The Nose Knows

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The pantry is coming together finally. I’ve spent several days in there, trying to make sense of things that we’ve been stashing wherever there was room. Since it’s a walk-in pantry (one of our priorities when we built our home about 35 years ago), there is a lot of room to stash before attention is seriously needed.

This is the ‘supplies’ side of the pantry. It holds kitchen and bathroom supplies, cooking supplies and appliances, cleaning supplies, medicine, etc.

I tackled this yesterday. I hate to admit that I found some cans that had failed on the bottoms, making a mess, expired foods, boxes of food that were old or failing, etc. I cleaned it all out, threw out a bunch, cleaned the shelves and reorganized things so they’re easy to see and access. This was the part my husband noticed yesterday. :0)

This is the area I’m planning to attack today. I have boxes and a loose organization, but again, things have been stashed. Some things need to be tossed, due to age or non-use. I want to organize better, so I can find the things I’ve purchased for particular recipes, as well as figure out things that I need for the new Mediterranean form of cooking I’m starting. I’m hoping that this project will wrap up today. I’m loving the clean smell as I enter the pantry now.

Today’s Project – Thursday, July 30th

I have this nice little desk in our kitchen. The shelves above are a combination medicine and first aid supplies area. All too often it becomes a catch-all area, piled up with various things.  Today’s project was to clear off the desk, go through the things on the shelves, look for expired meds, and reorganize.

 

Things are more organized now and much cleaner. :0)

Jewelry Findings Area Reorganized

This is my jewelry findings area now. You can see my wooden ‘thingie’ on the left and the tabletop filing cabinet on the right.

 

The wonderful wooden thingie now holds earring cards, labels, glue, tootpicks, glue, string, and marshmallow backs for French hooks.

 

The top of the filing cabinet has my tools, a short ruler, a cup I use for pics, a bottle of glue and some pages of stick-on bling.

 

GOLD French hooks, straight pins, jump rings, etc.

 

SILVER French hooks, straight pins, jump rings, etc. + a box of assorted.

 

Stainless steel studs, backs, clip-on findings, etc., + a couple of rubber stamp thingies that are great for carrying post earrings back and forth.

I’ll probably refine this as I use it, but I now have all the findings together and my table is clear for my calendar and office type stuff. :0)

 

 

Today’s Project is Completed!

BEFORE

 

 

NOW

Today’s Project 1-25-2020

So far today I cut up raw veggies and put them in containers in the fridge for lunches and snacks and cleaned out the aquarium.  (I’ll show you pics in a few minutes.) THIS is today’s main project.

We use the shelves above my kitchen desk as a combination medicine cabinet for downstairs and a first aid station. We would like to be able to find meds quickly, since patience is not our long suit if we’re in pain, for example, or having something else for which we would like quick relief.

It has gotten to the point that if we try to take something off the shelf, something ELSE might come with it!

You can also see in the picture below that my desk has ‘disappeared.’

I will try to fix this today.

 

Pantry Project

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This obviously isn’t my pantry, but it shows my feelings right now. I’m a bit overwhelmed, even though I AM making some progress (I think.)

Two years ago, more or less, I cleaned out our walk-in pantry and felt very virtuous. I’m both a bit of a hoarder and a slob, so getting the whole area cleaned out felt great. Then two years of essentially stuffing things wherever I could find a spot ensued. ( Did I mention I’m a slob?)

SO – We have been eating keto for awhile now. Both of us are very happy with the food we can eat, and I’m adding to our ‘go-to’ GOOD recipes all the time. That said, I’ve been noticing that I’m having to dig deeply to get to the things or appliances I want, and this is dumb. What I use all the time should be easily accessible.

So today I’ve started cleaning out the pantry, either giving away or storing what we aren’t using, throwing away what we’re not eating, and re-organizing the rest.  So far, I’ve spent an hour and a half, basically making a mess in there. This will improve the more time I spend in there, so I’m concentrating on not feeling overwhelmed and running away.

I am officially taking a break now and we’ll have lunch, and then I’ll do another hitch. This will probably take a couple of days. I’ll take pics when the job is finally done.

I hope I’m not the ONLY person who needs to clean stuff out….

 

 

Hello!

Wild and Wonderful

I hope you’re having a wonderful Wednesday.

It’s nice and fall-like here, with sunshine. It’ll get to 60 today. I’m lovin’ it!

My back is almost completely healed now, so I’m very grateful.  I’ll continue to do the multiple sessions each day until the soreness is gone.

I’m continuing to gather things for the first declutter donation.

AND I’m hoping to sneak up to my art room this afternoon.

Have a wonderful day, everyone.

 

The Great De-Clutter – Phase 2

Deposit Photos

A year ago we made a donation to the Disabled Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith every month, trying to help others while we cleared things out here, room by room.  The reason we have so much clutter is that we have lived in this house for over 30 years now. It has a good amount of storage space, so we have made generous use of it. Both my husband and I tend to save things, thinking “we might need it later.” Needless to say, we ended up with waaaaay too much ‘stuff.’

After a year of trying to declutter, we made good progress. So I sat on my laurels and we only did a few donations in 2019. Lately, it has become obvious that we need a Phase II of the decluttering project.

This time I’m starting in the kitchen/dining area/pantry, since I realized that with our following the keto eating plan, many of the things I used to use on a daily basis are gathering dust and taking up space.  I’m going to do a big reorganization of the kitchen and pantry, putting the things I use all the time in prime storage space and moving the other things onto high shelves in the pantry. Some things I will donate.

Assuming I ever finish in this area – a BIG job – I will then move from room to room, gathering things to give away, if they can be enjoyed by others, or thrown away.

I’m not going to set a once-a-month time frame this time. I’m going to take my time and try to concentrate on making the area work better for us.

So far, we have filled a long box with glasses that were cluttering the cabinets and the pantry.

Wish me luck?

 

DeCluttering

Sarcasm Meets Humor via Nora Hall

Cleaning Up the Greenhouse

This is the greenhouse we built a couple of years ago. It has withstood all kinds of storms and gusty winds and I’m very grateful.

Lately I’ve tried several times to get spinach seeds to sprout so that I could transplant them into our square foot garden on the opposite side of our property. So far, my moniker, “Serial Seed Killer” remains applicable. All I’ve created in here is a mess.

Today, while my husband mows the lawn using our lovingly refurbished, very old riding mower (WEARING A HAT, I hope!) I’m going to be cleaning things up in the greenhouse, armed with a fly swatter and wasp spray.

 

When he finishes mowing, I’ll string the extension cord across the yard and plug it in at the outdoor receptacle at the house so I can run the exhaust fan. It’s hooked up to a thermostat that turns it off and on depending on the temperature set, to try to cool things off. This works pretty well in the spring, but we give it up in the summer. Even with the exhaust fan and the one on the table going, plus have the door at the opposite end propped open, it gets too hot in here.

I’m basically trying to extend our growing season as much as possible, growing new plants to put in the garden at the proper time.

I have lots of good supplies. I’ll try to get things better organized and ready to plant more seeds.

I try to plant things on this side of the greenhouse, and I keep the water here.

I’ll feel happier when it looks more like someone has a plan in here, rather than everything just being ‘dumped.’ :0)

 

Decluttering

Oldtimers via Stephanie Youmans Wilson

Donation

dohanews.co

Yesterday I finished (more or less) cleaning out my closet.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year was to try to make donations to the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith and our local library once a month.

Today was donation #9 for the year to the Veterans Thrift Store, so I’m a bit ahead on my goal!  I’m not doing as well on donations to the local library. I’ve only done 4 this year, so will have to step up my efforts.

It feels good to be going through our things, purging what we’re not using, seeing that other people have access to what they might enjoy, and having less ‘STUFF.’

I have some fine tuning on my closet, but I’m almost there. :0)

Closet Purge/Reorganization Project Finished

I have now finished going through my closet with my hot weather clothes, all my shoes, purses, scarves, etc. For me, this is good. Before, my shoes were all over the floor, for example. To the right of the shelves you can see my scarves and a hint of my purses.

 

My shoes are actually in the shelves for shoes now!

 

Casual tops are on the top. Dressier (as far as I GET dressier) on the bottom.)

I’ve tried everything on and have brought a LOT of stuff downstairs and dumped it in the foyer corner until I start listing and bagging things for donation to the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. THAT’S for another day, though.

I’m going to go put my feet up and dive into another book. :0)

Pantry Project – Day 4

cutmild.blogspot.com

This is Day 4 of the Clean-Out-The-Pantry project, and I HOPE it will be the last. I’m hanging in there, but I have to admit I’m pretty bushed. I now have 7 large trash bags in the garage to go out Monday evening, and we haven’t started gathering the ‘regular’ trash for the week! We do have several things to give to Methodist Church’s food pantry when I get finished, and I’ve gathered several things for the next trip to the Veterans Thrift Store.

One thing that has helped is we got 6 large plastic see-through bins so I can put like things together, such as sugar substitutes, or low carb baking mixes, or different kinds of flour. I used 4 yesterday and we went back today – since we’re due for freezing rain all day today into tomorrow, and shopped for groceries, too – to get 2 more. I THINK that should finish it. It will certainly make cleaning easier in the future.

Other than my husband’s sacred ‘chips and crackers food group,’ we’re pretty much down to things we can/should eat now in the pantry. Things won’t be so jammed together and it’ll be easier to find things.

If I finish today, I’ll post pics.

I hope you’re having a wonderful day.

And Yet Another Project…

laughpls.blogspot.com

This purging/cleaning/re-organizing ‘trip’ I’ve been on continues. It may drive me to drink because it’s not like me at all. I may be in the running for the world’s worst housekeeper. I’m not DIRTY, but I’m not NEAT, either. It has been over 30 years since we built our home on top of our ridge line in Greenwood, Arkansas. We have a nice, big house that encourages one to keep bringing more into it. And we have. Things come in, but rarely go out.

I finally decided that enough was enough (to coin a phrase :0) ) and am determined to use this year to really clean things out around here. I’ve also made a promise to do it again every thirty years…..

I’m trying to get donations together once a month – every month – this year for our local library in Greenwood and the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. We made a donation to the Veterans store earlier this month, and today we took several bags of books to our local library, just in time to make our goal for January!

My new project is to go through what I call my cleaning closet in the utility room. It’s to the point that if I brought another cleaning supply of anything into the house it COULD IN NO WAY go into the closet…. Things don’t fly out at you when you open the door, but….. UGH.

This is the infamous cleaning closet in the utility room. I had to open the door to the garage to get these pictures.

Ugh. Things don’t fall out when I open the door, but it’s close. Things have been jammed in there for years and I can’t even see what’s behind the stuff at the front of the shelves.

top shelf

 

I don’t believe anyone could get one more thing on these shelves. I hang my head in shame, but I AM going to try to do something about it now.

Pretty frightful, isn’t it.

 

I’m going to tackle this one shelf at a time. This may take a couple of days, but I’m determined to make this much more usable.

Here I go!

 

“Bit by a Dead Bee”

pearlsofpromiseministries.com

I know that this title was one of the episodes of Breaking Bad on TV, but my parents were using the term when I was growing up in the dark ages, so I think the TV folks borrowed it. My parents used it to describe frenzied behavior of any type, and I use it here in the same way.

I have definitely been ‘bit by a dead bee,” in that I’ve done more cleaning out and re-organizing around my house than I’ve done in years. I don’t know WHICH dead bee bit me, but I’m thinking of marking this period of behavior totally unlike me on my calendar. it’s so rare.

It started before Thanksgiving, when I was running the bulldozer trying to get the house at least marginally presentable for our friend Nora to come share Thanksgiving dinner with us. I cleaned off the usual really piled up areas, and then I was ‘bit.’ I have been feeling the need to get rid of ‘stuff,’ either by donating it, throwing it away, or deciding where it should live. In each step MORE things that have been sorely neglected pop up to say, “And what have you done for ME lately?”

For the past day or two, the focus has been on my desk. I have a roll top wooden desk that we bought 35 years or so ago. Since having this house built in 1987,  I have put things INTO the drawers, but then they get lost in the shuffle, never to be seen again – until now.

I love my desk. It has a nice flat space for working with a tray type center drawer underneath and then three drawers on either side. Two of the drawers on the sides are small and two are file cabinet type drawers. At the top of each side, right under the flat part of the desk, are two pull-out pieces for extra writing space. Above the flat part of the desk there are two reasonable-sizes drawers, one on each side. Above each of these are three small drawers then between them, going across the desk are slots. Above that, is the roll top which I can pull down, if I’d like. (Usually, there is so much ‘stuff’, it isn’t possible to close it. I just love the roll top for its looks.)

So – 7 drawers under the flat part of the desk, 8 above the flat part, 2 shelves, and 7 slots. That’s a LOT of space for someone like me to squirrel away goodies and stuff for a long time, ignoring the buildup.

I have finished cleaning out the drawers now and am concentrating on the flat part of the desk which has received stuff I’d like to keep, but either put away in the now clean drawers, move somewhere else, or give away. I’ve filled a big trash can, too.

I think it was definitely due some attention. I’ll take pics when it’s finished.

Master Bath Cleaning/Reorganization Project is Finished!

One set of shelves

 

Second set of shelves

 

Main part of bathroom – vanities are on the right. Closet is to the right, as well. Shower to the left.

 

Vanities with now clean/organized drawers!

 

Shower room – shower is to the right.

 

My closet.

The project took several days, but we spent several YEARS stuffing things into drawers and shelves. We can find everything now. Nothing falls on us when we open a door, cabinet door, or drawer. We actually have lots of places we can put things! It will take us a bit of time to get things as out-of-control as they were. The trash man will be impressed with the amount of ‘stuff’ we’re getting rid of this week. :0)