Laughable Lists

Hello, my name is Caroline, and I have a list writing problem. Why is it a problem? Well... I write unrealistic, insanely long lists of tasks which I have every intention of completing RIGHT NOW. Never mind the need for sleep and normal human constraints. I just know that I. can. do. it.

Ha. Yeah. Sure. Afterall, I am a distant relative of Wonder Woman. I read it in a book somewhere. My list writing was so ridiculously unrestrained that I started writing, "What can I reasonably accomplish today?" at the top of the page before starting a list. When that didn't work, I started limiting the number of items on my "reasonable list" to 10. Which is perfectly reasonable, as long as one of those items isn't something like "construct a complex system of levies in your backyard". I would never write big ticket items like that on my list of 10 things to be accomplished today. Never.

To make things simpler, I even have different categories of lists: 

Today's To Do List (Get off your butt, lazy wench!)

Weekend To Do List (Woman! Stop trying to pencil in 'sleep past noon'!)

Long Term To Do List (Tasks for a Rainy Day)

DO RIGHT NOW! List (Or else!)

Daily Cleaning List (BOO!)

Weekly Cleaning List (Bleh!)

Random House Projects for People with Project ADD (Who me?)

I have them typed on different "sticky notes" on my desktop. They are easier to manage that way. ;)

Why all this talk of lists?

I was cleaning house today, when I came across a notebook from last year. In the notebook, I rediscovered this laughably long, unrealistic list of things I had planned to accomplish during spring break.

I wrote this list on a Friday night. When I looked like this:

I had Joseph Sunday morning.

Man plans. God laughs.

So, are you a list maker? And,more importantly, are you a reasonable list maker?

Vacuum Packing Cubes = Amazing Storage

Exhibit A: Excess amounts of infant clothing. Too small for Joseph.

Exhibit B: Space cube bag with vacuum seal capabilities that my mom gave me two years ago. I'm just now using it for the first time.

Exhibit C: Excess infant clothing in space cube and a very happy child-who-is-no-longer-an-infant. Sniff.

Exhibit D: Exuberant crinkly plastic bag slapping fun. Joseph 1. Bag 0.

Exhibit E: Vacuum sealed infant clothes. Half it's original size. Hell's yeah! I highly recommend these bags.

What is not exhibited is my poor child-who-is-no-longer-an-infant shaking, cowering, crying, and clinging to my leg as I use the vacuum to suck all of the air out of the bag. Not because I'm taking away his crinkly bag fun. No. Because he's kind of (very) afraid of the vacuum. But he doesn't crawl away from it. He crawls straight to me and holds on for dear life. Even though I'm standing right next to the vacuum.  Even if I put him down on the other side of the room as far away from the vacuum as possible, he crawls straight for me. Poor baby. Fortunately it only took about 30 seconds to shrinkify the clothes. He wasn't too traumatized.

I'm probably the meanest mother ever, but now I have plenty of space to pack away baby bottles, breast pumps, and other infant paraphernalia in the same bin. Victory. Sort of.

Tea. Jewelry. Same thing.

A while back, our super awesome Grandmom asked if any of us would like this empty tea box.

I thought, "Eh. Whatever. Nothin' special." And then I saw the inside. And I wanted it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. But I wanted it. Thank you, Sarah, for letting me have it ;). Turns out, it's the perfect jewelry box for a girl with approximately 12 pieces of jewelry.

Really, it's more like 15 pieces of jewelry. That's it. And it's wonderful. I thought about making myself some kind of framed jewelry display with this...

...but with only 15 pieces of jewelry, I thought that any sort of display would just look sparsely lame. I like my tea box much better.

Of course, I have the option of eventually painting the box, but for now I like the "Bentley's Finest Teas." I am a tea girl, after all. Coffee is seriously gross. Bleh.

What say you? Tea of coffee? You must choose. Choose wisely.

Dignity in the Bathroom

WARNING: Heavily girl-oriented post.

Phase 2 of the kids bathroom makeover was ruthless purging and organization. Phase 3 is hang artwork, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I think I'm getting better and better at this whole "be gone from my house useless items!" thing. I'm slowly making my way through my house one room at a time. With a trash can and a Goodwill box behind me.

Now, on to the ruthless organization. I am finding that the key to ruthless and contained (but pretty) organization is containers, containers, containers.

As a girl, there is one thing that I find particularly important to bathroom organization.

When mother nature drops in for her monthly visit, I don't want to be caught unawares with my pants around my ankles. Dignity, after all, must be preserved... even in the bathroom. No one wants to hop to the bathroom closet just because they weren't prepared with a tampon in hand when mother nature struck. That wouldn't be very dignified. So... simple solution. Keep the necessities very close to the toilet. Within arms reach.

And just in case that wasn't enough, look! I have more!

The drawers (from left to right) contain massive quantities of q-tips, bars of soap for my husband (so he doesn't get smelly :P ), and massive quantities of pads.

In the cabinets below are the shampoo... which you are lucky to have a glimpse of since Mr. Helpful was opening and closing the cabinet door as I was trying to get a picture. We'll just pretend he's the male version of Vanna White.

And then there is the conditioner in the other cabinet...

"Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really, fool? Really. Stop looking at me SWAN!" (Name that movie!)

On top of the vanity, in the lovely 1980 Hershey's tin from the Goodwill Outlet...

We have even MORE tampons! Be prepared, people! Dignity! It's all about dignity! I don't know what it says about me that I keep tampons in a tin that says "A kiss for you!" on it. I reason that chocolate and periods are typically linked, so it makes sense to me. Besides,  the tin was the perfect height for tampons.

The only jewelry box that survived the great jewelry purge is now home to hair ties, bobby pins, and barrettes.

I decided to keep lots of toilet paper located right in front of the toilet. In plain view for my poor guests. Again... no one wants to waddle over to the under the sink cabinet with their pants around their legs while hunting for TP. It's just not dignified.

It's also one less thing for my mother-in-law to yell at us about from the potty. ;)

I really wish that I had taken a before picture of this closet. Let's just say that it looked like a giant goat had consumed everything in CVS and then vomited it all into my closet. It was really bad But no more!

All of the first aid and medicine items are now neatly organized into bins and high up where little children can't easily reach them. The extra towels and face cloths are now hidden away in the closet instead of sitting out in an overflowing laundry basket in the middle of the floor. I can't tell you how proud I am to have towels in the bathroom closet. Sad. I know.

At the bottom, we have extra deodorant, razors, and body wash. To the right of those drawers, we have, that's right, EVEN MORE tampons and pads... Did I mention that my mother-in-law gets all of these things for free and has her very own drug store. It's great for pillaging. We never buy toiletries. NEVER, EVER.

Under the sink, we have extra TP in case someone gets the urge to waddle, nail care items, manicure materials, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwash, and hand soap.

There you have it. Everything in the bathroom has a logical home strategically placed close to where it is most needed. Strategically located to preserve the dignity of anyone who ever wants to use my only white porcelain throne. Yes. Dignity and toilets can coexist with one another.

By the way, the tour of the newly organized bathroom is mostly for my husband's sake... so that he can find things without directly asking me where they are ;). It can't hurt future guests either.

111 Things in 1/11 - COMPLETE!

I participated in Jenny at Words On Wendhurst's 111 things in 1/11 blog party last week. I gleefully gave away 139 articles of clothing to Goodwill. Today, before January had the chance to come to an end, I even more gleefully destroyed, reorganized, and removed over 50 additional items from my bathroom.

Most notably, I went through my jewelry boxes. Something I haven't done since... Oh... Ever. Seriously, I had things from the 7th grade in there. I'm pretty sure that one of my little jewelry boxes was even from the 7th grade. SERIOUSLY. THE 7TH GRADE. I'm a pack rat to my core. Or maybe a level one hoarder? It's a problem. I'm working on it. We'll just say I'm overly attached to sentimental objects.

Not any more! I detangled all of the necklaces, bracelets, and earrings... and removed other non-jewelry items...

Don't ask. I have no idea why they were in there.

Then I began picking out all of the jewelry I never and will never wear... because it's from the 7th grade.

I'm only surprised I didn't find any spikey punk bracelets or metal punk chain necklaces. Yeah. I went through a black nail polish punk phase with my sister. Dude.

It's ok to get rid of friendship bracelets and necklaces when you are 24, right? The Friendship Bracelet god won't smite me down, right?

Wow. I feel so junior high school right now. It's embarrassing. I think I made that lizard necklace at a sleepover on my friend Caitlin's bed the night before 9/11. I think my friend Tiffany had the matching "you and me for eternity" necklace. We were best buds in the 8th grade. Inseparable. Hopefully, I won't go to 8th grade friendship hell for this, but I just can't keep all of my jewelry for eternity.

Earrings next... And yes, Minnie Mouse was in my jewelry box. Again... I have NO IDEA why.

And those giant hoop earrings... I can't wear them and feel like an adult at the same time. I just can't. They make me feel like I should be on Jersey Shore, bobbing my head and shaking my finger with attitude.

It makes me feel as though I am Tina Tina Shamoose. "Hah-Low! Ding dong! Doorbell!"

Not that there is anything wrong with hoop earrings... but they just aren't me.
Then there were random unmatched earrings...

And this... There are no words for this...

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?! How did that even get in there? That is something my Grammy would wear. Somehow, I think that those jewelry boxes were in desperate, desperate need of a cleaning.

So... After all of the fun trips down memory lane, I eliminated:

3 watches

2 rings

4 hair clips

8 pairs/non-pairs of earrings

9 bracelets

11 necklaces

2 pins

4 jewelry boxes

7 expired toothpastes

2 expired mouthwashes
1 mini broken ironing board

In all, I removed 50 items + various expired fist aid, medicinal, and sunscreen items (I failed to count as I happily tossed them out!). Woo hoo!

I kept my Mickey Mouse watch, all of my pearl necklaces, and the few other necklaces that I am known to wear on occasion... Which is not very often, but still. A girl has to have some jewelry. I'm working on where I am going to store my (now) manageable jewelry collection.

Among the keepers were my Turkish amulet bracelet. In Turkey (where my Mom was born), it is believed that people with blue eyes are more susceptible to evil spirits. So, you wear the evil eye bracelets to ward off the bad spirits. And I just can't have bad spirits hanging around.

Then there is this super stylish accessory. I might get rid of it after the last movie comes out this summer. Maybe. I'll think about it.

And these are  necessary to everyday life.

It is important to keep sticker earrings on hand. You never know when you might need to give them out to little cousins. Or... You know... Wear them while prancing around the house with your sister and a pink feather boa. Not that I would ever do that. Ever.

What a successful day. Now, I'm going to take all of the possibly valuable silver & gold jewelry to a pawn shop and get whatever I can out of it.

Oh, and Mr. Helpful wanted you to know that he was indispensable to the jewelry elimination process. Indispensable, I tell you.

Can you tell that I like pearls? I don't think I have enough. Don't worry, they are all in different styles. ;)

All together, that makes 189+ items gone in the month of January! Mission complete! And man, oh, man does it feel good! Thanks for the prompting, Jenny!

111 Things in 1/11

Jenny at Words on Wendhurst is hosting a blogging party throughout January called 111 Things in 1/11. She's doing some New Year's cleaning - getting rid of 111 items in her house in the month of January. Since Stephen and I are both MAJOR pack rats and disorganized to boot, I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

I started by tackling our closets and dressers. I hadn't even touched my t-shirt drawer in months. No way did I need an entire deep drawer filled with t-shirts that I never wear. It seemed like a good place to start.

13 dresses
10 shirts
20 my tshirts
8 pants
6 pj pants
9 sweaters
12 bras
4 winter hats
3 scarves
3 sets of gloves
4 blazers
8 pairs of shoes
6 jackets
1 ugly heart shaped coat rack
1 ugly corner shelving unit

Stephen even approved and allowed me to throw out a bunch of his clothes. I was impressed.

5 really ugly ties
5 Stephen's sweatshirts
8 Stephen's tshirts
5 collared button up shirts
16 stephen's old pants
5 stephen's old shorts


139 items in all. 6 trash bags and 1 box.
And that's not counting the numerous old socks, underwear, and stockings that I threw out.

I rocked 111 items in 1/11 in one fell swoop. Now I'm off to Goodwill.

Creepiness Is No Excuse For Emptiness

We had an extremely productive weekend and I have plenty to share with you this week. Let's start with the smoke shed.

We have a smoke shed in the back yard. It would be mighty useful if either of us were hunters. Then we could smoke up some of our very own venison jerky. Alas, we do not hunt. Not that I don't appreciate a good Bambi Burger. Mmm. Bambi Burger.

The smoke shed is located about halfway back in our yard in it's own personal jungle. It was time to break out the machete.

Not to hurt the smoke shed's feelings or anything, but it's just a creepy little shed. It's dark, smells like cat, and is FULL of spiderwebs.I took one look at it when we first bought the house, was thoroughly creeped, and put it out of my mind. For a whole year. Then, I peeked in the other day and realized that despite the creep factor, it was a perfectly good storage space. And I just let it sit empty for a year! Ridiculous!!

I cleared out the trash and debris left behind by the previous owners and was left with a workable space:

Then I removed some of the less savory items. Sir Pickles Felix, the stray black cat that roams the block, has been spending some quality time in the smoke shed.

As evidenced by the squirrel carcass and bird feathers everywhere. R.I.P. Mr. Nuttz

As much as I love removing animal carcasses with tongs, Sir Pickles Felix, I'm afraid you are going to have to move the Kitty Buffet to someone else's shed.

I'm heartless and cutthroat when it comes to storage space. I'm sorry, but you've been evicted.

Then I gathered all of the garden/yard related items that we own and organized them in the shed.

I even put a spare outdoor rug down over the blood stained concrete.

And just to make sure Sir Pickles Felix complies with the eviction notice, I put a lock on the shed.

Relocating the garden/yard related items cleared up some space in the Sandwich Shoppe. But that is a story for another day.