Finally - the AFTER stuff

My dear honey has been off for a few days, and he's helped me get the final stages of our living room decluttering finished. Which was great, because once fall got going, I totally lost steam and I got into several other projects that kept me in my beautiful office! LOL

So here is the living room:


That corner there? That's where my desk used to be. And the kids were using their computer there on that desk for the last few months. They're complaining that Dad moved it downstairs - and I have to admit it's not as nice to have it down there - but there is a reason for it, which they'll find out on Christmas Day. ;-) (Shot of that lovely empty corner below:)


Here is the "new to us" entertainment unit that matches our bookshelves:


And a shot of the tree:


So there we are, all decked for the season and all cleared out. We're very excited about this - it has extended into the downtstairs (clearing a spot for the desk in the open part of the lower hall) and even getting to the junk under our stairs! We're not done yet, but I have the feeling that George the Taskmaster will have us all hopping after Christmas. ;-)

Office Completion

I do believe that I can say my office is finished - apart from a piece of artwork my daughter did last year in her art class, which we are going to frame and hang. And so this post is the unveiling!

Remember this? This is how it looked for the first month:

I've added curtains, which makes it feel cozy, and I was waiting for a filing cabinet and thinking of maybe getting a matching bookshelf, too. So I ordered the filing cabinet - - and it got lost by the local UPS office!!! So I had to re-order and wait yet again!

Yesterday, my matching lateral filing cabinet finally made it to my door, so we've constructed it and have it all set up now. Also, having a hubby who renovates will often garner you nice perks - like a four-door, metal lateral filing cabinet that was a cast-off from an office renovation, but still in amazingly good condition! I have filing out the wazoo, I tell you! My office now looks settled!

Here it is, folks!


All those books from the cheap old pine bookshelf went into the top two filing areas of the grey cabinet. The very bottom drawer (which you can't see in the pic) holds our construction company's estimate files, and I have space for spare paper reams, extra hanging folders, etc., in the third drawer down.

The cabinet with the printer on it holds all of my personal files, which are looking so pretty with the FreedomFiler labels, I must say. In fact, I must show you!

Top drawer: (current files that I use almost every day)


And bottom drawer: (Resource files in purple, and Odd Year files for monthly and taxes, with tax archives in the back)


My tickler file is in the desk filing drawer, which I did not take a picture of, but it's just days of the month, essentially. LOL

I'm a very happy camper tonight. :D

Still FLYing

I was so proud of myself yesterday! The kids are back to school, but it was only a half day. I dropped them off, came home, and attacked my Zone work, Daily Home Blessing (I don't do a weekly, I break it up), and I even did a bit more on top - like decluttering a "cubby" in our mudroom for my scarves, mitts, earmuffs, that kind of thing. I've been meaning to do this for some months, so I'm happy to have it done before it gets too cold again. ;-)

For my Zone work, I vacuumed off the dust from our dining room light/fan fixture, vacuumed the crumbs out of the chairs and gave them a quick wipe-down, straightened the shoes in the mudroom then cleared the floor by putting away the balls and what-not that had been left out, and ignored the front porch because it was raining - and who can sweep when it's raining? LOL

My Daily Home Blessing was to vacuum the entire upstairs. I decided to time myself, so I set my stopwatch and went for it. 16 minutes later, the top floor was DONE, including the top half of the stairway!

I also got quite a bit more done at my desk, and then when I brought the kids home, I read through all their papers, added some things to my afternoon routine (reading with my Grade 2 son and practicing his spelling words), and either ditched or filed the papers properly. I worked on my new business, took some training, and made dinner.

Gosh, this is feeling good. :D

My wonderful hubby came home with a large, four-door filing cabinet which was reclaimed from an office renovation he's currently working on. Wow! Free Filing! That is cool. So I've put my books into the top two sections, like a bookshelf I can shut (Yay!) and my filing in the bottom. I'd take a picture, but I'm out of camera batteries. Go figure. I'll post something when I get batteries.... *puts AA batteries on running grocery list*

Anyway, I'm still going to keep the filing cabinet I've ordered from Costco (that goes with my desk), because being as I'm using two parts of this one for books and paper storage, I think I'll need the room to expand in the future. I have two companies now, and they'll both need filing space. Then I have a nicer place for my printer, too. And we all know how important that is... *rolls eyes*

A side note on the filing system: I was just on the phone with an ING Direct rep, getting an application for a mortgage started as we're wanting to lock in at some good interest rates. I had a lot of info pulled before I got on the phone, but when he needed things like legal description of our lot, etc., I could just run to the right place in my filing cabinet and pull it up in seconds! I'm very thrilled! Not that I had a totally horrible time looking things up before, but I knew everything I had was recent and in the right spot because of my latest filing ventures, and that felt soooo good. :D

Today I get to Swiffer the floors upstairs - that actually sounds like fun! LOL It's sunny, so later when the dew dries up, I'll get out to that porch and give it a good sweep and shake the mats, and put the cover back on the BBQ for the fall as I rather doubt I'll be cooking on that again this season. Then I'm "off to work" on my business!

Laundry? What laundry?

I'm being silly, of course. That title doesn't mean I've FINISHED my laundry. Nooooo. It means I'm IGNORING my laundry. Very bad girl.

What with "holidays" this week, my poor laundry pile, which was already big, is actually growing. Not a pretty sight, really, especially when I get those lovely FlyLady e-mails coming in about our New Habit for August. *rolls eyes* Well, my Swish and Swipe is still going OK, so I suppose I must take comfort - and celebrate! - where possible. LOL

Tomorrow my dear hubby will be back to work and hopefully my "normal" around here will return quickly - which means morning time alone for my brain to figure out what I'm doing each day, and then setting down to doing it. I was getting pretty good at that before this week off hit me. LOL

I also have TWO girls now who want to be hired to help me with the rest of the living room decluttering. I'm thinking that by next Thursday, we'll have a lovely living room under our belts!

But today, as I look at the e-mails, "Where are your shoes"? (I'm not really sure...) "What's for Dinner?" (I haven't a clue yet...) and "Where's your laundry?" (all over the house...), I am remembering that people come first, goals come second. My hubby doesn't get much time off, so it's been good to just go with the flow with him this week and run out to the lake or to a restaurant or whatever. We'll snap back into the swing of things soon enough. :D

Filing. Ugh.

I spent several hours in my lovely office today re-filing all those Rubbermaid bins full of file folders that had yet to be touched since I'd moved in here.

At least the office was lovely. *rolls eyes*

I know, I know, I bought that wonderful filing system and so this should have been fun. Well, as far as the filing system goes, I do love it. It's amazing and I feel, personally, that it was worth the price. And it helped, which is important. But you spend three hours bent over filing cabinets and see how great you feel. LOL

I got the majority of the filing done, so I'm very happy about that. I've chucked another 5 pounds of paper that was not worth keeping, threw about 5 pounds into a "burn" pile (we burn rather than shred up here on the hill ;-), and have only a wee stack left for George to look at to confirm whether we really need it or not as it was his stuff to begin with. ;-)

I did take a small break to run downtown for some gasket sealer for George as he's fixing my van's water pump today. I took the opportunity to hop over to Jysk and pick up some curtain panels that were on sale. I got two panels and a curtain rod for $30, which I figure is an awesome deal! I don't have it up yet, so no picture-oonies, sorry. I will take a pic when they're up for sure!

So far, the living room "pile" behind the couches has not improved. I'm getting eager to attack it, but it will have to wait a bit more - I have supper to cook now, and also I think my back will protest if I do any more sorting and bending over bins today. LOL This week with George off has been a bit weird, too - things never run the same when we're both here, it seems. That's OK - it is looking better and better in this house all the time. I'm OK with "process" in this case. :D

What? A Day OFF???

Yes, I'm taking a day off. My hubby is on holidays this week, and he took the older two kids on a day hike up Mount Robson. They'll go halfway up, pretty much, to Kinney Lake. It's gorgeous country, absolutely gorgeous. They'll have a great time. They were up at 4:30am and out of here to get there early enough to enjoy the day. Gack!

So anyway, the other two kids are here with me, and we had decided that we'd do some fun-day kind of stuff together. :D So no decluttering for me today, which is actually killing me, but hey, the kids have been ignored enough lately! I'm pretty sure they deserve some attention, too. ;-)

We have a new pet store in town called PetLand, so they want to go there and look around. I figure looking is fine, but we are NOT coming home with a fish or a hamster. One dog in the house (oh, and the two gerbils tucked away downstairs) is enough for me. LOL

Then we'll hit our local museum. Haven't been there in awhile, and they have lots of stuff for the kids to do and see there, very youth-friendly.

We're going to hit Moxies for dinner, but we'll make it early, because a friend of mine just called and asked me if I wanted a freebie massage tonight! So I'm booked in at 7 o'clock-ish. Which is kinda neat - a day of running around with the kids followed by a relaxation massage. Yeah, I'm into that. ;D

And the beat goes on

Well, I think I'm moved in. It took awhile to get all the "stuff" from one set of drawers to a different set-up of drawers, but I do believe I've managed it.

I spent quite a few hours in here getting files decluttered, books moved in, papers and file folders in, mucking about with drawers and cubbies, etc. My kids are going to think Mom has moved out if they see so little of me again! LOL I'm still waiting on that Freedom Filer to come in the mail. I was so disappointed when I checked again on my way downtown today. Nothing. I'm really hoping it will be here tomorrow.

I did some stuff up in MS Publisher today and had to cut it apart into card-sized pieces. So I got my Fiskars rotary cutting board from the living room, where it was still languishing in the dust, wiped it down, and proceeded to - - get this - - place it on my desk.

Yes, I can actually cut things on my desk.

This might not be a whole lot of exciting news for most, but for me, it was a new milestone. It didn't fit on my old desk, and so I was always putting it on the floor and crouching down in front of it to do all my cutting tasks. So doing it at my desk seemed like heaven! LOL

Another thing I'm highly enjoying is closing my door. I can close it and not hear the TV or the talking or anything else. I can just work. It's lovely. Really and truly, it is.

My living room, you ask? Um, still a mess. It was seriously hot here yesterday and I simply didn't feel up to moving everything around in that heat. Mostly because I refuse to sweat. Which is why I hate working out, I think... but that's another story.

So most of the boxes and bins are still there or shoved to one end of a sofa. *rolls eyes* However, I also have a good excuse, one that beats even a hot house.

I had to type an estimate for our company. :D

So you see? I was working. Truly. And so the boxes and bins will be there for me later today when it cools down again. LOL

I'm In!!!!

Oh my goodness. I can't believe the day has come. We've worked as hard as beavers all the long weekend, pulling telephone wire, painting, building a desk... and here it is, Wednesday morning, and I'm pretty much moved in!

I have such a lovely place for my control journal! Right on the end of the table portion of the desk there. And I also have my feather duster handy, stuck into a vase with those decorative "marbles" like a big flower! LOL And - something I promised to myself for when the office was ready - I put a new plant on top of the hutch. It's a lipstick plant. Eventually, it will hang nicely over the hutch and bloom and drop leaves and get in the way of everything... LOL

Here's another shot from the other angle. Hard to get good lighting because I'm shooting against the window. ;-)

I have a matching lateral file cabinet on order from Costco, but that won't be here for another 7-10 days. It will replace the very old (although trustworthy) black metal thing that the printer is sitting on currently. Oooooo - a matching office! My goal is to have an actual bookshelf, too, not this silly $15 pine thingy I'm using, but for now, it will hold my books and paper supplies just fine. ;-) Another small job I have today is to tack up the wall speaker cords with a nice little 3M Command cord holder. I have some waiting for the job. :D

Now, this leaves an amazing mess in the living room, so I must show you that area, because this job is by no means over. But believe it or not, most of the things you see below are "sorted" - there are even boxes behind the couch that contain stuff for the office that couldn't go anywhere until the office came along. LOL So I'll still be a busy beaver today. ;-)

And the old desk is now ready for the kids' computer, which I'll move over today so I can clear the area (to the lower right of this next pic, on the pine table) where it is currently residing for a staging area to sort the rest of the books and boxes into.

So there you have it - my work is cut out for me.

But - - - I have one room where PEACE resides! I'm so thrilled! This will be like the "shiny sink" of my house. LOL

I also have to mention that yesterday I went out and bought a Swiffer Wet Jet. I've divvied up my Home Blessing Hour into one job each workday of the week. And yesterday's job was to wash the kitchen/dining floor. Luckily, I'd just vacuumed it, so it was ready for a wash. But after washing the floor of the office this weekend with my deck mop and a bucket of hot, soapy water, I knew I hated the job, and if I hated it, it wouldn't get done.

Mostly what I hate, though, is the prep time, and also that particular mop was not suiting me. I find it's just not as good as a real, cotton deck mop. (Sorry, Vileda....) And my regular push mop is not really any more fun, plus you still need that pail of water.... yadda yadda. Yes. I'm lazy.

So for a mere $20, I bought myself a Swiffer and gave it a try.

I. Am. In. Love.

Seriously, it's a great investment! I know I can get cleaning solution and mop pads for a freaking good deal at Costco, so I am soooo keeping this thing. My 6yo DS actually wants to do the job, because squirting and wiping seems like a heck of a lot of fun.

I might let him. LOL

So now my Tuesday and Wednesday Blessings of washing down the kitchen and bathroom floors will be fun, easy, and do-able!

And my old mop is in the give-away pile outside the door of my new office. ;-)

Woooo! Progress!

Well, here it is, a half a month later, and I have made a lot of progress! I forgot to take more in-between shots, but hey, this will show you where I'm at:


And empty room! The freezer is cleaned and listed in the local freebie bargain finder papers. Just a couple of things for my hubby to move out left.

And a day later, we had this - a window!!!

Wow, does that make a difference in the room. I wasn't going to have an office without a window, that's for sure.

As of the day I'm writing this (August 3), we are ready for paint. I've picked a green colour, bolder than this baby-blue shade, that's for sure. I'm hoping it goes well with the new desk. :D

Speaking of desks, I have been making progress on my desk area, too. (Scroll down for a before look.) Here is my cleared living room desk:

Well, I call that "cleared", and it's a huge improvement, but I'm hoping to remove even more clutter with the new desk. For one thing, the tower and the sub-woofer will be on the floor and off the surface of the desk. And the other four speakers will be set up nicer, too.

We'll use this desk for the kids' computer once I move into the office. I have so much stuff to get out from underneath this thing! I'll really have to get tough and get some of it out of the house, I think. Especially since you can see under the new desk better than this one. ;-)

Little hint - don't buy see-through drawers like I have there. They are GREAT for various-sized storage, but they just add to the "look" of clutter because you can see everything in them! If they're going into a closet or cupboard, great. But I'm tired of them being out in the open. No place for your eyes to "rest" when you look at those.

Other things I've been working on:

1) I discovered FreedomFiler, and I have a set on order - should be here in a couple of days. Now, I have seen a lot of posts on forums where people say, "What? $50 for a set of LABELS? That's just nuts, I can make those up myself." Well, folks, I tried. And I ain't half bad with a publishing program, either. But it's not just the labels you're buying - it's the brainchild of the directions/process, as well as the list of tons of categories that my brain is just not coming up with and/or doesn't know which part to put what in (permanent, replace/remove, monthly, etc.). Plus - and this is big - I did print some out on some labels I bought. But you may find with many printers (and I have a pretty decent Lexmark All-In-One) that you will spend a ton of time getting those suckers to line up properly all the way down the sheet. I ended up with some labels that had lines of colour from the other ones above it and part of the words cut off on the bottom.

So the conclusion was - its' so worth the $50, because my time is worth more than that per hour alone. :D

2) I've been working at my FlyLady morning routines. I'm also getting fairly consistent with last month's habit, the Swish and Swipe, and this month I'm making a concerted effort with the new habit, a load of laundry a day. Being as it's day 3 of the month, I'm batting a 2/3 average. LOL

3) Under my direction, my 3 DD's (16, 14, 12) have been doing dishes each night, so my sink and counters are clear most mornings! That is such a nice thing to wake up to! You owe it to yourself to work on the shiny sink habit - or get your kids to work on it for you! LOL

4) I've built myself a new calendar, starting from August and going through June. I figure I have time in the summer months to do a calendar up, whereas in the New Year I'm usually kinda busy. I basically copied the format of a calendar I liked, but put it in a 3-ring binder style. I added my Control Journal stuff, printed out my !ntellect address list to have in the back, and added some "Items Loaned" and "Items Borrowed" pages as I want to start keeping track of all the books I lend out and the stuff I borrow from others. It's sitting on my desk (you can see it in the pic above) in a nice PURPLE binder cover that has a spot on the inside cover for pens and business cards and what-nots. :D I'm very happy with it!

5) I've also discovered David Allen, and I've found some of his ideas and tools to be extremely helpful. I especially like his Workflow Diagram, it's really helping me get my paperwork sorted out. You can register and download that for free, as well as lots of other great articles.

Funny thing is about David Allen, some of his stuff really reminds me of FlyLady! I have begun to say to myself, "DING! Do It Now, Girl!" which was from a couple of years ago on the FlyLady e-mail list. One of Mr. Allen's principals is if a paper needs an action performed that takes less than two minutes, do it now! LOL How's that for cool? One of the first things you do with a paper that come into your life is ask, "What is it? What outcome needs to happen with this paper?" And that reminded me of asking ourselves, "Does this make me smile?" when we're flinging stuff, or things like "Have I worn this in the last 6 months? Do I use this? Can I replace this easily, and if so, do I really need to store it?. You need to define things clearly in your mind and then decide how to proceed. I'm finding both David Allen and FlyLady are really great at helping a person do that, Mr. Allen with paper specifically, FlyLady with the rest of our "stuff".


So there you have it. Lots of my progress is "invisible", but I'm feeling more "put together" in my head than I have in years. Part of that is seeing such great progress in the house, but the other part is knowing I'm getting a system for dealing with papers so that I never again have to deal with this sorting marathon! LOL

End of Day One

Whew! I got quite a bit done today in two good sessions of de-cluttering. I have:

• moved cleaners and vacuum accessories into broom closet (vacuum hose and mops/brooms were already there)
  
• cleared canning jars and canning into new storage cupboard
• wiped down bottoms of all canning jars while moving
• sorted through jam jars and kept some in a low Rubbermaid container in new cupboard
• moved large kitchen stuff into storage cupboard
• moved yearly files I'm keeping up to top shelf meant just for them!
• moved wine bottles and wine-making supplies into bottom of new storage cupboard

I still have a bit of room on the top shelf, but my brain is exploding so I'll keep that for something that "comes up" for the future (i.e., when I go through the rest of the storage shelving! LOL).

By the way - these shelves are on full-extension sliders and they roll out of the closet. Isn't that brilliant? That's my hubby - always thinking and coming up with brilliant ideas for me!

So - One day closer to a new office. :)

Here's the update pics:

Day One - Sort of

Yes, this is "sort of" Day One on this journey. I've already started de-cluttering, but today I thought "Why not take pictures and post them so I can see progress?"

So this is to be a bit of a cathartic exercise, I suppose. That, and I like to share, even if no one reads it. LOL

How this started

Well, summer holidays for the kids came. And something changed in me. Something that said, TODAY is the day!

Oh, I've had those days before, believe me. I think this time God changed me, because me changing me has never worked so well or for so long. ;-)

The purpose is to get a real office. We have a storeroom right off of our kitchen/dining that has been a storeroom for 11 years now. It was designed to be a storeroom. It has an outside entrance, our chest freezer, and two walls of lovely large shelves for storing stuff.

Stuff. Yup.

Now granted, some of this stuff I really do need. Like my large turkey roaster, my canner, my dehydrator, my soup stock pot. We installed a small fridge in there to extend our fridge storage space a couple of years ago (with four kids, sometimes you need more space! They eat a lot!). And I've used that room to make wine in, when it's clean enough to do so.

Therein lies the problem. I can't get to my stuff for all the other stuff that gets plopped in the way. Let me show you what I mean:


In my defense, all those piles and boxes on the floor currently are already sorted. They had to wait while the closet reno was being done. But I must say that this has been a bit of a normal look for this poor room. ;-)

Progress already

My wonderful hubby (a master carpenter) has already finished the afore-mentioned renovation to our closet area. It now holds roll-out storage shelves, an upright freezer, and a real broom closet (something I've not had for a very long time!). Here's what it looks like, as well as an interior shot of my new storage shelving:

Today I get to load some of the stuff from my current shelving into the new storage closet! Here's what the current room looks like, as proof of the "before" state:

All that stuff has to be sorted to go into my new storage, some longer-term storage just outside the door off the side porch, or it has to GO! How much ya wanna bet a lot of it will GO?? LOL All that shelving must come out, including the canning shelves. The little fridge will be built into our kitchen (ah, the blessings of being married to a carpenter!) and the chest freezer will be sold. My honey is even going to put a window in that back wall for me so I don't have to work in a room without natural light!

The Living Room (or is it?)

Now, my current living room state is also amazingly bad at the moment. Here is my "office" space:

Boxes and bins I've previously "sorted" into, but then left in a dried-up heap of burn-out. And no, the stuff was not burnt out. *giggle*

And here is the rest of the living room:

We've had the living room looking much better than this, it has deteriorated in the last 24 hours, even! LOL

So these are the major areas that I'll be working on in the next few weeks. I normally would not take on such a large project, but as I said, I have changed on the inside and I am feeling highly motivated in a way I never felt before. My hubby has actually seen a change in my disciplined habits - so much so that he has promised me a lovely desk unit (below) from Costco when the living room has been conquered!


Now if that doesn't motivate a person, I don't know what will... LOL

Actually, I was motivated beforehand, so it's not riding on a desk. But the desk will be a lovely finishing prize, don't you think? And it's a fun thing to daydream about when I'm slogging through all those give-throw-put decisions. ;-)

As things improve, I'll post further pictures. I think this will be a benefit to me, because sometimes when you live in the middle of stuff, you don't "see" as well as you could. And it will be nice to see the improvements and actual progress if I ever get feeling overwhelmed, although that has not happened this time yet, thank the Lord. :)

Now - I've spent enough time on getting this blog together today! I must get off my fanny and do my 15 minutes of loving movement and then hit a pile somewhere, timer in hand!