid the mountain at the end of the day.
5) "Baby Can Read" for the kids, blogging/internet/email time for me.

Our special project for today is to tackle our loft area. It serves as a bedroom for all of us and also as storage space. I will be limited in what I can do as I'm not supposed to be lifting much weight but I'm sure we can make visible progress one box of clothing at a time. :)

Here are the before pictures. WARNING: Not for the faint of heart or extremely organized among you!

From right to left around the loft: