Even More Organizing/Rearranging

 I thought I would keep the reorganization of the house still going this weekend, I get such a great high from all of the organizing. 

I recently bought some more shelves for my bookshelves, because there is so much lost space on the tiny Lego sets, they don't even fill the height of the shelf at all. And I've got a whole bookcase of books that are short and could use more shelves. 

Added in 3 new shelves to this top case.

And two more shelves to this case. 

It looks so good. And you can see this picture was taken before my last bit of organizing, because I then organized my Loungefly backpacks. 

Ah, so lovely. 

Organized for the New Year

 I spent the bulk of today cleaning and organizing. Decided to take advantage of deals on this stuff happening for the end of the year, and it ended up looking great! 

I do wish I had gotten a picture of how everything was before, so that you could see the difference but of course I forgot. 

I put all of my holiday decor into tubs, organized by month, labelled the tubs and put them into movable devices. 

It looks so good. 

Then I organized the shed outside, and I'm just so proud of how it all looks, its just so amazing. 

We're all doing equal work

 Today, the final day before the pictures will be taken, so the final push towards being ready. We had planned a full day of things. Husband and my BIL would be painting the basement, and my sister would be cleaning everything (she has recently started a cleaning company! How exciting!) So since we still had the fellas to worry about, I was on kid duty. I occupied them at first by watching a movie, they chose Sonic 2, of course. Then we needed ore painting supplies, so we all trekked on over to the store. Epifanio carried the tape, as he is a giant man who can do anything.

After a full day of ... everything, we then went to have dinner and I learned that Epifanio eats his ramen noodles in the weirdest way possible. 

What an absolutely insane weirdo. 

Cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning

 I don't know if I've mentioned on here yet, but we are moving! Husband got a job at a university in California, so we are moving our wagon out to Cali after the summer. It's been a whirlwind since we've learned this, and we are listing our house for sale this week. To anticipate listing it, and for the pictures, we have been working non-stop for the last couple of weeks on fixing it up. There hasn't been anything major that we've been working on, just a bunch of cosmetic work. Today, I worked on getting some old glue off of a bathtub. For reasons unknown, the previous owners put some trim on the actual bathtub. So when we redid the floors down there a couple of years ago, we had to take this trim off, and it left the glue. Blergh. So today I decided to tackle that job. It was slow going. I would spray it with a cleaning solution, let it sit for a minute, then I used a scraper to scrape at it and just kept doing that ...over and over and over. Here's what it looked like before I started: 

Then, after several hours of repeating the cycle: 

It worked! It looks great! I am so hype! 

Home Organizing

 Husband went out of town today for a couple of days, so of course when I got home from work, I got busy on organizing everything. I organized the kitchen, my sock drawers, and then just every room, basically. I made a list, and instead of taking 3 days to finish (the length of time he'd be gone) I went ahead and finished 90% of the list tonight haha whoops. But, everything was looking so good. My socks were fire: 

Then I had a project in the basement - I was moving all of our RSL scarves downstairs, and needed help with the towel bar I was using for it. My fam came over tonight and my BIL set it up - heck yes. 

Loved getting so many projects done! Makes me feel so dang productive. 

Quarantine Project: Cleaning the Garage

Well, as we know, I've been cleaning/organizing up a storm with all this free time on my hands. I think I'm down to the last place, the garage. I thought ahead and tried to take a 'before' pic, but hey, I had already done a few items of cleaning in there before I realized, so it's not a good indicator of what it looked like, alas. 

 So here it is. What I did was, I took every single thing that was in the garage out. I cleaned some of it, I did a 'toss' or 'keep' pile, and put some of the stuff in the shed, since that where it should have belonged. That took a while. From start of project to end, it was about 6 hours. By the time it was done, I was sweaty and filthy haha the garage is not a clean place! When I was finished, I had two visits to the city dumpsters to get rid of broken/left/garbage in general. And then when I was done:

Ta daaaa! Looks so good to me! And the stuff in the front left, the orange fan, the yellow box, the Amazon box, is not my stuff. That belongs to people (we borrowed them but it doesn't seem a good time to return them during this time haha) so I'm just waiting until it's better times and then I'll get rid of them as well and have even more space. 

I'm honestly so jazzed to have so many clean and organized spaces. What will I do now that those projects are all done? I'm not sure! Stay tuned! 

Quarantine Project: Degrease the Kitchen Cabinets

This morning I was like, Self, we're gonna clean the tops of the cabinets today. At this point, I've pretty much cleaned and organized most of the house, so, just gotta keep on keeping on, I think. So I decided that since I was up there the other day getting something and I realized, it's gross up there. So, I searched on Pinterest to see the best way of cleaning it and I got some tips. One of them was just to go to the store, find a degreaser and use that. The other tip (on this same website) was to use vinegar and baking soda. I decided to take a gander at our cleaning supplies and see what we had. What luck! We had a degreaser! A Lysol one.

As I was using this, I was texting a friend about my project. She asked if I was using a chemical one or the vinegar/baking soda one. I said chemical, and she was like, okay good, because the vinegar one just doesn't work haha good to know.

So the first step was to spray this on the cabinet top, wait 2-3 minutes and then use a credit card-type apparatus (I used a frequent diner card for a sushi place I haven't been to in years!) to scrape the top of the gunk off, and using a paper towel to clean off the card. Then I sopped up the liquid with paper towels. I sprayed again with the Lysol, and then wiped it off. After it was dry from that, I used a Clorox wipe and just wiped it down for good measure.

Here's what that looked like as I did it:

Gross!!!! So I slaved on this for a good few hours. And then I ran out of the Lysol, ah, oh no. Husband went into the (NEWLY CLEANED) shed to find another degreaser, he was sure we had one.
Lo and behold, we did!

So I poured this into the Lysol bottle and went to town.
Phew! This was so much stronger! I mean, of course it was, it's industrial, but oh my lord it was so much easier! As I was doing this, I snapped another pic, to show the difference between the cleaned section and the not cleaned section.

Wowza!
Now, I know that I should have taken a pic of ALL of the cabinets after I had cleaned them, but alas I didn't. After they were all clean and dry (with all the windows opened on this chilly and window day to get the smell out) I put some parchment paper on the top of the cabinets. This way, when I want to clean them in the future, I just have to swap out the paper!

Quarantine Project: Shed

Now that we're nearly a month into quarantine, I'm going a bit stir crazy. Unable to see my loved ones or hang out, I've had to just think of stuff to do in the house (since Husband is still working on his PhD, his days are spent writing dissertations and papers so I have to occupy my own time. Which is fine, I'm just letting you know). I've done cleaning and organizing and then a couple of days ago, I decided to tackle the ultimate project: the shed outside.
The shed is a monster. It's a good sized shed, but the thing that I have working against me is that the people who lived here before us left a ton of stuff in there. I never realized how much they left in there until this cleaning endeavor. I now know they left:
Enough wood (fence wood? Wood slats? I'm honestly unsure of what they were there for or being used for) to fill the back of my SUV twice (in taking them to the dumpsters).
Oodles and oodles of paint cans, stain, spray paint, cleaning supplies from 1900, and garden supplies
Tubes, empty cardboard boxes, ropes, PVC pipes with giant rebar inside (??)
So yes, a lot. I've filled up 2 garbage cans with garbage, the aforementioned twice filling of my car, and then I spent a good chunk of time organizing, sweeping, mopping (YES I mopped my OUTDOOR shed and I honestly feel good about it).
It took me a few days and honestly, I have never been so proud of something I've done before in my life.

I understand that I forgot to get a 'before' picture, and that's okay. The view here is just so pretty ... it's probably better if you knew the hellhole it was before, but I think this is pretty dang impressive nevertheless.

A Clean Fridge is a Happy Fridge

For the last week, every time I look in the fridge, I see how dirty it is. There's crumbs everywhere, there are rings from the containers, oh man, the thing is a mess. So finally today I was like, hey. I have some time, I'm cleaning it. I realize now I should have taken a pic of it before I cleaned, to show how it looked. But now, it looks like this!

OOoooh! Aaaaaaah! 

And then I decided to take a pic of all the food on the counter, just for no reason, actually. But yay! It's clean! I'm proud of the work I did and now can't wait to see how long it takes to get dirty again hahah.

How to Clean a Crock Pot

Yesterday, I brought a soup to a friend in the ward, their family’s oven/stove burned and they don’t have one for a while, so we’ve all chipped in. After I dropped off the crockpot of soup over, I noticed, my base was dirty and gross, and needed to be cleaned.

Gross gross gross. So I looked up tips on the internet and for most of them, I didn’t have the right things at home to clean so I went with one that was easy: Just use oven cleaner. So I did. I took the crockpot outside, and sprayed the inside of it liberally until it was coated in foam, and then I let it sit out there for an hour. An hour plus 10 minutes, if we’re being honest, because I had forgotten about it.

Then I brought it back inside, and was supposed to use a sponge to clean it but as it turned out, I had no sponges in the house! Sheesh. I instead grabbed a washcloth, made it wet, and then I just wiped out the inside, and scrubbed at the harder stains. After a few minutes:

Ta-daaaa! It’s clean, and I’m happy with it. I recommend this as a way to clean, in case you’re looking for a way.

Foto Friday

Last night when I got home from work, I decided to give the kitchen a full cleaning. I washed every surface, I cleaned every dish, I cleaned out the fridge, both freezers, and swept. When I was surveying the finished product, I realized I needed something out of the junk drawer, and then I thought, I may as well give that a clean, too. So I took everything out.

The banana didn’t go in there, of course, it was just hanging out. And I don’t know what the black thing is. Anyway, I threw away things I no longer needed, and just put everything in nicer. I know that the definition of junk drawer is that its messy, but that’s not how I roll. The finished product:

And there things will stay for a little while, at least. I felt good about my progress.

I've been working on IKEA...all the live long day...

I am making all sorts of changes to my house right now. I have a shindig on Wednesday (details to come!) so this is the perfect excuse for me to get things finished. Husband spent all day painting the last tiny bit of hallway/ceiling, and I decided to put together all the IKEA furniture I bought. I started the day bright and early with making myself this bookshelf:

Nice, eh? When we first moved in, I brought a billion books, games, DVD’s, etc, and Husband brought…well, himself. And some clothes. Finally a couple of weeks ago, out came all his stuff. Apparently, it was all hiding at a friend’s house, and he finally brought it. It required us to get a new bookshelf for all his books, but at least now I don’t just think he’s a drifter, going to kill me after we’ve been together for a while. So after putting together the bookshelf, I populated it with our books. You can tell the difference between mine and his books: my books are awesome and fun, great to read and his are all…educational? That’s ok, I’ll stick with my own stuff.
After the shelf cleaning and putting away of things, we got to work on the new chairs I bought. My house has only 6 places to sit in the front room, and (fingers crossed!) more people than that will show up. So I bought some cheapie chairs from IKEA, a little assembly required. They didn’t take that long to put up. Here’s some in the process:

And here it is, all done.

I chose red and black chairs, to match the colors of the kitchen. Like that matters in a chair. But with these chairs, the couches, and some barstools from the kitchen, I feel confident that I can provide seating for those that come to party.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted. And for some reason, my knees got all tore up during the day of putting things together.

Look how sad they look, all red and sore. They’re still a little sore today. Luckily, I rarely have to get on my knees during working hours, so I think they’re healing.

And there it is. My day of assembling, cleaning, and organizing. I feel pretty good about all that I accomplished, but boy am I glad it's over!

Ketchup

All right, I know it’s been a while since I’ve been here. In my defense, I have been a little busy. What with the moving, the unpacking, the cleaning, the painting, the mounting of pictures, etc, I still haven’t had very much free time at all. But here’s me, hopping onto here, to explain where I’ve been.

Last week, it was my birthday. My desk was decorated awesomely by Chelle. She did a princess theme this year, as you can see. Last year, she did a theme for soccer, my favorite thing ever, but because the balloons were black and white, everyone assumed she was calling me over-the-hill, which of course, she wasn’t. So this year, pink was the theme!

Also, she got me a crown to wear that day, and I got to wave wands around. I wore the crown until the night, when I went up into the canyon for a dinner ‘round the fire. I didn’t want my crown to ruin, obvs. But it was a fabulous birthday, (thanks Chelle for the awesome work experience) and I loved turning…late twenties. :)

The rest of my time has basically been spent cleaning. Cleaning the new house, cleaning the apartment (which, we finally accomplished on Sunday, and then got to hand over the keys on Monday, so we’re all done with that, woohoo!) and just…general fixing up of stuff. We’ve been putting up blinds, changing light bulbs, etc. This weekend, we’ll be taking advantage of (read:ruining) the three day weekend by finishing all of the painting once and for all. All that we have left to paint: the 2 stairwells and the 2 bathrooms. I have confidence that those painting (I still will not, sorry everyone) will finish the job awesomely, and I will be…hanging out, doing something. Lets be honest, I’ll probably be cleaning. There are still a few boxes that I need to clean out, but for the most part, until I get some bookshelves, I can’t unpack anything else. Hopefully I’ll be able to get those soon, so I can finally feel like we’re moved in. Another thing that’ll help with that is if we actually got furniture into the front room. So far, we’ve been using that room as a dumping ground for things that we don’t know where to put yet. So it looks a little like we’re awkward hoarders.

So there it is. That’s what I’ve been doing. Nothing exciting, but I can feel that soon, in my future, we’ll be able to have a day where all I have to do is sit and do absolutely nothing. I look forward to this day. And when it happens, I’ll be singing from the rooftops.

What was I thinking?

With the addition of my brother to my house, there are definitely more things around. And I’m trying not to be all anal-retentive about it, but it’s hard. I have to bite my tongue whenever I go into his room (my office) and I try to understand that he needs the space too, especially in the bathroom. Since there’s more than one person using the bathroom, it tends to get dirty quicker. I don’t always have the time to clean it, so yesterday, I asked him to clean it while I was at work. This was a mistake.
He didn’t get it cleaned while I was at work, he was out doing…ok, I actually don’t know what he was doing, but he wasn’t home. When I got home, he had actually gotten home a few minutes before me. He assured me, however, that he would be cleaning it post haste. I relaxed, and started watching my Ellen. Every few minutes, he would shout something from the bathroom, be it to make fun of me for all the hair stuff I have in there, or a question about the cleaning stuff. I had told him where all the cleaning supplies were, but of course, he couldn’t find it until I came in there to show him where it was. And he kept shouting questions to me, and after about 20 minutes of this, I was ready to kill him! But he seemed to be doing a good job, so I just left him to do his thing. After he finished, he called me in to look at it, to show me what a good job he did, and he did do one. It was looking pretty good in there. He left, and I stayed in there, to do my usual making-sure-everything-is-in-the-same-place-I-left-it thing. Holy crap, he didn’t leave anything in the right places! The hair products were askew, and he had changed up where everything in the shower was. I had to put everything back where it was.
I know it’s my fault for being crazy, and for asking him to do it, but oh man. I opened the cupboard, and everything down there was in disarray. The towels were not where they go, it was like he just shoved everything back in there when he got finished. I know I should be grateful that he even cleaned it in the first place, and I am. It’s better than me just cleaning it all alone.