this one doesn’t make much of an impact

But I found what I was looking for!

Tonight I sorted through my choral music. I had to find the music I need now that we’re rehearsing for the holidays, so it was the perfect opportunity to reorganize.

I store my music in the gray file box seen above, and it’s safe to say I don’t always put things away promptly. Or ever. That pile to the left of the file box is also music; the red folder at the bottom is Christmas music. From last year. There was a lot of stuff just shoved in the back of the box behind the hanging folders. I found a rehearsal schedule from 2005!

I sorted through a large pile of papers, a lot that were duplicates or things I don’t think I’ll need again. That can go, freeing up a little more space. The rest is now sorted alphabetically in hanging folders. It had folders before, but I added a few more since it was a bit too stuffed before.

Then I shoved the file box under the corner table so it’s out of the way.

That large pile of papers next to the shredder is waiting to be shredded. It can only handle a few sheets at a time!

sorting socks

I was looking around for a portable project tonight. I’ve got a lot to watch on my DVR and I wanted to multitask!

I wasn’t really in the mood to sort through piles of paperwork, but I came across another issue in the office that would work.

Somehow these old storage bins back from the early apartment days wound up storing some of my running clothes (mostly socks) that I hadn’t gotten around to pairing up and putting away. Since there were also three pairs of gloves in there, this pile has been building up for a while!

I matched 24 pairs of socks and put them away. I also folded and put away the three tank tops, two running skirts, and pair of shorts that was in there.

And then I got out all of the stray socks from the laundry pile and tried to pair them up.

But I still have a lot of orphans.

I’m not giving up hope until we get to the bottom of Mt. Laundry. (But I did throw out several that were not worth saving!)

accidental clean-up

I had a busy day today. And actually, quite the busy weekend. I’ve still managed to post daily for NaBloCleanMo, but I’ve fallen behind.  I’m currently not working a day ahead on any of my cleanup projects.

When I got home around 6pm tonight after being out all day on a running-related field trip (more on that later), I wasn’t really sure what I was going to tackle tonight.

I went about showering and putting on my jammies (yes, before 7pm), and then went into the kitchen to fill up a water bottle. It’s hard to drink out of cups in this house! And I got a little sidetracked …

While I have plenty of clean water bottles, I decided I should wash out the three in queue next to the sink. And then I washed the colander that had been sitting beside the sink for a few weeks.

And then I cleaned out the empty cookie jar. Even though they were long gone, everything had been tasting minty since the last of the Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s (which should be back soon, if not already. Yay!).

I also have a canister that used to have whole wheat flour in it. I ran out long ago, yet hadn’t gotten around to washing it out. Until today.

I don’t have a before picture since I didn’t really intend this to be tonight’s clean-up project. It just happened.

Once everything was clean I wiped down the countertops. Sure it’s only part of my kitchen, but it makes a big difference!

mt laundry

I can’t take credit for most of today’s cleanup. My husband did most of the work while I napped on the couch, recovering from this morning’s 9-mile run. Since I had a chorale concert last night and another tonight, I needed the rest!

Onto the cleanup … Our laundry stack had gotten quite impressive!

I can’t believe it didn’t topple over.

After I got back from my run, I did wash a load of running clothes. This didn’t help the main problem … but my running-clothes hamper was also full. Yikes.

Once that was done, I pulled the darks/colors out of the mountain and my husband took over from there.

It’s still kinda full, but the lid closes!

Before my nap, I tried on all of the jeans and pants in my dresser. I’m less likely to put my clothes away if my drawers are too stuffed! I found a small stack that I didn’t wear much or didn’t fit well that’ll go to Goodwill. I didn’t get rid of that much … but it should help.

Now I just have to go through the rest of the drawers … and my closet …

this is a recurring problem.

I have too much stuff, and not enough places to put it.

Tonight I returned to cabinet in the powder room. This half bathroom truly is my powder room, since I use it to do my hair and makeup in the mornings while my husband is in the shower.

Aside from storing toilet paper and some cleaning supplies, I have a quite a collection of hair products, sunscreen, lotions and bath products in here.

I find it kind of amusing that the black box in the front was full of stuff I hadn’t yet organized the last time I cleaned out this cabinet. It’s referenced in the post I linked to above … from November 2007!

Anyway, that’s gone now. Also gone are a lot of half and mostly-empty sunscreen bottles that have expired, some empty boxes, and some products that I remember disliking.

I have the same problem as last time — a ton of nearly-empty hair products that I simply won’t toss until it’s all used up. I now have all of them consolidated in a large basket in the front. This time I really do have to finish off all the almost-empty ones, and figure out if I like the full ones. And then toss them if they don’t work!

Last time I didn’t have that large basket … and all of the extra hair products were in the back where I couldn’t access them as easily. Hopefully this works!

I still have some work to do with the small basket in the front. There are some lotions that can stay, but there’s also a rather large assortment of travel-size shower gel, shampoo and conditioner bottles that should probably be stored with the others I have in our master bathroom cabinet.

But that’s another project for another day!

paper or plastic?

Apparently, both.

I started going through my cluttered pantry last night. Here’s what we started with:

It seems I feel the need to save every paper or plastic bag that comes into this house. By cleaning out just the bottom section of the pantry, I was able to remove this:

Oh, I also re-attached the bag holder/dispenser that had fallen off months ago. That was also shoved into the floor area of the pantry.

I still have a long way to go. But at least now stuff won’t fall on me every time I open the door!

a-tisket, a-tasket

I organized my basket.

Well, not completely. But I got rid of a lot of junk.

When you last saw my dresser, it looked like this:

Note the position of the first basket on the left.

The other night I went through this basket, throwing out old receipts and prescription labels, tossing some old broken sunglasses, and putting away two random socks.

See how this semi-organized basket is actually smaller than the one in the middle? That’s how much stuff was shoved behind it. I tend to put things there that I need to save for some reason.

There were quite a few receipts from online orders where I’ve made returns. Do I ever go back and check the statement to make sure it’s on there? Not usually.

There were a lot of prescription labels, saved for ease of refill. But does the whole bag need to stay there? Of course not.

This is still very much a junk basket, and it will probably stay pretty random. But it’s better than having all that stuff all over my dresser!

this one’s going to take a while

It looks like there’s been an explosion in my home office.

Most of it is paperwork. At one point I started to reorganize my filing cabinet, but just ended up with piles all over the room. Part of the reason I have trouble filing promptly in the first place is because there is way too much stuff shoved in our small filing cabinet!

So when I started this reorganization (months ago!), I cleared out the bottom drawer so I could start fresh. And I wound up with this.

I sat down and started going through some of the files. Car insurance records from 2004 — from a provider I no longer use? Bank statements from 2001? (Remember when banks sent back checks in your statements? It was also pretty easy to tell when I started using online banking — no more large stack of checks!)

I still have a pile to shred but got through quite a bit. Very little actually needed to be saved.

I still have a long way to go, and it doesn’t make a big visual impact. But I’m moving in the right direction!

another messy dresser

We’ve already established my problem putting things away. Of course I have a problem with my laundry as well.

Here you see a combination of clothes I neglected to hang up / put in drawers, clothes that needs to be washed separately, and running clothes I’ve started pulling out of storage for the cooler temperatures.

I started using a separate hamper for my running clothes years ago. I used to throw items with special washing instructions in there as well, to keep them separate from the main laundry … but that wasn’t working out. So I purchased a third hamper. Hopefully this will help keep some of the mess from coming back!

It didn’t take long to put away what was clean and toss what was dirty into the new hamper.

You could barely see the clock in the “before” picture.

All that’s left are two pairs of my husband’s shorts that need button repairs. They’ve been waiting for a while!

shoe mountain

The same thing seems to happen each season. I start pulling shoes out of storage before packing away the past season’s shoes.

Resulting in this:

I pulled everything out, stored the spring/summer shoes in an under-the-bed box, got rid of several pairs I wasn’t wearing or had replaced, and reorganized.

I don’t actually expect it to stay this way. It’s hard to manage all these boots in such a small space!