Saturday, April 30, 2011

Day Birthday Party!!!

I'm quite tired and need to prepare for the yard sale tomorrow so I'm posting a link to the album. In a few days I'm making the album private, but for now it's public so everyone can see the photos.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Day 13 - Charlie Bears first birthday!

Exactly 365 days ago I gave birth to a beautiful, sweet, perfect baby. Charles George Mizzell (Charlie Bear) was born at 8 am, weighing 6 lbs 5.5 oz and was 19.5 inches tall. I can't believe he is a year already! His party is tomorrow and there will be pictures galore! Taken with....my new camera!!!


I nearly didn't buy it, but it calllllllled to me! So awesome pictures will be had tomorrow. Buh-bye cellphone photos!

I did a quick clean today, and probably won't get back to my hard core organizing until Monday. But I DO need help with a few things and will be posting those soon!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Day FREAK OUT!

Yes, this is why I didn't blog yesterday. I am in full freak out mode. My house is in shambles and I try to make it cleaner (why does that always happen?!?!) and I have to get it back in order for the party on Saturday while still caring for 4 kids, a husband, and a very naughty dog - one of these children is in a very much must touch mommy at all times stage, and the other three are full on destructive. So tonight I will provide you with much cuteness, and leave it at that.

I caught my middle two today doing this:


How crazy inventive, and scary, is that?!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Day 10 of 60/300

I think I'm getting sick. This is the worst time in the world to get sick. I've been having bouts of horrible nausea. I have to prep my house for a birthday party and get ready for a massive yard sale!

Today my friend Elaine came over to help me sort the kids clothes into bins for the yard sale. Four massive bins. I figure I'll sell them for .25 a piece or 10 pieces for $2. This is what my garage looks like as I prepare for the yard sale. This isn't all of what I'm selling. There is furniture and books still to be placed out in the garage.


Finally Open Door Mission got rid of our couches for us! W00t.. my garage is looking better, and after Sunday it will be down right clean!

These are the three bookshelves I've cleared and dusted - except for the tops which I'll do tomorrow. I still have one bookshelf to go and all the books to be returned to it.



And of course I feel down right gross.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Day 9 of 60/300

Today I spent the morning working on my new coupon binder. I totally rehauled it and I love the way it looks! I haven't had much time to work on it so I put some CSI on this morning and worked for a bit. Afterwards I got to reorganizing the playroom and sorting books. I need to get the books sorted prior to the yard sale. Thus far I'm about 1/3rd of the way through and this is the pile of books to be sold/donated


There is nearly three times this amount that is going back on the shelves so far, and I still have three shelving units to sort through.

I used to have my diapers housed in toy bins but I want to get the box cubicles with the baskets so I removed all my diapers and donated my toy bins to the kids playroom - thus freeing up numerous bins in the playroom. It was like toy bin shuffle. I haven't bought the cubicles yet so right now my diapers are residing on the recliner in my room


I have an insane amount of diapers.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Day 8 of 60/300

This weekend is quite busy, and requires my house be in semi-order. On Saturday we are celebrating Charlie's 1st birthday with a small BBQ at the house. His birthday is on Friday but it makes more sense to celebrate it on Saturday. I can't believe my baby is turning 1, this year has flown by. So my house needs to be presentable for the party and since I've torn it apart at the moment it is anything but presentable. On Sunday I am having the first Yard Sale. I'll probably do an additional one at the end of the 60 days, but I have so many things I'm getting rid of I need to do one now. So I have to finish purging the major areas to prepare for that. My room and the Master Closet are nearly complete and today I organized the linen closet. I shall take a picture of that tomorrow. It used to be overflowing to the point where it was hard to shut the door, but I'm getting rid of so many linens that there is a completely empty shelf now. I wish I had remembered to take a photo prior to the purge.

So today I organized my room some, completely moved out most of the non-bedroom furniture that was residing in there, put back together most of my closet, cleaned out the linen closet, scrubbed the kids bathroom completely clean (it took me an hour of scrubbing in there to get it to my liking), and began purging the books. I have decided I'm also getting rid of my craft table/coupon table/sewing table and buying a desk instead. I think a desk would work better for me because it would have storage areas. I tried to go to Goodwill and Target today but both were closed. As we don't celebrate Easter this kind of surprised me. I hate shopping at Walmart and I wasn't desperate enough to try there so I'll make my runs tomorrow.

And finally - the crayon caddy is a hit.

The pencils are the "Handwriting Without Tears" pencils and there are so many so it takes up two pails. I may include a pair of scissors but I'm debating if I want to give the kids that much freedom. We don't do markers well in this house, the kids lose the tops so quickly we throw away so many.


This is their new art center. Prior to this it was one of the three drawer containers from Target and it was constantly falling apart, papers were spilling out, ect. It was a huge mess. The shelves were in my bedroom along with a lot of other office type things to hold all the homeschooling materials. As I'm purging my bedroom of non-bedroom furniture I figured I'd turn this shelving unit into their new art center.

The green basket holds their coloring books/work books. The three boxes are some of the stuff left over from the Pre-school homeschooling materials - such as puzzles, and lace cards. Missing in this picture is their "Handwriting Without Tears" wood pieces that are assembled to create most of the uppercase letters. It fits perfectly on the bottom shelf.


And finally - just because - this is a picture of a blanket bag I bought from the Bon Jovi Concert I went to! This held the blanket we bought Charlie since it was his first concert. When I was purging my closet I came across it and I don't want to throw it out but I have no use for it. My good friend Elaine, who is a beast with a sewing machine, is going to take on the challenge of turning it into a purse for me. It needs to be stiffened, and I'd love some more pockets on it. I can't wait to see how it turns out, and I promise to blog about it when it happens. I may have her write a post about how she did it!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

1 Week Down!!! 1 room complete!

Today marks one week since I began my 60/300 challenge, and today I completed my first room. I absolutely love it and at the moment its the only non-chaotic room in the house so I just want to hide out in it and bask in the serenity of a clean, non cluttered room. I should say its ALMOST complete. I need to purchase a new toilet brush and after I clean out the linen closet/kids bathroom I will be switching the towels under the sink to the linen closet, and our master linens to our bathroom.

Here are my little helpers helping me sort items into my tumblers.



And the finished product!

I love bright colors, and this green and blue are very bright even though they look muted in the picture. We are buying a new camera soon, so no more cell phone pictures! I got the candle for $1, it's a Glade candle and it smells wonderful. Plus the colors match! I bought a new trashcan in Avocado green too.


Here is a mirror picture so you can see the curtain we hung to use as a closet door. It works really well. It's so bright and white it makes the colors we used really pop, and it makes the room feel really clean and fresh. And I LOVE that people using the toilet will no longer get a view of our Master Closet. (The Bar is Chris's pull up bar!)


Another shot of the corner of the sink. You can see one of the shelves we hung up that holds some of the tumblers.


The bathtub area. The reason there is no curtain is we only use this tub to take baths. In our main bathroom we have a shower stall that is wheelchair accessible (and therefore can only be used for showers) so we use that one to shower and this one to bathe. Makes the room seem bigger without a shower curtain. The green Submarine is a kids shower caddy that holds their toys and shampoo/body wash. I also purchased a regular shower caddy to replace the basket I had full of our shampoos. Makes the room so much less cluttered.


The toilet. The green basket holds toilet paper rolls so there is no more running out with guests, and what have you. I don't like it peeping over the top but I didn't want to put one roll back in the stockpile area. The blue container is for "reading material" and really helps tie in the blues with the greens. The shelf is the second shelf hung and contains more tumblers!


A close up of both of the shelves. These tumblers are so bright and contain so many colors that it's really easy to play off of them for accents! I think I may purchase a red bath rug to tie in the reds in these tumblers. I LOVE this idea to house bathroom supplies. I know I can't be the only one who does this but I did not get the inspiration for this from anyone else. If I do get inspiration somewhere I promise to always link it so the proper person can get credit. In these tumblers are things such as cough drops (so I don't have shapeless bags hanging around), tweezers and nail clippers since we are always losing them, headbands (until I can find a better spot for them, dang headbands!), medicine droppers/cups/thermometers since we can never find them when we need them, q-tips, chapstick, combs and brushes, band-aids ect. Basically the little odds and ends that can clutter up a bathroom.


I pretty much kept this unchanged. I took it apart and scrubbed it down, but other than that it is very functional and I can't figure out a better way to have this. It holds my cloth pads (yes, I use cloth pads), my cloth nursing pads (Cloth is my religion), and my hair products like gel and de-frizzer.


And an updated picture of the hair drawer. I removed the headbands (pesky things) and took the lids off and it works so much better.


A reader commented that hanging the head bands on a hanger might work! Great idea! And it's totally inspired a whole slew of ways to hang the headbands in my room. I don't want them in the closet and I'm already annoyed that the hair stuff is in multiple locations already (The drawer, the white drawers, and a tumbler) and I want to keep them in one room - but it's a great suggestion and may work for someone else. Keep the suggestions for home organization coming!

Another project I did today took only a few moments, and although it needs to be modified in some ways - for now this works. I purchased the little pails from the dollar section of Target, and the tray from the seasonal dishes area. The tray actually matches some of the tumblers! I've seen this idea across the internet and on a lot of my homeschooling blogs I follow. I originally planned to use a Lazy Susan or turn this into a Lazy Susan but Chris said that he could envision items going flying so we left ours alone. But, if your kids aren't crazy like mine that may be a great idea.


I used hot glue on the bottoms of the pails and then around the edges after gluing them


I may end up putting a screw through the bottom of the pail to keep it on the tray permanently.

I will take a picture tomorrow of it in use, I simply forgot to take one today. I love this idea, and I hope it encourages the kids to keep their art supplies neat.

And finally - a possible blog giveaway! I came across about 100 ovulation tests while purging my bathroom area. Well they were neatly in a bag in one of my containers anyway. I am so awful with taking these. So my laziness may be one readers gain! Once I hit 50 followers I will be posting a giveaway with a chance for two readers to win a sizable amount of these (as for how many I'm not sure yet). I'm expecting it to be a while but if you are interested follow my blog!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Day 6 of 60/300

Another day where not much on the house got done - but today was far from productive! In fact, this entry is so late because we just literally got home!

I've mentioned the Dave Ramsey method and how we follow it. Recently we paid our Trailblazer off 2 years early, which saves us nearly $400 a month (our car payments were ridiculous!) to snowball on other debt. Chris is leaving in September for at least 5 months and the Trailblazer isn't a family car as it only sits 5. The original plan was to sell it around September and throw that money on debt, however we decided to sell it early to save on interest and insurance. So we sold it today and Chris bought himself a very old, ugly, cheap BMW. The car is only one year younger than me. But it runs, and it's cheap, and we bought it outright. The rest of the money is going on debt and a family vacation - our first real family vacation. We've gone to visit family in the past but we all know that isn't a real vacation. So at the end of next month we'll be going to Mount Rushmore and surrounding areas and camping! So today was spent selling the car, and shopping. A family friend is quite the bachelor and doesn't enjoy shopping for himself. So in trade he pays me to shop for him and watches the kids (minus Charlie) while I do so. So after selling the car I had to do his grocery shopping and Chris and I went on a date together!

I did make a trip to my favorite store, Target, and bought some stuff to finish up my bathroom. I bought some tumblers, two shelves, and a basket for toilet paper. I also bought 5 plastic shoe boxes for $6! All in all I spent $50 (and purchased 4 mens body washes for only .04!).

Only two pictures tonight! Last night I organized my hair drawer. I used tupperware I had on hand, but a reader suggested this to use to organize pony tails.


Such a neat idea! I may switch to that if the tupperware doesn't pan out. For now this is what my drawer looks like


It's not as neat as I'd like but it works. My main issue is the stinking headbands! I have them in a bag for now, but I hate the way it looks.

And just because I rarely get dressed up - here is me modeling our van (not the car we sold)


Thursday, April 21, 2011

Day 5 of 60/300 - a day of little productivity.

Do you ever have one of those days where you want to get into your car and drive as far away as possible? Today was one of those days. From the moment I woke up until 9 pm tonight the longest stretch of time I had today without one of the kids crying or whining about something was 3 minutes. I was watching the clock. Of course Chris was flying, so there wasn't any other adult to give me a break. This is just a glimpse of what life will be like this fall when Chris leaves.

Soooo... there wasn't a lot of progress made today. I did make the decision to hold a Yard Sale next weekend. I hate yard sales with a passion - so this is major for me. I figure if I sell even one item it's worth it though. Whatever doesn't sell will go straight to Goodwill. Two of my homeschool curriculum books sold on Ebay today too. I'm thinking its not cheating if I add that money into my $300 fund, right? I mean - I sold what I'm cleaning out, so it's like using a coupon! So thats an additional $71 minus shipping!

Here is what I accomplished today

I didn't want to throw away my babies first bathtubs - you know the one they bathe the baby in right after birth? I still have all four of my kids bathtubs. Some even have their name still taped on it, as the hospital I delivered my last three at makes a sign with their name on it for their bassinet, so we took the sign and taped it to the tub instead. They were holding some of the baby items that hadn't been placed in their baby boxes yet, but as we are turning the boxes into shadow boxes I needed to do something with the tubs. I'm not sure I like this idea, I hate clutter with a passion, but for now this works. If anyone has a better idea, let me know! I cleaned out my stockpile cabinet and they are now hiding out in these containers - including the tubs.


My stockpile is quite large - especially my body washes. I need to donate about 2/3rds of this to the food shelter. We go through a lot of body wash in this house, though, since all 6 of us use it.

More of my stockpile. I have about 30 bars of soap.


My bathroom is normally quite clean - it's the room I'm most anal about. However, at the moment it's catching part of the closet clean up and I'm currently purging a lot of stuff in the bathroom so it's quite messy right now.


The shoe organizer is a decent idea but it looks way too cluttered for me. I HATE clutter with a passion. So, the shoe organizer is getting sold in the yard sale. The three containers on the bottom shelf in the closet will hold the rest of our meds and such. Until I can think of a better solution. Tomorrow I'm going to Target to purchase a few shelves and some tumblers. One shelf will go in this room and inside the tumblers will go some knick knacks such as q-tips, nailclippers/tweezers, ect. If someone knows a nice way to organize the millions of headbands, pony tails, barrettes, ect please let me know! I'm at a loss!

My husband swears that he is going to help me out this weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to make a lot more progress!

A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!

A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!: "A SILHOUETTE GIVEAWAY!! I was sent a Silhouette Rhinestone Starter kit this month, to try out and giveaway along with a Silhouette SD Mac..."

Head on over to "A Bowl Full of Lemons" for a chance at winning a Silhouette!! I think this machine will help me in my 60/300 challenge!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Day 4 of 60/300

The past few days have been spent furiously decluttering and massively cleaning and the rest of my home has gone quite neglected. Today I played catch up and folded the 15 loads of laundry (a slight exaggeration but not by much) that had piled up, and cleaned the kitchen. I also had to create a cake for the Cub Scout Cake Auction tonight. I decided to do these cupcakes as I thought they looked cute and I I figured the kids would love them. I was originally going to make 2 boxes but one box yielded two dozen cupcakes and I didn't need to do the second box.

I used colored ice cream cones to make them look cuter.


And then I had to have my product testing team taste them for me. They were well received.



They were outside playing in the mud. Oh joy. Don't worry, they washed their hands prior to eating and then it was bath time!

My "cake" at the auction. I melted the frosting a little to make it look like melted icecream.


It sold for the max bid allowed - $20! All the money is going back to the troop to help with the costs for the remaining of the year and next year. This is the cake we purchased, also for $20.


obviously some people are better at decorating than me!

I volunteered to help out as much as I can next year. I'd love to be a Den Leader but with us PCSing in January/February I don't want to leave a Den hanging. I've been volunteered to help with the Blue and Gold ceremony as well as I'll be a Council Member and in charge of organizing the Camping events. I'll be quite busy next year with Soccer, Cub Scouts, and Girl Scouts all while Chris is gone. Which is why I need to get back to organizing my home tomorrow!!


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Day 3 of 60/300

When we first moved into this home Chris took the door off the Master Closet as it wasn't designed very well. With the door on it would hit the shelves and make it very difficult to get things into and out of the closet. I HATE this as I hate people sitting on the toilet looking into my closet! The Closet was also given over to Chris for the most part, as his military gear takes up most of it. This was one part of the house I have never really touched and therefore was one of the messiest rooms. I'm trying to take care of the messiest areas first while my drive is still pretty up there.

This is the view people get while using our bathroom


This is supposed to be my side of the closet


And Chris's military uniforms


And his military....stuff


And the other corner with more stuff.


And after a few hours of taking every single item out of our closet it looked something like this:

My side

The view from the toilet


And Chris's side



LOVELY!!! However, my room is now trashed while we sort through everything and figure out whats going back in the closet and what is finding a new home. There are a few boxes of pictures that need to be sorted into albums, and the kids baby boxes are being turned into shadow boxes.

Quite a lot of stuff will be sold or donated


Even more stuff is going in the trash. So far my closet looks like this. The clothes on the shelf are maternity clothes that need to be placed in a nice basket when I purchase one.






We are also going to hang a curtain rod and a nice white/sheer curtain to act as our door so people are no longer viewing our closet.

I went to Target today and spent $32 on a curtain rod, a sheer curtain, a trash can (to hold my wrapping paper rolls), and a decorative basket that didn't quite work for what I wanted so now I need to find a new use for it.

57 days to go $215 dollars left!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Day 2 of 60/300!

A few years ago Chris and I switched to the Dave Ramsey method of budgeting. We don't follow it as well as we should but I still swear by it. When we first switched we did actual, literal Envelope for our Envelope Budgeting. After a while our Envelopes began to look sad, so we switched to one of those little coupon accordion folders. We went through a few of them and then Chris said he wanted to switch to virtual envelopes. I was skeptical but gave them a try. However, months later we've concluded they just aren't working so back to actual Envelopes. I saw a few people make their Envelopes on a few blogs so I thought I'd give it a try.

I need to preface this by saying that I wish I were a crafty person. I LOVE to create crafts, and make stuff - I am just not very good. My friends Kristina, and Amy have more craftiness in their little pinkie than I have in my entire body. I do try though. Sometimes it works and other times I fail miserably. This time I came somewhere in between.

I started out making a template of an office envelope I had. My intention was to use two pieces of scrapbook paper so my Envelopes would be pretty inside and out. I also planned to laminate it to make it more durable.

My template for my first Envelope.

This is the traced template on scrap book paper.

I printed off labels using the Avery Template Program. We actually have 10 Envelopes - Chris Gas, Gas, Beth Fun, Chris Fun, Pets, Food, Fun (family), Clothes, Gifts, and Misc.


My first template didn't work well. The Envelope didn't close very well. Using two pieces of scrap book paper made it very bulky and difficult to manage. So I made another template which worked a little better. Next time, though, I will get double sided scrapbook paper and make myself happier.


These are the Envelopes prior to lamination. This project took entirely too long. To make it easier next time I will use only ONE sheet of paper and just buy double sided scrapbook paper. i will also create ANOTHER template with longer "wings"


And the final product. I used Velcro dots to close the Envelopes. Each Envelope has a different inside and it makes them super cute! They are more like plastic little pouches after all the lamination though.



These will go inside my Mizzell Family Binder once complete!

This project, unfortunately, took up a big chunk of my day. I did work on the garage more though. It is nearly complete and the pile of donate, trash, and sell is quite huge. I'm stuck, at the moment, until Chris can help me complete it. Only two more boxes to go through, a very good sweeping, and all the remaining boxes to be neatly stored and that room will be complete. Hopefully this weekend we will complete it and I can cross that room off my list. Tomorrow I begin the Master Bedroom Closet - a very scary place!