The Year Challenge

School has been out for over a month now, and it has been HECTIC.

This year, the end of the school year means one thing:  The One Year Challenge

The challenge was thrown down by one of my friends, and because I can't seem to say no to a challenge, this is what I'm doing for the rest of the year.  My house is on the verge of becoming painfully cluttered and disorganized.  Really disorganized.  I have one year to get it cleaned up and straightened up and stuff gone that I don't need anymore.  Thank goodness there is enough to do that I can keep switching off jobs, and I won't get bored. 

There are bookshelves to go through, clothes to be sorted, painting to be done, floor tile to be replaced, furniture to be re-done, furniture to be thrown out and replaced...... Well, you get the picture.  And all of these things need to be sandwiched in between gardening, canning, dental appointments, visits from family, and the kids' summer activities.  Plus, planning for the new school year, which starts in just over a month. 

Yes, it's less fun than a vacation.  

However, I think I will find it MUCH more satisfactory.  If I went on vacation now, I wouldn't be able to relax, because I would keep thinking about the horror that is my house.  We're planning on going on vacation next year.  This year, we're concentrating on getting our house cleaned out and organized in one year.  

So far, we have managed to blow through sorting out the kids' clothing (a HUGE job), and a small section of my clothing (an even bigger job!).   I organized my canning supplies already, so that was a big job out of the way, and by organizing those supplies, I was able to organize my pantry a little more.  Or at least find space for most some of my empty jars. But I swear these things multiply at night, when no one is looking.

I have a list of things that need to be done.  It's an ever-growing list.  It's probably never going to end.  I'll just keep adding things as they come up.  I've actually started to hum a little song to myself whenever I add things to it:

The more it grows (tiddly pom) the more it goes (tiddly pom) the more it goes (tiddly pom) on growing.  

And nobody knows (tiddly pom) how long it grows (tiddly pom) how long it grows (tiddly pom) there's no knowing.

I'm looking forward to this process, actually.  A lot of people deem it necessary to try to find a schedule, and stick to it.  My life is constrained enough.  I need the freedom to be able to jump from one project to another, and not feel like I'm doing it in the wrong order.  Some days I'm ready for dealing with clothing.  Some days I want to work in my kitchen.  Some days I want to paint.  Some days I want to be a handyman and do repair work.  As long as I get one thing done a day that needs to be done, I'm okay with that.  It might make things kind of chaotic, but I'm okay with that too.  My life is chaotic.  It probably always will be.  But that's what makes it perfectly imperfect.

Cart For My Canning

Over the last few months, I have acquired a new hobby that is taking up a huge amount of space in my tiny little kitchen.  It's a worthwhile hobby, which is leading to other new hobbies for me.  The best part about these hobbies is that they will (hopefully) be saving my family money, in a lot of different ways.

The original new hobby is canning.  Yep.  I'm a canner and I'm not ashamed of it.  I'm slowly emptying out my chest freezer and canning everything in there that I am able to.  Money saving benefit of this is:  as I empty out my freezer, I won't need such a big, electricity hog, and will be able to invest in a smaller one.  My ultimate goal is to only need it to store milk, baked goods, and flat frozen freezer meals.  It's coming along.  However, I digress.  

The canning equipment is space consuming.  Canning pots (I have a water bath canner and a pressure canner) are BIG.  Really BIG.  They take up a lot of space, and that is space that is better used for food that has been canned, or dry ingredients, or just about anything else.  And then there are the towels, the funnels, the lid lifters, the lids and rings themselves, the jar lifters, the pectin, canning salt, citric acid...... The list is really endless.  And it took over my pantry space quite rapidly.  

Since I have been challenged by one of my friends to get my house cleaned up and organized before the end of the year, I figured this was a good place to start.  I had been on a hunt for a decent cart that can support a lot of weight (that pressure canner is heavy), and store a lot of stuff.  And it had to fit into an area that is about 30in x 25 in.  It had to be under $100.  It had to be sturdy and long lasting.  It had to look decent.  

TALLY HO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The hunt is on!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a couple of months of searching, something appeared at Overstock.com. (No, this is NOT a paid advertisement for them.  I'm not getting anything from them for mentioning them.  This just happened to be where we found the cart.)  Now, Overstock is not my usual go-to place for shopping (thrift stores are really more in my price range), but my mom pointed me in the direction of a really cool cart that just about met all my requirements.  

On Friday, it arrived (three days sooner than originally expected.  Awesome job Overstock!), and was put together.  

 It came with a handle, but I really didn't need it so we didn't put it on.  If there comes a time when I do need it, we still have it tucked away, and will be able to use it.  But it's just perfect handle-less.  

I also had that set of three clear plastic drawers tucked away in a closet, and had used them for some sort of craft supply, but I cleaned it out and am putting it to MUCH better use.   

The three drawers store my funnels, lid lifters, jar lifters, pectins of varying sorts, lid tightener, cheese cloth and jelly bag.  I'm probably going to replace the drawer pulls to something a little cuter, because that's how I roll.  

I also found two small crates when I was cleaning out, These crates are perfect for sorting my rings and plastic lids.  

I can now organize them according to size (wide mouth and regular) which will also speed up the process a little bit.  It was a troublesome having all the rings and lids in one box, and forever trying to sort through them.  Also, the crates aren't enclosed, so if the rings are still damp from being washed, they will be less inclined to rust, because the air flow is better.  Labels for these two crates are coming, and when the arrive and are attached, I will be showing them off.

I already had my lids (also known as "flats") sorted into plastic CD boxes I got from our local dollar store.  I sort them according to "Used" or "New".  The "used" lids are not used for canning, but kept on hand in case some sort of weird crafting bug strikes me, or I want a lid on a jar, but don't want to seal it.  I can use one of the used lids for that.  

I will be properly labeling the boxes later on.  These boxes are stackable, so when my supply of new lids gets out of control (and it will), I can have one box for wide mouth lids and one for regular lids.  

The top shelf is reserved for my "babies".  I actually took down all the large stock pots I use in canning and fit them into the large water bath canning pot on the right.  The lid rests on a pot on the second shelf.  Moving all my big pots to one location freed up space for my empty jars that are currently waiting to be filled with produce from the garden we are putting in (one of my other new hobbies, but that's a future post).  

I now have room under my pantry shelves for my 5 gallon buckets of bread flour and all purpose flour, which is great.  I also have an extra small bucket down there for empty bags or for berries when I get on a berry canning roll.  (It's easier to put unwashed and unprepped berries into the small bucket while prepping them for canning.  But more on that in a future post, when strawberries are ripe.)

So that's pretty much it.  It's a just another chapter in my perfectly imperfect life. I'm loving it, and it's coming along in an awesome way.

Files, Files Everywhere

For years, before I was married, I was a receptionist/secretary.  I also was a film librarian.  (Yes, it's a job.  Basically, I filed a LOT of x-ray, sonogram, mammogram and CT scan films.)  Most of my work experience has been filing.  Making files, filing work orders, bills, payments, x-rays, you name it.  I know my filing.

One of the greatest arguments between me and my husband was about the filing.  He didn't like the way I filed things, or the way I set the files up.  So, I told him to take care of it.  I stopped doing any of the filing.  Everything started to pile up.  At last check, we had THREE YEARS of unfiled papers laying around the house.  I was done.  

So, now that I'm taking control of the filing again, I decided I had to get the filing cabinet out of the guest room/man cave/playroom and into the living room, so I would have better access to it.  When I did that, I realized that an ugly black filing cabinet isn't really going to fit into the style of the living room.  

So now, the projected goal is to paint the file cabinet, and organize all the files in it.  I'm planning on painting it a high gloss white, which will help to lighten up the living room some.   

It's not pretty, but it's functional.  And I will be able to make do.  A fresh coat of paint, and some wonderful vinyl decals or labels from Sunhoney Studio  will certainly give it a great lift.  Maybe I'll even switch out the handles, if I can get them off the drawer front.  

I've got it all laid out in my mind.  It's just going to take a little time, and some cooperation from the weather.  Spray painting on a porch when it's raining outside don't really mix very well.  

I'm excited to show you the progress as it comes along.  Right now, I'm being impressed that I moved the full (overly full) filing cabinet from a very tight corner in the playroom to the living room, all by myself, without injury.  

Always keep moving forward, and when life tries to throw glitches at you, run right over those suckers!  

As Time Goes By....

I thought only a week had passed.  I didn't realize it has been much longer. 

 

See, this is what happens to me, and a lot of overscheduled people. It happens to all of us.  We live in this crazy world where we are continually being pulled in multiple directions at all times.  And no matter how carefully we schedule, if one little thing (or one big thing....)  goes wrong, everything seems to fall in on itself like a house of cards. 

Sometimes it doesn't need to be something going wrong.  Sometimes it's just saying "yes" to the right thing at the wrong time. 

Or a big old combination of all of the above.

On April 4, I accepted a challenge from a friend of mine to get my house cleaned up and organized.  I was excited and ready to roll with it.  I want my house clean.  I want all the extraneous stuff gone.  I was ready to move forward with it, and I was going to start documenting it here on my blog.  

Yeah.... This NEVER happens.

Guess what?  That draft is still sitting there, waiting to be finished.  Life, once again, got in the way.  Everything wound up getting in the way.  On top of everything else, two of my wisdom teeth that were in really bad shape were causing me so much pain, I couldn't concentrate on anything.  And I mean ANYTHING.  I already had an appointment scheduled to see my dentist, so I wasn't going to try for an earlier appointment. When I finally got to see him, it turned out that those two teeth had to be extracted that day.  So I wound up losing about 3 days of life, due to pain and pain medications.  I did some remarkable catching up on my sleep, and now my teeth are causing me a lot less pain.  Bonus!  

This is more like it.

However, in a perfect world, things would have gotten done, regardless.  Is this a perfect world?  Nope.  This is an imperfect world.  Dinner still needed to made.  Dishes still needed to be done, along with laundry.  Children still needed to be taken care of.  The house needed to be cleaned.  Basically, everything that I usually do still needed to be done.  Deadlines needed to met.  And I was two weeks behind on pretty much everything, or so it seemed, just because of two teeth.

So now I'm rushing to catch up.  Trying to get caught up on laundry, switching out clothes for the season, getting plants ready to be put into our plot at the community garden.  One day this week

, I have a contractor coming to take a look at our bathroom (which is needing some SERIOUS work done on it) and help us figure out which way we need to go.  Once the demolition on that starts, and the rebuilding of our bathroom, I know that my work is going to increase a lot.

I just can't seem to get back into a rhythm that works for me at this moment, so I'm plugging along, doing things as I see them.  And trying to figure out how to schedule everything, without completely exhausting myself.  

And it might just be me, but this seems to happen a lot.  In my world, anyway.  As soon as I get a good schedule going, and it's working for me, and I'm getting a little bit of free time, something comes along and clogs up the works.  

I'm learning though that taking things one baby step at a time, I'll get everything done.  I need concentrate on one task at a time, and not worry about the other 12 million things on my To Do list.  

Do you build time for problems and possible issues into your schedule?  And if so, how do you do it?  Let me know!

Spring Break? What Spring Break?

Ahhhh, spring break... a time for a quick family getaway, or a fun filled week getting ready for Easter.  Time to relax and have fun.
Right? 
Seriously? 
The only thing different different about Spring  Break for me is the kids are home from school. 
The time around major holidays are not a time when my husband can easily take off from work, so it is pretty much status quo around here.  The only real difference is Frick and Frack will be helping me get the work done.  I hope.

My goal for spring break this year is to work in the morning, and have time in the afternoon for something fun.  So far, we haven't quite made it.  But we're working on it. 

Today I'm having Frick and Frack go through their bookshelf and get rid of all the magazines that are in bad shape, separate out any books that are too young for them, and basically tidying up that area. 

MUCH more neat and tidy... Now, to get rid of the trash.

I need for them to help me make some room for the pegboard I'm going to be hanging in there for their backpacks, so we aren't tripping over them at the front door anymore.  

They just don't stay on the pegs.  Plus, the pegs are falling out.

This is soooo much better!  And out of my way!

I'm really happy with the way it has turned out.  One side is red, for Frick, and one side is blue, for Frack.  I have a friend who makes vinyl wall decals and sells them on Etsy in her shop, Sunhoney Studio.  She will be receiving a custom order from me for two sets with the kids' names, one for where their backpacks hang, and then one for where their coats/seasonal jackets will hang. I can't wait to see order them and see them!  (Shhhh..... if the boys are still into Minecraft around Christmas time, I'm also going to be ordering some wall decals in a Minecraft theme for them. But don't tell!) 

Tomorrow I will be taking Frick and Frack to the library to drop a bunch of stuff off for the summer program.  They needed a bunch of stuff (tee shirts, fake flowers, embroidery floss....) that I happen to no longer need, so I'm more than willing to donate supplies and stuff to that cause.  (Just wait until I really clean out my craft closet and go through all my beads and stuff.  They are going to have much more than they know what to do with.  Just saying.)  

All in all, we're planning on having a productive spring break.  Some fun, some work.  We're on a time limit for our house, and plan to put it on the market in 3 years, so we have a LOT of work to do before we can do that, so everyday has to be a concentrated effort on one or two projects of home improvement.  It might not always be a perfect way to live for some people, but it's perfect for us.  

Stay perfectly you!

One Change and Why

Our house is the perfect starter home.  Or a home for someone who is downsizing.   But for a family of four, it is less than perfect.   If I could make one change to it, it would be to open up the kitchen so I can see into the living room. 
I love to cook, but my kitchen is tiny.  If two people are in my kitchen, there is no chance of doing something like opening the oven door, or the dishwasher.  Everything is very.....compact, to say the very least.  The other problem is that it is very closed off from the rest of the house.  I can't see what my family is doing in the living room, or talk to them without yelling. 
Sometimes isolating myself in the kitchen is a good thing.  I can lose myself in cooking up a storm, trying a new recipe, making a mess, and not having to answer to anyone.   However, most of the time, after a long, quiet day at home by myself, I'm more than ready for some interaction with other humans.  
I guess the thing I would want would be a mostly open kitchen, but one I  could shut off if need be.  (After all, I don't want to give away all my secret recipes and stuff.) 
The main problem with trying to break through the wall dividing the living room and kitchen is the fact that it is a dreaded, very useful load bearing wall. You know, one of those walls that can't be taken down be, because it helps hold the house up.  It can always be worked around, but it is expensive and incredibly time consuming. 
On my wishlist for my next house, I want a more open concept for my living room and kitchen.  With a lot of light.  A LOT of light. 
What would you change in you house?