Tag Archives: organization

Being Organized and Stylish (or Working On Getting Into A Post-Pandemic Life)

Posted on July 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Being Organized and Stylish (or Working On Getting Into A Post-Pandemic Life)

Happy July! 2021 is officially half over! And half my monthly challenges for the year are done as well. I haven’t done really well with my monthly challenges, but it’s also been a tough first half of the year for me. Things are getting better for me, so hopefully the challenges will as well. But I also have been picking challenges that I know might take me longer than just a month.

For June, I had a challenge to work on organizing my desk. This was a project that I have been putting off for a while and I knew it needed to be done. My desk has been very messy for a long time and I got lazy with keeping it organized when my work life was in flux. I was storing a lot of paperwork that I might need or used to need and wasn’t too worried about keeping my workspace clean and easy to find everything. But as I started to work more and more, the piles were making my workspace cluttered and I wasted time looking for things.

While this challenge can’t be considered complete, I have made a lot of steps in the right direction and have more work I plan on doing. I have to do a big overhaul of my filing cabinet and storage and it takes time to go through everything I have in there and decide what to keep. I also have been working on scanning paperwork that I want to keep but don’t need the originals. This is a big project and I knew that going into it, but I’m seeing lots of progress and I know it will continue to be worked on. Hopefully soon, I’ll have the nice and clean workspace that I dream of.

And for July, my challenge is all about being out and about in the world again. I tend to wear a lot of comfortable clothes. When working at home, you don’t need to dress cute and I would prefer to be comfortable. And when I wasn’t going out for anything, staying in comfortable clothes all the time became the norm. But as I am going out and doing things more and more, I want to find ways to feel cute and stylish again.

This doesn’t necessarily mean I need to buy a ton of new clothes. I will buy a few new things, but I’m working on being a bit picky and making sure they are really what I want. But I have plenty of clothes that I could wear, I just am out of the habit of putting together outfits. And I want to take more risks with style a bit. For a long time, I dressed to hide my body. I don’t know if that made me think I was hiding my size and shape or it was just a lack of confidence. But I’ve realized that there’s no point in me doing that. I want to feel cute and if someone sees what I really look like then they do. A good example of a risk (that seems like a very nothing risk) I took recently with clothes was tucking in a flowy shirt with jeans. In the past, I would let it stay flowy over my stomach and feel ok that you couldn’t see anything. But it also made me look bigger than I really am. So I did a French tuck in the front so it was still flowy but you could see my shape. I won’t say I was completely comfortable with it, but it felt good to not feel like I’m in shapeless clothes and I tried to feel more confident. But I think the more I do this, the easier it will be for me.

So hopefully this month, I will work on finding new favorite outfits in my closet and finding ways to feel more stylish. I know this is superficial, but finding some more confidence is important to me. And I think being confident can lead to other positive things in my life.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Rut In My Life (or Time For Some Shopping) Default ThumbnailWorkout Clothes Addict (or Didn’t I Used To Complain About Workout Clothes?) Default ThumbnailWorking On Cleaning (or Time To Declutter) Default ThumbnailWorking On A Work/Life Balance (or Almost Repeating A Recent Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailTrying To Be An Organized Packer (or Another Bit Of My OCD) Default ThumbnailMy First 2017 Monthly Challenge (or Working On My Tumors)

Comments Off on Being Organized and Stylish (or Working On Getting Into A Post-Pandemic Life)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

Cleaning Up From The Pandemic (or Storing Away The Things I Needed This Past Year)

Posted on June 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Cleaning Up From The Pandemic (or Storing Away The Things I Needed This Past Year)

I bought a lot of new things right after everything shut down. Some of it was stuff I got to organize my house or redecorate. I got a lot of random projects done while I wasn’t working and isolating myself in my house. I also got things I needed to survive during the pandemic. I remember how hard it was to find masks right when they were required. I had some fabric I used to turn into a makeshift mask, but as soon as I was able to order some better ones, I did. And I got quite a few of them. Some were to have some cute-looking ones and others were for specific functions (like the workout masks I got). And the other big thing I got to survive the pandemic was everything I got for my home gym.

I slowly acquired things for my little home gym. So many things that people would use for workouts were very hard to find at first because everyone was shopping for the same thing. So I had a little random collection of things when I started. And I slowly added to it with more and more equipment and things I wanted to use in my home workouts. While I still had things that were on my wishlist for home gym items, either they were not things I could get due to money or availability or I just didn’t have space. And while I was doing all my workouts at home, I kept all my gym stuff in a little corner of my living room. I did store some of the things I didn’t use as often in the big fabric hamper, but most of it was just laying on the ground. Things weren’t messy, but they were a bit cluttered feeling.

Once I started back at Orangetheory, I knew that I probably wasn’t going to use my home gym equipment like I had been doing. I wasn’t going to get rid of what I got because I know that there will likely be a time in the future that I want to do more than just the workouts in the studio. So I had to figure out what to do. I do have a garage that I can store things in, and I considered getting a big plastic tub to put everything in. But I know if I do that then I will probably not use that stuff again, at least while it’s there. So I started to look for good storage solutions for inside my house.

It’s never easy for me to find new things for my house because I have such limited space. I also wanted something big enough to fit most of the home gym stuff together (I knew it wouldn’t be possible to get everything together unless it was a giant storage unit). I didn’t have to move everything by a certain date, so I took my time looking for what I wanted. I wasn’t going to buy something super expensive, but even something that’s under $150 is something that I should make sure I really want so I don’t waste my money. And it took a while to find something and I debated between different ideas (storage bench versus an ottoman for my couch, for example). But I finally found something that fit the space I had and I thought would look good next to other things I have.

I only ordered it a few days ago, but somehow it arrived already at my house! I wasn’t expecting to have it until next week, but getting it early just meant to could start organizing things earlier too. After having a few struggles with building it (I didn’t realize you had to elevate part of the bench to screw the top on), I got it done and started to put my home gym away.

I did have some mismeasurements when I was planning because I thought it would fit my medicine ball and it was just a bit too small. But since I was already planning on not being able to fit everything in there, it’s ok if one more thing had to find a different place. I think I can store that in my closet or somewhere else, I’m still working on it. But almost everything else I used for my home workouts is now organized away so I can have it available if I want to work out but hidden if I’m not going to need it. And I do like that this storage bench provides extra seating if I need it.

Having everything put away makes my home feel a bit more like what it used to. At some point, I’m sure I’ll be storing away all the masks I’ve gotten as well. But for now, I still wear them when I’m out in public around a lot of people. And in the future, all the things I got to survive the pandemic will be stored away and just memories instead of things I need to use all the time.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAlways Cleaning (or At Least The Pandemic Helped Create This Habit) Default ThumbnailCleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House) Default ThumbnailBeing Social Feels A Bit Cold (or Another Realization About The Pandemic) Default ThumbnailMore Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues) Default ThumbnailThoughts Almost A Year Into The Pandemic (or Things Still Seem So Weird) Default ThumbnailEven More Redecorating (or One Planned Change and One Due To Being A Klutz)

Comments Off on Cleaning Up From The Pandemic (or Storing Away The Things I Needed This Past Year)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

Still Doing More House Projects (or Just Trying To Find Busy Work)

Posted on September 3, 2020 | Comments Off on Still Doing More House Projects (or Just Trying To Find Busy Work)

Since I’ve been staying in my house, I’ve done so many projects around my house. I’ve done some redecorating, I’ve done organizing things, and I’ve probably done more deep cleans of my house than would be necessary. Sometimes I do these projects because they are things that I’ve been putting off. Some of them have been to just change up the look of my house. And some of them are because I’m bored and have nothing else to do.

I have to be careful with the projects that I do just because I’m bored. If they are things that don’t cost me anything, that’s fine. But a lot of these projects cost me something because I’m buying supplies of some sort. And I don’t want to buy a lot of new things just because I’m bored. I know that I will buy some things when I’m redecorating my house, but I’m also really trying to use the things in my house in a new way that makes them feel different.

Doing projects has been a good way to have a sense of purpose on a day that I might not have anything else going on. I feel a sense of accomplishment if I do something and complete it. It’s silly how proud I can be of myself for some of the things that I have done, but at the same time, I’m going to take a win however I can get them these days.

I think I had a bigger desire to do projects a few months ago. That one was motivated by feeling bored in my house and wanting to have a different view when looking around my place. I have slowed down a lot with the projects or have found random smaller ones to do from time to time. And like I mentioned above, a lot of these projects are also about cleaning my house. My floors and surfaces have never looked better. Of course, I also am using the floors and surfaces as staging areas for other projects, so they can look a bit cluttered. But even if they are cluttered, they are clean.

And when I find a project that does cost me money, I try to be very aware of how much I’m spending and what I really need to get. For example, I recently spent some time online searching for some nice fake plants. As much as I would love to have real plants in my house, I’m not that great at keeping them alive. So fake plants allow me to get the greenery in my house without the potential plant murder. And there are so many nice fake plants online to pick from. Just like with so many things, if I had endless money I would probably buy a ton. But I wanted to keep it limited to maybe one new plant for now. I ended up buying a set of 3 small fake plants that I’m deciding where I want to keep them (right now, all three are in my kitchen window, but I bet I’ll move them a few times within the next week or so).

There are several more fake plants that I have saved online because I love the look of plants in a house. I want to get something to put on the floor near my tv, but I think it’s harder to find good fake plants when they are big without seeing them first. So far, I’ve only bought small ones online. But maybe in a month or two, I’ll change my mind about that.

I’ve also done a lot of organizing and cleaning of the random stuff I’ve had around my house. I don’t want to collect things that I don’t use, but I also struggle a bit letting things go because I’m scared I might need them eventually. But I have been getting better at that and then also organizing whatever I have left. It’s a process doing this and I’m taking small steps, but I have gotten a lot of stuff out of my house that I really don’t need (and either have it stored for donating or friends have taken things). This week, I worked on organizing my purses/tote bags/travel carryons. I pretty much only use one purse for my day to day life. I have a few fancy purses and a few other random ones. But I have a lot of tote bags and carryon sized bags. I went through them all, found the ones I haven’t used or don’t like anymore, and put up command hooks in my entry closet to hang up the ones I’m keeping.

I’m sure that I’ll find more random projects and organizing things to do this week and going forward. As I said, I need things to keep me busy and not just have my day be a nothing day. It’s probably a good thing I live in such a small house because there are only so many things I can do. I can’t imagine all the projects I could think up if I had more rooms to do them in!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailCleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy) Default ThumbnailBusy Work (or It’s All Coming Together) Default ThumbnailGetting Rid Of Extras (or Cleaning House) Default ThumbnailMaking My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge (or What To Do When You Are Crazy Busy)

Comments Off on Still Doing More House Projects (or Just Trying To Find Busy Work)

Posted in Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged , , ,

Trying To Stay Busy (or Doing Lots Of Random Things)

Posted on July 2, 2020 | Comments Off on Trying To Stay Busy (or Doing Lots Of Random Things)

It’s been hard to stay busy during isolation. For a while, I was fine doing a lot of reading and watching things on different streaming services. And I’m still ok doing that from time to time. I am always a big reader, but I feel like I’ve read what I normally would read in a year in the last 3 1/2 months. Thank goodness for the library and e-books, because I would go broke if I had to buy all these books. And there are always new things to watch, so it’s not like I have run out of things. I just have been getting tired of sitting around to pass my time.

I’ve done a lot of random little projects in my house. I have reorganized a lot. I bought new things to change up how stuff looks. I don’t think my house has ever been this clean or organized. And yes, doing some of this has cost money, but I figure it’s money well spent because it’s going toward things that are going to last a while. And I think doing these little projects is the way that I’m going to continue to try to feel busy for a while.

I will run out of things to do around my house. I know it. I thought I ran out of things before, but I found a few more to do. But at some point, there will be nothing else I can do. But I am grateful for the little projects I’ve done recently. For example, I got a new organizer for the top of my desk. It’s like a little shelving unit, but it’s perfect for putting a lot of stuff in one spot instead of all over my desk. And what I did this week was organize all the masks I have gotten.

All of the white ones are just handkerchiefs that I got before masks were easy to buy. I probably won’t use them, but they are good to have just in case. I also have one that a friend made for me and one that I ordered randomly. In the front of the box (the colorful ones) are Disney themed masks and are probably my new favorites because they are comfortable. And I have more masks coming because I ordered some that are meant for working out (so they are sweat-wicking). I feel like we are going to be using masks for a while, so I’m glad I have a few different options. And now they are nicely organized instead of just being in a pile.

Now, I’m looking around my house for other things I can do to occupy my time. It’s getting very specific and they aren’t big or obvious projects anymore. But anything that can take up some time is a good thing right now. I know at some point I will need to think of other things to do, either inside my house or safely outside (like going on driving adventures). But for now, I’m just searching for more house things for me to do.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Bookcase Makeover (or A Free Upgrade To My Space) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy) Default ThumbnailCatch Up Time (or A Blog With Lots Of Random News) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge (or What To Do When You Are Crazy Busy) Default ThumbnailStill Doing More House Projects (or Just Trying To Find Busy Work) Default ThumbnailBusy Busy Busy (or Triple Job Day)

Comments Off on Trying To Stay Busy (or Doing Lots Of Random Things)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Having A Lot Of Repeat Days (or More Organizing and More Virtual Hangouts)

Posted on May 12, 2020 | Comments Off on Having A Lot Of Repeat Days (or More Organizing and More Virtual Hangouts)

I know a lot of people feel like they are living the same day over and over again right now. This is probably happening a lot for people who are completely out of work. I am lucky with my work because I do still have some (even though the hours are a fraction of what they used to be). I know that 3 days a week, I work from 8-9 am with doing customer voicemails. And I do still have my other job, but those hours are limited too as I can’t find a lot of things to add to the calendar. I also have my workouts a few days a week, so that helps to make things feel a bit different. I usually know what day of the week it is based on if I have a workout or work that morning.

But besides those things, there isn’t a lot of variety in my day. I’m working on not just sitting in front of a screen all day long and trying to continue to be productive, but there have been days where sitting and watching tv is all I feel up to doing. And it’s not easy to find other things to fill my day with while staying inside and staying safe (and yes, I know I can go out for walks or drives, but it’s not the same).

I wrote about 2 different things I’ve been doing a lot of lately. And those are organizing my house and having virtual hangouts. Honestly, that’s all I’ve been doing a lot of lately to change things up. And I know these are good habits or activities to have, so I don’t feel as guilty as I do when I watch tv for hours on end.

Fortunately, doing organization in my house was long overdue, so there have been a lot of projects to work on. Some of the projects have been pushed off because I needed something to complete them, so now I have been ordering what I need. Because of the pandemic, there are shipping delays with some things, so I just work on what I can as I get things. And this week, I got these little drawer organizers that I had been looking at online. I know it’s hard to make them fit perfectly in my drawers, but I found some that don’t actually snap together so I can keep open space between them. My plan was to just organize my desk, but I had so many extras that I also did 2 of my kitchen drawers. I didn’t really get rid of anything as I did these projects, but it looks much better and my drawers look like there isn’t as much because there is some space to spare.

I’m sure I’ll continue to modify these over time, but for now, it’s so much better than it was and I can start working on the top of my desk and my file cabinet now.

And with my virtual hangouts, I’m trying to plan them with different groups of friends so I have them as often as I can. And the one group of friends that I had been working on scheduling one with is with my workout friends. Right now, we are spread over 3 states and we all have different schedules and things we have to do each day. So it hasn’t been easy to find a time that works for us all. But we were able to plan one for this past Friday. And I felt like that was the perfect time to do it because when we all worked out together, Fridays was the day we were all there!

And it was so nice to see my friends. We did talk about workouts briefly (I think I’m the only one doing the official home workouts regularly), but we mainly talked about all the random things we could think of. We were all laughing so much and laughing so hard that we were crying. I needed this virtual hangout so much and I didn’t realize how badly I needed it until it was done. It really boosted my mood and made my day so much better. And now that we’ve done one, I think everyone agrees that we need to do these more often.

I’m sure this week will continue to be filled with more organizing and virtual hangouts. I also have some ideas for new skills that I want to learn since I have so much free time. Anything that can change up my day a little bit is exactly what I need to do right now.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMy Monthly Challenge To Finish Out The First Half Of The Year (or Sleeping And More Organizing) Default ThumbnailA Big Cleaning Week (or An Excuse to Organize) Default ThumbnailFinding A Social Life Where I Can (or Virtual Parties and Distance Hangouts) Default ThumbnailEven More Organizing (or This Was An Overdue Project) Default ThumbnailVirtual Memorial Day (or Doing The Best We Can For Now) Default ThumbnailAnother Virtual Friend Hangout (or Trying Not To Miss A Summer Tradition Too Much)

Comments Off on Having A Lot Of Repeat Days (or More Organizing and More Virtual Hangouts)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Even More Organizing (or This Was An Overdue Project)

Posted on May 7, 2020 | Comments Off on Even More Organizing (or This Was An Overdue Project)

I’ve been working hard at finding ways to keep myself busy. I have struggled with figuring out what to do from time to time, but in general, I think I have been doing a pretty decent job. This is not a normal time at all, so there is no way that we should be acting. I’m just trying to do things that are safe and smart to occupy myself.

I wrote about doing some big cleaning projects recently. I’m working on getting into a better cleaning routine and schedule that I can maintain even when things start getting back to how they were. I know that I’m not the best housekeeper and I would totally pay for someone to clean my place if I could. But there is no excuse for at least trying to get better at cleaning and seeing what I can get used to doing.

Part of those cleaning projects has also involved getting myself organized. As I clean, I find things around my house that maybe I forgot that I owned or had been looking for. I need to make my space the most efficient and practical for myself. Organizing my desk has been a project on my to-do list for a long time because I can tell that the disorganization is making some things harder for me. That project still is on my list and I haven’t really gotten started with it. But I have been spending a lot of time organizing my kitchen.

My kitchen organization happened for a few reasons. When I did the huge deep cleaning of my fridge, I realized that I wasn’t keeping things organized in my fridge. Things weren’t necessarily in the best places to keep them and it made it look sloppy and harder to find things I might be looking for. And that can lead to food waste, which is something that I am very guilty of but am trying to be better about it.

After organizing my fridge, I looked around my kitchen and realized that I hadn’t really done much organizing of my kitchen at all. When I moved into my house over 10 years ago, I put things in places that made sense and they haven’t moved around much. And I know that there was some wasted space in my kitchen, which was really bad since I am so limited in space. So I decided to take a look at things, see where I can organize things better, and spend a lot of time moving things around and making my kitchen a better space.

This project took a lot of time (which was fine since I’ve got nothing but time right now) and I broke it up into chunks. I did have to order new things to help me organize like a new spice rack and some can holders to maximize the space that I do have.

I had a spice race before, but it wasn’t working for me because the containers had to be a specific size to work. I was using my pantry area to store spices because they needed a place to go, but once I got the new spice rack I could move the spices to a better place and use the pantry for things like soup and rice (using the new can holders). Being organized like this is also allowing me to have more food at my house. I’m not hoarding or stocking up a lot, but it’s nice to know that I have cans of beans that I can use for dips and not have to go to the grocery store just to get them (which you can’t really do easily right now anyway).

But what I think was the biggest organizing project in my house were my cabinets where I have kept dishes and cups. Those cabinets haven’t really had any changes in 10 years, even as I got new stuff or realized that I didn’t use things. The first part of that project was going through everything in those cabinets and taking out things that I know I don’t use. I put a lot of cups and mugs into boxes and stored them away. I had something like 30 cups and 15 mugs and really don’t need more than a few of each.

Then, I found some shelves that I could add to my cabinets to have the ability to use more vertical space. There was so much wasted space since I wasn’t going to make tall piles of dishes and these really made a huge difference. There were a lot of different attempts to make these work the best way that they could for me and I probably redid the cabinets a few dozen times, but I finally found something that I was happy with.

I wish I had taken a real before photos of the cabinets, but I only took it after I had removed most of the cups and mugs. So it looks a lot emptier than it really was. And in the after photo, you can see that I have a space to store things like reusable zipper bags, silicone dish covers, and some storage containers.

And by stacking the dishes and cups, I was able to use one half of the cabinet for those things instead of having one half for dishes and one half for cups. I’m really happy with how much easier this makes things for me with getting dishes and storage containers.

I’m not completely done with the organizing project, but I’m almost there. But I have already noticed a difference in how my kitchen feels. And since I’m cooking so much more now, having a kitchen that feels right and that things are where they should be is very important. Hopefully, when I finally get to my desk organizing, it will feel as good as organizing my kitchen did!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailOrganization Time (or Seeing A Bit Of A Mess) Default ThumbnailMaking My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year) Default ThumbnailCleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House) Default ThumbnailSlowly Spring Cleaning (or Tidying Up My Way) Default ThumbnailSpring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again) Default ThumbnailMore Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues)

Comments Off on Even More Organizing (or This Was An Overdue Project)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

Doing A Lot Of Spring Cleaning (or Trying To Fill My Day)

Posted on April 16, 2020 | Comments Off on Doing A Lot Of Spring Cleaning (or Trying To Fill My Day)

Besides the limitations of being able to do things outside my house, I have more downtime in my house now. My main job doing customer service work has significantly cut my hours. I used to work about 30 hours a week for that job. A few weeks ago, most of my co-workers were let go and I had my hours cut in half. We weren’t doing any shows, but my manager and I stayed on to handle the few customers that were contacting us for help with various issues. Then this week, I became the last one left at my job (because of the way unemployment would work for me, it made more sense for me to stay on than my manager). But I am down to 3 hours a week. I now only will be working 1 hour for 3 days a week to answer voicemails. This could change to no hours, but I’m hoping at least I can keep this.

I do still have my other job (although I am restricted in how many hours I can do for that) and I can file for unemployment to make up the difference in salary once the pandemic unemployment assistance is set up. I’m not as worried about money as I thought I might be. Since so many people are in the same situation as me right now, I know there are a lot of people I can ask for help. And they are making the rules for unemployment different so I am eligible (when normally I wouldn’t be). So even though I’m sad that I’m not working normally, at least there is a bit of good news with the situation.

Now that I’m down to 3 hours a week (plus the other few hours a week I do my other job), there is so much free time for me every day. And I’ve really been trying to be productive. I put a lot more stress on myself to be productive when this all started and I realized that I couldn’t hold myself to that standard. This is not just a normal break with work like I’ve had before. I don’t know how long this will last and there are so many other things bringing stress into my life. SO I’m trying to find ways to be productive but not be hard on myself if there are some days that all I do is sit on the couch and watch tv. So I’ve been making a list of things that I have been putting off when I do feel motivated. And a lot of that list is big cleaning projects.

I’ve only accomplished one of those cleaning projects so far and that was to deep clean my fridge. I usually clean my fridge by wiping it down when necessary. But I couldn’t remember the last time I took the drawers and shelves out to scrub them. And I wanted to add some shelf liners to the shelves and a crisper drawer liner for my vegetable drawer to help keep it clean (or make it easier to clean when there is a spill). So I ordered a few things online that I wanted to use and once it was all here and I felt motivated, I did a huge cleaning of the fridge.

I was able to just shift things inside the fridge so I didn’t have to worry about things going bad. I just did one section at a time and then put things back and moved them around to work on another section. Because I was doing a deep cleaning plus adding liners, it did take a bit longer (it took me longer than I thought it would to cut the liners to the right size). But in the end, I’m very happy with having one big cleaning project done and my fridge looking so nice!

I think the motivation for the cleaning was because I have been trying to be better about cooking. And having a clean and organized fridge does help me want to cook. If I can store my ingredients where I can find them, that helps.

I’m sure that some of you are laughing at me for making such a big deal out of this, and I know that this isn’t something that should be life-changing. But it was something I was putting off for longer than I should and I’m so glad that I did it. It made me feel very accomplished and took up a lot of time, 2 things that I really need to feel these days.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Big Cleaning Week (or An Excuse to Organize) Default ThumbnailFeeling Like A Fresh Start (or Spring Cleaning and New Toys) Default ThumbnailSpring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again) Default ThumbnailSlowly Spring Cleaning (or Tidying Up My Way) Default ThumbnailIs It Too Early To Be Spring Cleaning? (or Out With The Unused) Default ThumbnailSpring Cleaning (or Feeling Pampered)

Comments Off on Doing A Lot Of Spring Cleaning (or Trying To Fill My Day)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

More Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues)

Posted on February 7, 2020 | Comments Off on More Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues)

I didn’t intend to do a lot of work around my house this week, but it looks like things just lined up that way. But I will say, it’s been nice to get a lot of things done this week that I haven’t been able to do before and I finally have them off my list. Maybe it’s because next week will mark 10 years since I moved into my house, but it’s nice that I’m doing things that feel like they are refreshing my space.

There are still so many things I’d love to do to my house if I had the money to do so, but doing little things is nice. I am also restricted with what I can do because I rent my house, but I’ve found lots of things that don’t require damaging walls (or doing minimal damage) that adds a lot to my space. But most of the things I’ve been doing lately to my house involve removing things and not adding them.

For a long time, I’ve had an exercise bike in my house. I thought I might have written a post about it on here, but I think I might have gotten the bike before I started the blog! I also thought I had a photo when my parents helped me put it together, but after searching my photos a dozen times, I can’t find it. The only photo I could find of my bike was from when I posted about it on Facebook trying to sell it.

The bike actually fit nicely into my house and I had the perfect spot to have it. When my living room was set up a bit differently, it faced the tv. After I moved things around, I had to move the bike a bit to see the tv if I wanted to watch while I was on it. Sometimes I would just listen to music and sometimes I would do something else, but usually, I was watching tv when I was on it.

And I did use that bike a lot. I have no clue how often I was using it, but it was something I tried to use pretty regularly before I discovered Orangetheory. After I started going to OTF, I would still use the bike from time to time. I would say maybe once a week or every other week, I’d use it for a low impact workout. I wouldn’t bike as hard as I knew I probably should, but it was still getting used.

But my parents brought it up to me last year that if I wasn’t using it a ton, maybe I should think about getting rid of it. My parents were the ones who bought it for me as a gift, so I never thought of getting rid of it because I was so grateful that they got it for me. But hearing them say that made me realize that there wasn’t much of a point for me to keep it for the minimal use I was getting out of it. When you live in a 400 square foot home, every bit of space is necessary. And I could use the space that it was in for something better.

Once I felt like getting rid of the bike was a reasonable option (before, it also felt like I was rejecting the idea of working out at home even though I was going to OTF 4 days a week), I decided to see if I could find someone who would want it. I have no idea how much it cost when it was bought because it was a gift and it was bought 7 or 8 years ago, but I wasn’t worried about selling it for a profit or anything. I got a lot of use out of it and I only wanted to put a price on it so that I wouldn’t get a ton of people trying to get a free bike. So I posted it for sale for $20 and thought that was a reasonable price.

I was surprised that it took a few months for me to find someone who wanted it, but I finally was connected to a friend of a friend who was looking for a cheap exercise bike. And mine was cheap plus it was in really good condition considering the age. So the other day, I had to find a way to get the bike out of my house (it was in pieces and in boxes when we brought it into my house) and off it went to its new home. And now, there is a big empty space in my house.

Just like I don’t want to waste space with stuff in my house, having so much empty space in my house isn’t what I want either. I have some ideas for what I would like to put there because I do need some more storage. But just like with my bookcase, I’m not going to just go out and buy something to have it. I want to find the right thing for the space and for what I need.

My bike has been almost like a room divider between my living room and dining room for so long, and it feels weird not to have it there. But it is nice knowing that someone who needs it has it and I have a lot of space to put something there that I know I will need more.

There isn’t much else I can get rid of in my house, but I will say these back to back projects/cleanings have inspired me to see what else I can do with moving things around in my house. I have a feeling there will be a few more posts like this one coming up soon as I continue to renovate my space to fit my life even better!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailIs It Too Early To Be Spring Cleaning? (or Out With The Unused) Default ThumbnailCleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House) Default ThumbnailWorking On Cleaning (or Time To Declutter) Default ThumbnailGetting Rid Of Extras (or Cleaning House) Default ThumbnailEven More Organizing (or This Was An Overdue Project) Default ThumbnailSpring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again)

Comments Off on More Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

A Bookcase Makeover (or A Free Upgrade To My Space)

Posted on February 6, 2020 | Comments Off on A Bookcase Makeover (or A Free Upgrade To My Space)

I’ve had said for a long time that I want to work on organizing my house more and making my space feel more like me. There are a lot of projects that I could do to accomplish that, but it’s overwhelming to think about everything I could do. I think because of that, I have avoided doing any of them. But I have had a feeling of needing to change things up for a long time.

I’ve slowly been making changing in my house to have nicer things or to make what I have work better for me. A lot of the changes are about getting rid of things that I might not need anymore. I’ve been selling things that I don’t use anymore to have a little extra money, but it’s not about raising money. But making $10 or $20 off of something I would just get rid of is nice. And there are a few things that I’d like to buy to add to the organization of my house that I could put that money toward.

But it’s always nice when I find something that costs nothing that makes my house feel so much more like me.

The bookcase I have in my room isn’t anything special. I think I bought it at Target or Staples and I know I bought it when I got my first apartment. So I’ve had it for over 16 years. It’s been with me in 3 different homes and it’s been in a few different places in my current house. I don’t love the bookcase, but it does the job and I haven’t felt motivated to get something new nor have I found one that I really want to get. I don’t want to replace it until I find something that I know will add to my space.

But the bookcase serves its purpose. I don’t have a ton of books, but I need to be able to store them and keep things organized. And for as long as I can remember, my books were organized in the same way. The very top shelf had my etiquette books and other types of self-improvement type books (more about style than improving my life, but still self-improvement). The very bottom shelf had all of my acting books. And the middle shelves had my other books. And each section was organized in alphabetical order. I figured that made sense and just went with it.

I couldn’t find a good picture of what my bookcase looked like before, but I did find this photo where you can see it a bit and it gives an idea of how I had things set up.

But even though this organizational method made sense, I didn’t like the look of it. I would love to have a library of beautiful books and have my bookcase look fancy. And the way that I had my books just looked too functional when it didn’t need to be that way. So from time to time, I would look at things online about how to organize a bookcase. I never really thought any of those ideas would work, but I still wanted to make a change.

For some reason, this past Monday I was struck with the need to change my bookcase. I figured I could try different organizational ideas and see which ones I liked. I didn’t think I would just work on it and be done with it, but I knew I needed to just start and go from there. So the first thing I did was take every single book off of my bookcase. And when doing that, I found a few books that I realized I don’t need anymore. I don’t think I got rid of any of my fiction books, but there were several acting and self-improvement books that were either outdated or that I hadn’t looked at once since I moved into my current house. All of those books went into a bad to donate (I didn’t want to sell them since donating them to the library or other places is better).

Once I got rid of some books, I started working on the first idea about how to organize a bookcase: organizing the books by color. I picked this first because I was so sure that I would hate it. Organizing books by color didn’t keep books together in a way that made sense. I still wanted to have some separation between my fiction and non-fiction books and if I just did all of the books of the same color together, that wouldn’t accomplish that. But I started to make piles around my room and found that I could still keep those 2 types of books separate even when I split them up by color.

I worked on putting the books back after making the piles, and I didn’t put them all upright. I did some of the books on the side which ended up making more room on my bookcase. And once I had the books in a place that worked, I added a few other things from around my house to fill in the empty space. And once I did that, I took a step back and realized that the idea that I thought I would hate ended up being exactly what I wanted to do.

It’s silly how my room feels so much more complete somehow just by moving around a few books. I didn’t make a huge change and almost everything is still in about the same place as they were before. But that small change put things into exactly where they should be and created the look that I didn’t know I wanted to find.

So many organizational projects require supplies or buying something to complete it. It’s nice when I can find something that is completely free and still makes me feel like I splurged on something!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailIs It Too Early To Be Spring Cleaning? (or Out With The Unused) Default ThumbnailA Big Cleaning Week (or An Excuse to Organize) Default ThumbnailIt Doesn’t Take Much To Upgrade A Space (or A Multi-Day Furniture Build) Default ThumbnailOrganization Time (or Seeing A Bit Of A Mess) Default ThumbnailCleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House) Default ThumbnailMore Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues)

Comments Off on A Bookcase Makeover (or A Free Upgrade To My Space)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Cleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House)

Posted on November 15, 2019 | Comments Off on Cleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House)

The ongoing battle in my house is that it is very tiny and can look very cluttered easily. I love my house and I’m actually grateful to have a smaller space. In the apartment that I lived in before I found my house, I had significantly more space. My closet in that apartment could fit a bed inside of it. I had a lot of things in my room because I had space and I was living with roommates. So I needed my room to be more than just a place to sleep. I had a little couch to relax on plus my desk. I wasn’t working from home back then, but I still needed a place to do some work.

I probably have more space in my house than I did private space in my apartment, but I also don’t have as much storage as I did before and there are some rooms that were being fully used by me at the old apartment. Mainly the kitchen and bathroom (I had a private bathroom which was maybe triple the size of my current one). And I did a lot of downsizing when I moved here, but I also kept some of the habits from my old apartment in my house. For example, I had the storage space before to keep things that I didn’t really use but might use again one day. And now I don’t have that space but I struggle with getting rid of things because I’m worried I will need it again and don’t want to have to pay for it again.

I have needed to get over that struggle and have slowly made changes in my life to work on getting rid of things. And when I got my new tv stand, I had to do a lot of work with downsizing again. I’m still working on finding space for some of the things I had on my old tv stand that don’t fit on the new one, but I have gotten rid of a lot of things that were taking up space. And I think that project really kicked off wanting to do this in more areas in my house. The problem with these projects is that when I’m in the middle of them it makes my house so messy. But I have been able to find little projects I can do without making too much of a mess.

The first area I tackled was my entry closet. This already has a lot of organizational stuff inside of it, but the floor was a bit crazy. This was such an easy fix because the main thing taking up floor space was the storage box with all the holiday-related decorations I own. I rarely need to access this box (I don’t always decorate for the holidays) so having it take up so much floor space was unnecessary. I found a place in my utility room that isn’t easily accessible but fits the box perfectly. So even though I will need a ladder to reach the box when I need it, that’s a much better place than somewhere that I use every day and blocking things I really do need.

And when I was in my utility room, I knew I needed to do a lot of work on that space. That area has become a catchall for lots of stuff when I don’t know where else to put it. I’m so grateful I have that room because it is a great storage area that is inside my house. I can store things in my garage too, but I don’t store a lot there because I have to move my car to reach it and it’s not inside. So if I needed something in the middle of the night, it’s not really convenient. I try not to have too much in my utility room, but it can easily gather stuff. And a lot of it is stuff I don’t actually need and might have forgotten about.

I found some health and beauty stuff that I don’t need or use like unopened bottles of lotion I don’t use anymore or unopened bags of cotton rounds (I use reusable fabric rounds instead of cotton ones now). This doesn’t need to be in my house because I’m not going to use them. So they went into a bag that I’m using to collect things I can donate to a charity that needs it. Yes, I guess I wasted money on things that I never needed, but that’s in the past and I’d rather find a place that needs them instead of keeping them in case I decide to use them.

My dad helped me create some nice storage in my utility room, but I haven’t been maximizing it for a while. I have a sink that doesn’t work in there, and my dad built a custom topper so it becomes a flat counter. That space was used for my wine storage and I had a wine bottle holder on there. But I haven’t had alcohol for a long time and that wine bottle holder was just being used for me to put other things on top of. I could find a much better storage holder than a wine bottle holder for things like tools and cleaning supplies. So I asked a friend if they wanted the wine bottle holder and they took it off my hands. My utility room is still a work in progress, but I’ve been able to get rid of so much and I’m finally able to see what organizational things I need to make it a more efficient space.

I’m going to start working on organizing my kitchen and bathroom next because I know I have products in those rooms that I don’t need. I know my pantry has stuff that probably is past its use-by date that I forgot about. I know I need to store my baking supplies in better containers instead of just the bags they come in. And while my bathroom doesn’t really have storage space where I can forget about things, I know that there are products that I see in there that I tell myself that I use that I really don’t. I will probably take those products out of my bathroom and store them in a bag for a week or so. Then I can see if I go into that bag to get it out or if I really have been lying to myself that I need them and use them. After that, I need to work on my desk but that is going to be a much longer process and will probably require more time to decide what I need to save.

Even with the limited cleaning and organizing that I’ve been able to do, I have noticed a huge difference in my house. Things are easier to find and I don’t feel like there is just stuff around me. I like feeling more peaceful at my house since I am here so many hours a day. And once I have things clean and tidy, I might look at more decorative things to add since I know I want some more personality in my space too.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailWorking On Cleaning (or Time To Declutter) Default ThumbnailMaking My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year) Default ThumbnailIs It Too Early To Be Spring Cleaning? (or Out With The Unused) Default ThumbnailMore Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues) Default ThumbnailGetting Rid Of Extras (or Cleaning House) Default ThumbnailSpring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again)

Comments Off on Cleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,