De-Cluttering 101

A good friend of mine and I having been discussing, via e-mail, our challenges in de-cluttering our houses!  She came up with the fantastic idea of becoming de-clutter buddies.  Like workout buddies only our work out will be working out the clutter in our homes.  I love this idea giving us someone to cheer us on when we make progress and also the kick in the tush to get back on the wagon when we fall!  

So to commemorate our new journey we began working in our home offices.  Now, I had already begun the process before we began our new partnership so I have a couple of things done but I have quite a way to go.  I have broken the office up into zones and I hope to have this all done by Sunday the 7th.  I'm giving myself a week since we are going to rip out carpet.  Here is the plan.........

Zone 1 was the Closet.  I don't have a before picture, but this is what I have completed thus far.  Now, this progress hasn't included the file cabinet.  That is a project all on it's own.

Zone 2 is the CD/DVD/VHS cabinet.  Needs: go through, label, recycle, or donate to the library.  

Zone 2:  Corner book shelves and printer cabinet.  I don't have any idea as to what is in the bottom of these cabinets.  I need to go through the books and make sure everything has a home.

Zone 3:  Bookshelf and desk.  This includes the desk drawers.

We have 6 drawers in our desk.  These three are supposed to be the supply drawers.  

These two don't have a purpose but what I'm working toward is to have the top drawer be any electronic adapters that we need for the computer as well as disc's that are needed.  The file drawer will be for projects that are currently in progress.

Zone 4 is the shelves above the desk.  I'm devoting a zone just for them since there is a lot of stuff to go through.  Books, nic nacs, misc. doo dads, that just needs to find a proper home.

Zone 6 is the cleaning zone.  The office, as you will see from the picture below, is incredibly dusty.  Everything needs to be dusted including the fan.  The picture above shows a partial carpet rip out.  Last year we experienced some flooding from Tropical Storm Fay.  We had to rip out a portion of the rug to deal with the water.  What I want to do is rip out all the carpet, clean the floor and then paint it like we did to our dining room.  It worked so well in there I want to continue in the office.  I hate carpet and eventually want to put in laminate flooring but that is a future project when the funds have been saved. 

Along with the floor and cleaning I also want to paint the baseboards, trim, and door as well as any paint touch ups to the walls.

Whew, that is a lot of work ahead but I'm so excited to get it done and just feel like I have the motivation and motivator to get it done!!!! Yeah!

Sunflowers

I love flowers!  I have always wanted to have a beautiful English garden full of flowers but I don't have a green thumb.  In fact I don't have any kind of shade of green thumb.  I have tried on  occasion to have growing things around but something always goes wrong.  So, imagine my surprise when I discovered we had 4 sunflowers growing in our backyard.  I was so excited!  Doodlebug and I have been watering them and just having a blast at learning all about sunflowers.  There is even a national association of sunflowers online that we have been checking out and reading the history of the sunflower. What has transpired is these sunflowers have inspired me to go ahead and have my garden, but instead of an English garden I'm going to work on a butterfly garden!  I have chosen a place in our backyard and I'm going to slowly but surely get a garden growing!  I will post updates as I move through this new venture!

For now enjoy some pictures of my inspiration! :-) 

The Turn off Your TV Challenge

National Turn Off Your TV Week

April 20-26 was the National Turn off your TV Week!  I was so excited to participate in this challenge since we have been working very hard on limiting our TV and computer usage not just for our brains but for our electricity output!  I wanted a challenge to see just how well we were really doing!

We didn't do as well as I wanted.  I would give us a D for the week if we were getting grades. My goal was to have the TV off the entire week.  A very lofty goal but I figured it wouldn't be that difficult since we have been working toward this for quite sometime.  We'll we weren't all on the same page.  Myself included.   This wasn't just for the TV but the computer as well.

We had a really bad day on Monday.  Doodlebug was extremely crabby and whinny.  As the day wore on she wore me down and she watched quite a bit more TV then we even do normally. She just wasn't into playing, reading, marble run, not one thing.  No matter what I had planned she wanted nothing to do with it, which meant that for sanity to prevail we watched more TV.  We did only watch PBS so that wasn't as bad, but as the week went on we got better and better.   I have to admit that the timing of the challenge was a bit rough since we had two weeks of routine busting activities with Spring Break and out of state friends visiting, so I think that it really took us the whole week to get back into routine.  I myself played on Facebook way more than I should have.  Those darn quizzes get me every time! :-)

Now, don't get me wrong, I like TV and frankly I would be lost without a computer.  I have several TV programs that I love to watch and Doodlebug has some favorites as well.  I love the programming on PBS, Doodlebug and I love to watch the shows together and there is an educational value.  With my family and friends being spread out all over the US and abroad the computer is the best way to stay in contact!  Although I could write a snail mail letter once in a while!  What I don't want is the TV and computer to be our only source of entertainment or learning.  It is just too easy to plunk down and watch the TV or stare at the computer when there is so much more that we can do and enjoy as well as helping the earth! 

What I got out of this challenge is that we really don't do too bad on a regular basis.  We are going to have routine busting days and that is OK as long as we remember our goal: to do more as a family, to get outside, play and try to help be as green as we can!  I think that is doable! :-)