21 Day Organizing Challenge

Toni at A Bowl Full of Lemons is hosting a "21 days to getting organized" challenge.  What a great way to get back into the swing of things after the holidays ransack your home! I don't know about you, but my home always feels ransacked after I've had company.

....sort of.

Well I'm jumping in 10 days late - but in my defense we've been reno'ing the basement so I haven't had much time to do anything else!  Lucky for me, I tackled a few of the projects in Nov/Dec so I'm going to be sneaky and put up my old posts....instead of redo'ing it! A girl can only organize and reorganize so much! I was all ready to jump in on day 6....but it was the dresser drawers and my hubby was sleeping all day (shift worker extraordinair).  So these are the ones I have done....I'm hoping to do the other ones too.

Day 1: The Junk Drawer - check out my new and improved junk drawer.  As you can see I started a Get'er Done series in hopes that I would be inspired to tackle some of the bigger projects around the house.....as you can also see...the junk drawer is the first and last project in that series....eek.

Day 5: Under the Kitchen Sink - I had a few moments the other day and I thought I'd tackle this one - how happy was I to open my cupboard and realize that I really didn't need to do any organizing at all under there! Go me!



Check out that gorgeous wall paper under there!

I keep a spray bottle of GreenWorks concentrate mixed with water on my kitchen counter for all spills that require something other than water and elbow grease. The few bottles in the blue bin include some old dusting spray...which I guess I could toss 'cause I use a damp cloth now, some brick cleaner and some dollar store window cleaner that I got as a shower present 4 years ago!  Goes to show how often I clean my windows!  It will be replaced by vinegar and water when the bottle is empty.  The back of the bin is full of old rags and there's an old toothbrush in there too. I don't seem to need anything more than that to tackle even the worst messes!


Day 7: The Pantry  - dun dun dun.  This one needed it REALLY badly so I'm soooo glad I found a few extra minutes between coats of paint to pull everything out and organize.  Here's a before:

 My pantry is a tiny 2 ft closet - I realize I'm lucky to even HAVE a pantry, but oh how I covet those wonderful walk-in pantries with the lights and the frosted glass doors.  One day, one day, you'll see.

My biggest problem was the never-ending collection of bags.  They all had tiny little amounts of...whoknowswhat and because I couldn't always see what all was in there, I kept buying more and more.  Ugh. 

As much as I love beautiful containers, I opted to make use of what I had - canning jars, pickle jars and various plastic containers.  All my bulk items went into their own jars.  I already had a cute set of glass containers from the dollar store that I used for smaller amounts. 

I did splurge and bought two pretty bins for my flour.  I've started buying it in 20kg bags from Costco (cheap like borscht!) so I needed bigger bins so I wasn't trekking downstairs once a week to filler up.

I also bought the burgandy stackables on the right of the top shelf.  In there, I keep my tea towls, dish cloths and onions/garlic.  No more onion and garlic paper all over!



I can't get over how much space I have now! I keep trying to think of what else I can put in there to make more room elsewhere! Love it!

Haha ok, so maybe I've only done three of the days....I thought maybe I had more but oh well.  I'm in the process of tackling the storage area in the laundry room..... here's a before just so you know what I'm dealing with!

That second closet looks about the same as the first.  It needs some serious help - I don't even know what's in there anymore! The worst part about doing storage areas is that if you tackle one...you almost always have to tackle the other one(s).  We have two and I just know I'm going to have to do both at the same time otherwise I'm just gonna throw all this just into the space under the stairs!  I think I can get this done in two days - I'll call it my day 9 and 10 since I don't have toys to organize and sadly I don't have a laundry room either! Wish me luck!

Christmas Recap

I know, I know...it's almost a week into January already.  In my defense, we had "Christmas" with my family on New Years Day so I'm still in recovery mode from the holidays.

After three months of negotiating - THREE MONTHS - we managed to decide on spending 5 days at my hubby's parents place for Christmas and then have my parents and brother/wife come to our house for "Christmas" over New Years.

Holiday negotiating involves multiple phone calls between me, my parents, and my brother.....and occasionally the other two families we call in-laws. Let me clarify that hubs and I had everything alllllll figured out 'til my brother went and got married last year.  Somehow things are much more complicated now. Lord willing, we'll be able to settle into some sort of "holiday schedule" SOON!

Ok that said, our Christmas holidays went really well.  We spent 5 days in beautiful Grand Forks, BC.  Not North Dakota. B.C. Hubs and I both grew up there so it's always nice to go home and see some old faces and places.  We did some ice fishing, and snowboarding and watching movies in front of the fire.

This is how I ice fish..... Sometimes I sit down..but then I fall asleep. So standing is better.

Santa was good to me this year: 

All I need now is #16 on the back of this baby and I'm set! (That's Trevor Linden for the record)



A lot of women complain that their husbands never buy them anything good - NOT ME! My hubby always knows just what to get me! I have been wanting a Canucks jersey forever!

After a few days rest ..HA...by rest I mean frantically cleaning my house...my parents and brother/wife came on the 30th. AND IT WENT WELL! Praise the Lord, there is hope for us. 

We had so much fun playing pond hockey and games that make you do silly things. 

Santa made a second trip just for us and brought us AND my brother and wife:



Read it and weep ladies. I am the proud new owner of this beautiful new KitchenAid Mixer!

And, even though by some strange freak of nature, we had NO snow in town for Christmas, it was still full of fun and family. Plus, you can always find snow up here when you need to :)