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.

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!

60/300 Day 1!

Today began my kickoff of my personal Spring Challenge - my 60/300 challenge. As much as I try to keep my home as clean and neat as possible it is quite challenging with 4 young ones running around and a very sweet, caring - but messy - husband to clean up after. One day of taking it easy can put me behind by a week. I need to get my home more organized so hopefully I won't need to spend as long on cleaning every day. I'm not doing any ordinary cleaning. Every corner of my home will be transformed. I figure it will take me roughly 2 months to completely go through every single item in my home, catalog what we keep and sell, donate, or throw away the rest. At first I was planning on only spending $200 but after my first trip to Target I knew that wasn't going to be enough. $300 is still pretty conservative, but I don't mind a challenge.

Day 1 began with a trip to Target. I bought 2 binders, one for my household binder and one for

the household recipe binder. I also bought colored computer paper, colored cardstock, scrapbook paper, and a new label maker (!!!). My total was $53. I printed out some of the household binder sheets and completed my cover page (almost). All I need it a picture of the family to put on it!

I also printed up The Mizzell Family Rules, The Mizzell Morning Schedule, and The Mizzell Playroom Rules. I got this idea from my friend Miranda's Blog.

I placed them in frames and they are now hanging in our dining room, and playroom. Anthony is already repeating the rules to us verbatim!

Today I decided to shoot for purging the garage. It will probably take me a week or so to finish it. The garage is in major need of TLC. With Nebraska weather there isn't many days where we can actually spend much time in it, and it's become a catch all for every. single. thing. we. own. I'm hoping to actually get rid of quite a bit in there, and have the rest neatly placed in bins/boxes/containers. And with my new, lovely, label maker everything will be labeled!

My garage started out looking something like this: (these were taken on the phone, I'm sorry for the poor quality)

These are my shelves for food. At first one of them was being used for craft items, and my some of my sewing supplies. The other was semi organized but not the way I like it.

This is the back "catch all" storage area. Literally, this is where we dump everything. It drives me absolutely crazy. The other picture is the side of the garage where the rest of my sewing stuff is, the tools, the gift wrap/bags area, and our old couch that we are desperately trying to give away.

This is a way back view of the "food" side of the garage with our deep freezer in the middle. The other picture is another view of the back of the garage. I got all those 2 liters on sale for around .60 a bottle. Stocking up for the summer BBQ's!

And this is after my progress from today. Still a ways to go, but getting better. I cleared off most of the black and white shelves, and the bottom of my sewing shelf to make room for the craft items.

I also took inventory of the food shelves in the garage!

I organized the food shelves and labeled them.

I began the pile of things to throw away, donate, or sell.

The back of the garage is looking a lot better, but still not there.

A better shot of the white and black shelves.

Tomorrow I'll continue on with the garage and begin the Master closet - another awful area of the house as I left it to my husband to keep clean....

59 Days left

$247 left.