When Disaster Strikes

Well now, after I did that nice declutter in the cupboards yesterday I went on and washed dishes and tidied up the counters, and swept and mopped before I left home to go to work. Only to be greeted with disaster when I came home after 10:00pm.

mud & water in my kitchen (my floor is blue)

mud & water in the kitchen

worst on the back porch

I haven't even begun on cleaning up any of it. It was too late last night and I had to work this morning. In fact I'm only home a couple of hours and then I'm on my way back to work and it's raining again now.







On another note, I did get a bit of decluttering done this afternoon when it was way too hot to have worked on the mud slide and besides, I had to go back to work, didn't want to get all dirty. So I decluttered some of my inbox and my Windows desk top. 

Yes I still use Outlook Express for my email. Don't even start. I like it. I hate using web based mail, it's annoying with all the clicking back and forth to see what something is and decide I want to read it then  you gotta click back a page to see the next thing. Forget it. Any way, if some of you are still using Outlook, I discovered a long time ago that if you click on the headings that say "From -Subject - Received" it will organize your mail in different ways. Clicking "From" will list everything in alphabetical order by name of sender. Clicking "Subject" will list it in alpha order according to what's in the subject line. Clicking Received will put it all back into the order that it was received in. Click again and it will put it in reverse order by the date.

I get a lot of email reminders from FlyLady and her friends, along with messages from different blogs and forums I follow,  so when they are piling up I just hit From and scroll down and they will all be grouped together for easy deleting.

On Windows I went through the control panel and deleted a number of games and other things that I don't need anymore.

Declutter the Pantry, part 2

pantry cupboard before

Well today I decided that the first part of the cupboard looked so good I should finish up the whole thing. I'm glad I did because I found some yummy treats hiding in the no man's land in the far right side. My kitchen is small without a lot of storage space. My stove is just about 2 1/2 feet to the right of this cupboard. I keep my little kitchen cart/butcher block in the space. Since that makes it a pain to get to that far right hand cabinet, I rarely open and look in there. Guess I should do that more often.



I discovered quite a bit of food hiding back there that I canned when the garden was going great guns in 2009. (See my garden blog here). I actually did about 20-25 minutes on this project, first emptying the shelves and wiping them down to get the chunky stuff out (including a dehydrated baby mouse.....mmmmm could that be a new snack treat for cats?) Then scrubbing the shelves with hot soapy water. Then of course wiping off each jar and can and checking the seals and expiration dates. Then deciding how to rearrange things. I pulled everything over towards the left so that I will see and use it. I  found several jars of various pickles, the really, truly, last jar of pickled eggs, several jars each of hot pickled peppers, applesauce and pear butter. Along with a couple of jars of bean soup and potato soup.

When my timer went off the first time I set it again, because I wanted to finish this project and be done with it. When I was done in the cabinet there was still time left so I used it to wash down the side of the stove and then scrub up some groddy stuff off the floor.

 Oh, what? Oh, yeah, the picture; here ya go!

As you can see that far right hand cabinet is now basically empty. I can now see what I have that should be eaten up pretty soon and better visibility means I won't be duplicating things on my grocery list, so I'll be saving money, always a good thing.


While I was down under there with my head in the cupboard I believe I found where the mice have been coming in. I thought they came in around the gas line but I put a blob of expando foam on that years ago. I couldn't figure out where they kept coming from. Well, looking at things it looks like the shelf boards have shrunk away from the walls of the cabinets in some spots and there is a crack that is probably big enough to let a mouse through.  So caulking those all up will have to go on my never ending to do list.

Those cracks are probably also where the spiders and scorpions are coming in also. Though I have many less scorpions now than I did when I moved into this house. In the beginning we were over run with them. Over the years I have been plugging up every hole and crack I can find with either expando foam or regular caulking. Now I only have one occasionally, maybe 3-5 in the house in a year, as opposed to that many every week. So if you have scorpions or other things in your house, seal up every crack you can find. Look around every place there is a break in the wall of your house, like water, drains and gas lines, around windows and doors. When I redid my spare room I sealed all the joints where the walls met in the corners as well as where they met at the ceiling and floor before I put up the new sheet rock. Has drastically reduced the number of critters coming in there!

Now, for all of my American readers and friends, Happy Independence Day!!! I'm Damn Proud to be American!

DAMN PROUD AMERICAN! by maryhysong

Declutter the Pantry!

pantry cupboard before

When was the last time you cleaned out your pantry? If you are like me you really don't have an honest to goodness pantry like our great grand mothers did (and more's the pity). No we have to cram our canned and packaged foods into whatever cupboard we can.

At least mine has stair step shelves so you can see most of what's in there. These were built by my granddad in the '40s or '50s when he and my granny lived in this house and remodeled the kitchen.

Poor things all of my cupboards have been badly abused over the years, with renters ripping off doors and bashing things up. And I haven't gotten around to fixing most of this stuff since I moved in. There's enough termite damage to know that I need a whole new kitchen.

Back to the point. You have to keep rotating your stock. You have to check the cupboards once in awhile and look at the expiration and 'sell by' dates on things. Otherwise you are going to lose money having to throw some of those things away.

There were several cans of food hiding in the dark recesses of this cabinet that I tossed; they were one and two years past their expiration dates. If they are only a couple of months past I'll put them to the front and use them right up, but too long over and they just don't have a good texture and taste. They won't kill you if you eat them, but they won't taste that good.

pantry cupboard after 15 minutes

So in just 15 minutes I got all of the left hand shelves emptied and wiped down and a bit done on the right hand side. Tossed a number of cans of food, one expired in November 2008.....

What I wouldn't give for an old fashioned honest to goodness pantry. And while I'm daydreaming I'll take a root cellar attached to it, so I can have cool damp vegetable storage as well as cool dry canned good storage.




If you just need a few more shelves in your kitchen you might want to look at these rolling pantries and see if they will work for you.
      Or maybe one of these organizers will help you get the most out of your space.

Antique Hoosier

Antique Hoosier in my kitchen, before

I have a wonderful antique Hoosier that I bought as a local shop, Hill Street Mall,  last year. I didn't even realize what it was when I bought it because the flour and sugar bins had been removed. I have high hopes of someday restoring it to it's former glory. For right now though I think I would just like to be able to get it out from under the pile of junk that has accumulated on and around it.

If you didn't know, Hoosier cabinets were the quintessential kitchen cabinet from the turn of the century until well into the 1930s. Kitchens of the time had no built in cabinets so everything was stored on wall shelves or in freestanding furniture like the Hoosier.

The Hoosier Cabinet Company of Castle, Indiana was perhaps the most well known of the time. They were perhaps one of the first companies to advertise credit terms for their cabinets, with only $1 down and a $1 a month, any husband could afford to give his wife this state of the art piece of furniture to ease the drudgery of kitchen work.


Here in one place were to be found the sugar, flour, coffee and spices, all in lovely matching jars. Most models of cabinets had some sort of built in spice rack; some had handy cards posted on the inside of the upper doors giving times to roast meat and a grocery list to help keep up with what you needed to order.

 The Hoosier company also made a unique stool. Upright the lady of the house could sit to work at the Hoosier and thus rest her feet. Turned upside down it became a stable step ladder for reaching high places.


I highly recommend Hoosier Cabinets by Philip D Kennedy. I learned a great deal about the different styles of cabinets and the different cabinet making companies from this book.

antique Hoosier after 15 min

And now I know you are waiting for this picture! What did I get accomplished in a paltry 15 minutes? Well, a fair amount. I made a pile of stuff to give away, which opened up space to move things back from the edge. I was able to shift some things around up top so I could put more up there and close the doors. And I moved a box of tools that was sitting there to the porch, where tools should live.


Happy 4th Everyone!

Decluttering Fun

As a decorative artist I often use paint to transform castoffs into something new. I have a lot of UFOs laying about at the moment though. (UnFinished  Objects) So as part of my decluttering I have decided I need to concentrate on some of them and get them finished and out of the house.

So today's project was to finish painting the coffee table that was in my living room. Now I didn't get all of this done today, I've been doing a few minutes here and there. Today I just did the decorative flower part. 

coffee table before

So this is what it looked like before I started. I sanded it a bit and gave it several coats of a very pale blue paint that I had leftover from painting the spare room.

coffee table after

Today I added the blue morning glories and now I just need to clear seal it so I can take it to the shop to sell. If you click on the pictures you can see them much larger.










This decorative painting style is simple One Stroke painting that I learned from Donna Dewberry.
   

Are We Born This Way?

Are some people born slobs and others born organized? Well I'm not sure there is an actual genetic link but it sure seems like it sometimes. And Pam Young and Peggy Jones, in Sidetracked Home Executives certainly thought there might be. The original edition of From Pigpen to Paradise was certainly helpful to me in coming to understand my side tracked nature.

I realized that I always have lots of plans and ideas in my head and I can't seem to get to them fast enough. Or I underestimate the amount of time it will take. Or, a recurring theme in my life, A needs to be done before B but I can't do B until I do C and I can't do C unless I've done A.

So lately I've been pondering, what do those 'born organized people do? How do they think that is different than the way I think?"

Could it be that they are more 'left brained', more linear and logically thinking than I am? I am very much a visual person and reading something is often more helpful to me than hearing someone explain it. In fact I have discovered that if I read it I will understand and retain more of the information than if I hear it.

Now I know that doesn't work for a lot of people. Especially those who have difficulties with reading or understanding and retaining what they have read. But I digress. My whole point is that we all think in different ways and while the scientists are mapping which parts of our brains are doing what, we still have to figure out how to get to where we want to be in our lives.


So how do those organized people do it? And most important, can the rest of us learn how to do it too? I think we can. It will take some time and some work, but we can 'retrain' our brains to work in new and different ways.

One thing is to be prepared. Prepare today for tomorrow. Check and see if you have an appointment or are you going to work or will you have a day off? So what will you wear? Choose tomorrows clothes tonight, making sure you have everything you need from the skin out.

If you are leaving the house tomorrow where are you going? What do you need to take with you? Set up a small table or something near the front door. Keep your purse and keys there. Put your brief case, diaper bag, kids backpacks, whatever you need tomorrow there. Marla Scilly, The Fly Lady, calls this your launching pad. My daughter had her kids leave their school shoes there along with their coats and back packs. Sure helped organize their mornings.

Make sure you write down all of your appointments  in your planner or on a large wall calender. Pick one day a week to do all your errands and buy groceries and such. Have your list and coupons together on your launch pad, along with the mail you are taking to the post office, the library books, et. And tell your family that you will do things for them on your errand day, if they tell you the night before. Otherwise they can figure out how to get it done on their own.

Another thing that born organized people do is that they effectively use small blocks of time. Instead of being overwhelmed that the job will take 8 hours, they put in ten or fifteen minutes when ever they can, nibbling away at it. After all, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

In conjunction with that organized people never waste time. Sitting and waiting at the doctor's office, take your bank statement in and work on balancing the check book while you wait. Write a note to a friend. Start on that list of 100 things  you want to be, do or have. Brainstorm and doodle about the latest project you have in mind. This is a great way to constructively pass the time.

Organized people are also very time conscious. They have a really good idea of how long something is going to take them, whether it's revising a web page or driving to an appointment or tidying up the bathroom. For those of us who are trying to learn to be organized a timer can be a great help. 

I have a timer similar to this one. It has a pocket clip, easel stand and magnet and it counts up from zero (in case  you want to time how long it _really_ takes you to mop the kitchen) or counts down from what ever time you set. I know I would be lost without my timer as I do several 15 minute sessions for different areas of my life each day.

Speaking of working on things 15 minutes at time, today's declutter session was back on the dresser top. While it still has to much stuff on it, it's good enough for the time being.

15 on the Dresser

Today I'm back on top of the dresser, wow, there is sooooo much stuff on there and being little and some of it I want to keep so I have to find places for it as well as wash the dust off of it. 

dresser top after a second 15 minutes

So I did get rid of some stuff; a whole handful of nuts bolts and screws went  to a pile of them on the back porch to be sorted out later. I wiped off some dust, tossed some trash. Put some little things that were on the dresser into the display case. Put away some lotions and potions into the bathroom. Made a pile of all the keys until I have time to see what they go to.


Yes, that's me in the mirror back of the display case taking the picture.