Wednesday is a great day to reflect on what's good in our lives, isn't it?

Today I'm grateful for:

• The "free" printer that came with our last computer purchase.
• Love, and the people who share it.
• Vitamin C drops.
• Caller ID.
• Herberger's sale prices on bath towels.
• LIttle white dogs that aren't mine but will cuddle with me anyway.
• A decent nights sleep.
• My husband.
• Surprises.

What are you grateful for today?

These last weeks have been quiet around our house, sort of.  Quiet because my husband is still recovering at home, which means I'm at home a lot too.  Not that I wouldn't rather be organizing for the masses!

Anyway.

Apparently I don't have the chops to relax with a book for days on end.  I get distracted by all the projects that slowly come to me as I'm sitting in my chair mulling over the rightness of things in our house.  Or wrongness, most of the time.

Every project begins the same way, I start price shopping and budgeting.  Unfortunately, due to a lack of income due to a lack of work, the budget is pretty much non-existent.  The good news is I've been able to move forward on all my projects because, get this, I"ve already got the stuff!  How cool is that!

My imagination is telling me you're asking "how does an organizer have a bunch of stuff laying around?"  Aha!  Good question!  The trick is doing the same thing I've done before, only different.

In other words, the paint I used in our living room is going up in our bathroom.  I love the color combo in our living room, parchment color walls with a light blue ceiling.  In our bathroom the leftover blue paint is going on the walls and the parchment on the ceiling.  My husband forces me to take good care of my paint brushes and rollers, so no equipment outlay.  Isn't he the clever one?

This has been the theme for every project taken on.  Having no budget forces me to think more creatively and use up what's sitting around.  I have to say, I might not be good at relaxing for days, but I'm awesome at little projects that cost next to nothing.

Life with a pretty bathroom is bliss.

Tricky Duck Tip:  When shopping for party supplies, be careful of buying holiday themed cute things.  Only buy long lasting holiday themed items if you will ABSOLUTELY use them year after year.  And you have room to store them.

It's been a while friends, I apologize.

Today I'm grateful for:

Ibuprofen - this gardening business is starting to hurt.
Mosquito spray - thank God.
The competent phone repair guy from 702.
Peanut butter toast.
Clearance prices on garden plants.
Vitamin C drops.
WOW.
Jennifer Cruisie.
Felco and their pruner, it made today's work much easier.

What are you grateful for today?

Here I am, at my computer, waiting for my car to be repaired.  When it's done we'll be hitting the road for Minneapolis and one more visit to the Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic.  If you're wondering how my husband is doing, well, he seems better.  Still recovering, but better.  The true measure is in the labs they take at the clinic, so we'll see if things are going as well as we think.

So.  Anyway.

I would imagine you're visiting in hope of getting some good organizing info.  It would be awesome if I had some ready, instead of just swirling half complete in my brain.  The only excuse I will offer is it's summer and I am spending a delicious amount of time gardening.  Organizing will commence on Wednesday.  In the meantime I will give you this:



Life in the garden is bliss.

Tricky Duck Tip:  Take time to smell the roses, but be careful of the thorns.  Especially if your rose is a William Baffin. 

PS.  I took those cute rag baskets from this post: A Little Bit Country  back to the store.  To make up for losing out on the cuteness I picked up a wonderful new skirt.  Come my Wednesday appointment I will be decked out in said skirt.  Not a bad trade.

It's Gratitude Wednesday!  I know!  It's even Wednesday!

Today I'm grateful for:

• My WOW friends and their great input.
• A decent nights sleep.
• Volunteers who are actually volunteering.
• Benadryl Itch Stick.
• Peanut butter toast.
• The low price of strawberries.
• My husband's cheerful help on the windowbox project.

 

 

Yay!

For just a minute, I'm gonna wax nostalgic.  One of my favorite childhood places was Grandma and Grandpa's farm house.  It was a big old place, very likely the reason I'm an old house fanatic.  It was the only place I knew, as a child, that had a pantry.  It was a small room, with a window, and lots of cabinets.  It had a galvanized garbage can that held flour, Grandma made bread you see.  It had all manner of wonderful things in the drawers, like fancy crocheted pot holders that were too good to use.  It smelled wonderful, and it was the place to look for baked goodies.

As a grown up struggling to get a decent meal on the table in the evening, the part of Grandma's pantry that stuck with me is the flour bin.  She needed a lot of flour, but not right in the kitchen work area.  I longed for my own pantry so I could store a lot of flour.  Eventually I set up shelving for a pantry in our basement, right next to the chest freezer, and it was good!  I got better and better at using the pantry.  That's to say, I got better at having often used staples on hand in the pantry so we wouldn't run out between shopping trips.  The better I got at the pantry, the smaller the pantry got.  Here's proof:



The official organizer verdict?  TOO MUCH STUFF!  Some just had to go, like the cardboard four bottle wine carrier.  When I took this home I forgot I didn't have a life that involved toting around four bottles of wine.  Recycled it.

The good news:  I was able to repurpose another set of the wooden shelves for additional pantry space.  My plan was unanimously approved!  Here's the result:



Seriously way better.  Sometimes you need more to make it work.  And just so you know?  The plastic dishwasher soap buckets on the top left hand shelf hold flour and sugar.  My version of the galvanized garbage can.

Life with an organized pantry is bliss.

Tricky Duck Tip:  Use serving trays to corral smaller pantry staples, like mixes sold in bags.

Wow!  I'm having a great time!  Today I'm grateful for:

Power tools - they increase MY power.
A husband who will offer me help and ideas when I'm stuck on a project.
Mistakes - they turn into such good opportunities.
Generous friends.
Not getting the stomach flu.
Watermelon.
Alleve Sinus pain reliever.
Happy accidents.

What are you grateful for today?

Long holiday weekends at our house usually mean a home project or two.
This year we took it easy and did something simple that has been on our To Do list for a very long time.  Here's the problem.  This tv is in our bedroom.  Please note how close this dresser is to the edge of the wall.  This dresser is WAY too big for this spot.  Has been for years.




MONTHS AGO, we decided to bring home a much smaller piece from my husband's stash of furniture at his antiques store to replace it.  Well.  We finally got it done!  The hardest part was finding baskets.  Take a looksee:




These are baskets I found at WalMart.  I know!  WalMart is bad!  I had a very hard time finding anything that would work because the shelves are two different sizes, and taller baskets are better than most of what I found, which are short baskets.  This I also found and really like: 


.  

When my husband got a load of these he started humming the theme song from "Deliverance".  His very subtle way of telling me I'm going a little too Granny on him.  But I really love the colors!

So anyway.  The pretty baskets are still sitting in my bedroom, receipt and tags intact.  I'm trying very hard to find a place for them, but you know the rule, if I can't find a use for them, they go.  I give myself a week.

Life with a baske big enough to hide my jammies in is bliss.

Tricky Duck Tip:  Listen to your husband when he starts with the "Deliverance"  theme music.


 

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!  Today I'm grateful for:

• Coffee.
• Ben Gay.
• Grass.
• Air conditioning.
• Facebook.
• Papa Murphy's  large Papa's Perfect on a Delite crust.
• Two old galvanized watering cans.
• Watermelon.
• Dedicated doctors and nurses.
• Friends and family.
• Books.
• Friends who love books.

What are you grateful for today?

                                      

Here's a question for you, what do you see every morning when you look into your closet?  Do you see glorious possibilities?

If you see anything less than glorious possibilities, it's time to clean out your closet.

There are several rules I like for clothes closets:

1. Only clothes in the closet.  Your clothes, and potentially your partners clothes.  No Christmas decorations or other unrelated junk.  Only clothes.
2. The only clothes that belong in your closet are the ones you wear and love.  Anything else goes.  Glorious possibilities are not made of clothes that don't fit or are out of style.
3. All your clothes should fit in the closet.  All seasons.

Ok, I'll bend on Number 3.  If you really enjoy the routine of switching your closet, and purging, at the changing of the seasons, go ahead and do it.  Number 3 is meant for people like me who hate changing it out and do it halfway.  Which is a big fat mess.

Please don't get hung up on how much money you've spent when you're purging your clothes.  It doens't matter anymore, the money is gone.  Put the value on how you feel every day when you're looking for something to wear instead of on something you regret.  Regrets don't belong in your closet.

Go ahead, plan and dream of the closet full of gorious possibilities.  It's so you!

Life with easy clothes pickin's in the morning is bliss.

Tricky Duck Tip:  To remove permanent marker from copper plant tags, rub with nail polish remover.  Courtesy of Martha Stewart Living, it works!  See?  This one used to say Sunspot.  Poor Sunspot died.