Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Spring Break Adventures, Part 2

I told you we stuck around for Spring Break, opting for the mental break, instead of the physical one. We've got a lot on our plates right now, and I've got to tell you, it felt good to check out of the rat race for a bit. We also spent a little time with family, which was nice.

It can't all be about putting your feet up and eating bon-bons every day, though: I wanted to get something accomplished while we had some down time. So, I worked on the storeroom some more! I now have my butler's pantry (woo-hoo!!), I conquered the Mighty Magazine Mountain, and added a bit of food storage to our Mother Hubbard shelves. We just have one small area of shelves to declutter (Mr. H's stuff), and then the whole project will be complete. (insert happy dance here)

Here are some pictures. This is gonna be a picture heavy post. Sorry. A picture's worth a thousand words with this project! :-)

what a mess!

Declutter projects are always messy for me. I'm chucking things, making piles, creating havoc. From the chaos comes order.... by the way, I really REALLY wanted to show you my mighty magazine mountain I conquered:  I'm just too embarrassed.  It's right around that corner. Once I got started decluttering them -- sorting them into donate, keep, and trash piles -- well,  the whole storeroom floor was covered in mags, peeps. (sigh) What can I say here? I love to collect ideas. I love magazines. But I love order and freedom more. Bye bye, mags!

bye bye Family Fun magazines

I'm looking for a place to donate these to. Any ideas?

finally - empty shelves!

Finally! Down to empty shelves!

bins on standby!

A quick trip to Target to get bins...

packed up for the garage

All seasonal decorations packed up, and labeled. Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall.
You are moving to the garage. Sayonara!

ready for the garage

Off you go, then!

butler's pantry in the basement 

How do you like my butler's pantry? I don't cuss my kitchen as much, now that I have this space to hold my "extras". Yes -- those are some magazines.  But only my Victoria collection -- I could *not* part with these, people.  They are my little recessionista getaways. If you know this magazine, you know what I'm talking about here. I organized them by season. Great tip, Betsy! Thank you!

a good home for my extra dishes

Yay! Room for storing my extra sets of dishes. 

take that mother hubbard! starting on the food storage

Bye, bye junk room. Hello STORE-room. We've made a start on our food storage. With our current situation, we have got to start small and go slow. We are adding a little here and there, week by week.  We're gonna store what we need, and more importantly, what we'll EAT. (anybody else remember TVP buckets in their house growing up? LOL) I can't think of a smarter thing to do in these unsettled times, than to have a little set aside. I'm going to post what we're adding to our shelves week by week. You can follow along. Food storage week by week? I can handle that!

This week:  DRY or CANNED MILK

Once Mr. H is working steadily again, I'm going here and really stocking up. Love this site!

Just looking at those shelves gives me peace. I am so dang excited to use this room and those beautiful shelves!

counting my blessings that I got this project done

It's all about making your home a haven for your family. Has there been a better time to do this, than now? Transforming our junk room into a storeroom has helped me move closer to this personal goal. Having this room serve us, as it was designed to, helps me be happy with what I have, and shows me the true abundance I live in, despite our current situation.  Counting blessings. Happy.

9 comments:

Deanna said...

That looks amazing, Wendy!!! Congrats on such a great accomplishment! Maybe you could donate the old mags to a local elementary or 4-H office - they're always looking for magazines to cut up for collages. No offense to the magazines...or you.

We have also been working on organization (slowly) and building up a food supply (slowy, too). But you know what? It's the fact that we're doing it that makes me so stinking happy!

Way to Go!

Rebekah said...

Can you come to my house and help me declutter....or perhaps keep the little ones out of my piles????

What's that you say?...You have a life? (Deep sigh) Okay. I'll clean up my own mess.

I have the desire, but to get it done before someone destroys my organization piles is such a joke.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to engage in a little Moonlight Madness. (:

Thanks for the inspiration. I was eying those very same bins at Target today....

Christine said...

Nice work, looks great and I bet it feels even better to have all that finished.
Yes, the pictures are worth it. Especially, the last one!

Linda said...

Congrats on all of your progress during spring break! It feels so refreshing to de-clutter and that has been one of my goals this year too. I've worked on it bit by bit and am now seeing light at the end of the tunnel. It feels so good doesn't it!

Isabelle said...

hi Wendy, it must be a real pleasure for you to walk into your new uncluttered room.

We do have a website similar to that here for helping us plan meals. They research the flyers, have all kinds of menus for people with special dietary needs.
http://www.soscuisine.com/?sos_l=en

It was very bizarre to see such a large quantity of food. Here, I am trying to do the exact opposite for our move in nine weeks!

Mama Williams said...

Catching up on your blog....
I am so proud of you!! Recycle those magazines! Isn't it so liberating to declutter and organize? I love it, love it! Great job Wendy!!

And do you really like Spagetti-O's?

Wendy said...

That would be my daughter....LOL

And my shelves are pretty Mother-Hubbardly right now. I shared a close up picture, showing the *few* items we've got stored. Baby-steps, baby-steps....

Spaghettios are a great place to start! ;-)

Anonymous said...

It looks wonderful, Wendy! Way to go! And, glad to help with the magazine sorting idea. :)

Another idea for what to do with the extra mags -- perhaps you can find a Meals on Wheels group that would want to include them with the meals delivered? We do something similar with children's books/magazines added to meals delivered to kids in a summer meal program through the local food pantry.

And SpaghettiOs -- I hope you save the UPCs for your local Campbell's Labels collection. :)

Betsy

Wendy said...

I don't save them anymore, but I did save labels for her in elementary school, and I remember my Mom doing the same for me! I l♥ve the Campbell's label program!