Pantry is finished!!

Well I finished the pantry. It only took about 30 minutes (love when it is quick like that). Really this was more reorganization than organizing. It just had to be cleaned up since it hadn't been touched for at least a year or more.









The neatness doesn't totally come across on the picture, but believe me it looks SO MUCH better!!

I went through shelf by shelf taking everything out, getting rid of what I didn't need and putting like items together for ease of use. The top shelf is baking items. The middle shelf is canned goods and other items that may be used for cooking meals. The bottom shelf is cereal, snacks and drink mixes. I moved medications to the door (very top 2 shelves out of reach from the little one), and the spices are now on the sides of the sliding shelves. The bottom two racks on the door have been intentionally left empty so that the little tornado can't get into them.

Overall, it was quick and easy. Felt good to throw out old items and now things are so easy to find. Plus it's a lot easier on the eyes. Very therapeutic!!

I have come to the realization that my son's closet is going to take a while. It requires the initial organization as well as purchasing items for ease of use for both him and I. But I will post pics as I go and when it is finished.

In the meantime I have picked another project - a cabinet in the kitchen. I plan on doing the entire cabinet, but my motivation is the bottom shelf (see picture). It has become the tossing place for items we want to keep away from the tornado - in other words, Oh, my gosh I can not take it if he plays with/gets into that one more time!!! However, things are beginning to fall out and we can no longer find things that we have put in there, so it is time to tackle it!!

The picture on the left is the entire cabinet.

The picture on the right is zoomed in on the dreaded bottom shelf.

New Projects

I have two new projects I am undertaking. Both are being tackled due to both want and need. I want them organized, but they NEED to be organized because of the little 2 year old tornado I have running around my house.

The first is the little tornado's closet. He moved into his room a couple of months ago and before that it was the "catchall" room. I cleaned most of it out before his move, but didn't get to all of it. No big deal since he's 2 and doesn't really use the closet. Recently, though, my husband removed the doors (due to the tornado's habit of slamming them and pushing them out). So now I have to see the mess every time I go in there.

I'm not a huge fan of open closets. I think they work well in an office or a nursery (especially if the changing table is in there). They have to be kept very neat to look good, but seeing as I don't have a choice I'm gonna do my best! I know I want to get some colored bins to match his room and maybe one of those hanging fabric shelves to put daily clothes choices (we are also going to work on him dressing himself), but not sure what else I want to do.

Any suggestions? Anyone done an open closet? What worked and what didn't work?

The second project is my kitchen pantry. Not long after we moved in my husband built shelves that slide out. This was SO helpful, because my pantry is deep which means it has lots of room, but you could never see what was in the back.

Well, after 3 years of living here - it is a mess again. I also need to find a new spot for spices or anything I currently keep in shelves on the door that can be poured our or sprayed. Feel free to read this as "my 2 year old tornado has a current obsession with spilling and spraying anything he can get his hands on and it's driving me nuts".

Since I'm doing 2 at one time this could take awhile. Plus, one can only be done when he is awake and the other is probably best left for when he is asleep. I will let you know how it goes and post after pictures.

Hello old friend

Okay, so I've been TOTALLY slacking at this, but in my defense I did have a baby in April. Truth is I've just been busy organizing around the house in prep for bringing baby home and adjusting to life with 2 kids, and I've let this slide. But I"M BACK, and I'm hoping to take this to the level that I originally intended - sharing my ideas/tips, what I do to keep my house/life organized. Or as organized as our chaotic lives can be :)

So far I have focused on the financial organizing that I do. I continue to do that and will update from time to time as I adjust what I do to work for me and my family and share it in hopes that it inspires you or helps in some way. I also like to get ideas from others on what they do. That's how we learn best - from each other.

I've recently decided to make an adjustment to our budget. Here's some background to explain why.

For the budget I encourage everyone to have goals to work towards. Well, we have several that we work on at the same time. We are working towards paying off student loans and our mortgage early. We are also working towards early retirement and building a 6 month emergency fund.

As you can imagine this eats up a lot of our budget and leaves little wiggle room. We are fine with the limited cash we get per week because we know we are working towards things that are important to us; however our last goal is not being met. Just as we put money in we are pulling some out to cover expenses such as the fridge repair man, car repairs, home repairs or improvements etc.

This has led me to alter our plan. See, I'm an instant gratification kinda person so I kept thinking the more I put in the emergency fund the faster we would get the 6 months saved up. True - but it wasn't working, we need a little more wiggle room, obviously, or we wouldn't keep dipping into the fund.

So now I'm going to take 10% of what we were saving out and keep it for those expenses that seem to pop up. Hopefully, this will help us reach our goal faster and keep us from dipping :)

I'll let you know how it goes! Any tips or ideas that you use/do?