Mid-week Musings

Each day I think of writing a post, much like you think of a friend you haven't talked to in a long while, with the best intentions.  But before you know it - the day has passed and you've been swept away in its activities without reaching out.  Then I think, oh well...I guess I must be too busy living life to write about it.  What a wonderful problem to have!

We continue to make progress on the room shuffle in progress at our house, along with all of the organizational efforts surrounding it.  I spent part of Saturday making labels for all of Owen's newly purchased toy bins.  Each 2x4 shipping label has a photo of the toy and the name of the toy or collection that's in each bin.  Hopefully this simplifies clean up time when we have friends over or when mom isn't around to supervise clean-up.  Also, Owen is actually playing with his toys again now that all of the pieces are together in one spot and not scattered all over the house.  So far, so good!  Finally, it's a pleasure for me to walk into his room, or into our family room, and not see toys EVERYWHERE.  Ahhhh... A small piece of visual chaos tamed.  

Garage sales are over in Minnesota for the long, cold, winter.  However, a friend and I hit my local thrift store recently and I found this sunny chenille bedspread for the foot of my bed.  LOVE IT!  It's one of those items that makes me happy each time I see it, AND, it serves the purpose of giving our little terrier a place to lay when dad decides she gets to sleep with us instead of in her kennel.  Any good finds in your neck of the woods lately?

I hope this compact little post finds your day filled with fun and adventure (even if it just consists of running the necessary errands, he, he, he.)  We are off to start our day! ~J.

Organizing on the mind

Time out from surfing ideas for organizing the arts and crafts room, I need to post something!  It's been a month (again!) since my last entry and of course there's a lot in the works around our humble abode. 

We got new carpet in the lower level bedrooms in preparation for moving the previously mentioned arts and crafts room downstairs to bedroom #1 and combining my husband's "man's room" with the guest bedroom in room #2.  While we haven't gotten too far on the move, we have gotten the guest bed and a chaise set up for guests in the man's room/guest room and it looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself!  We mounted my husband's road bike on the wall, ala NYC loft style to free up some floor space and relocated some of the other sporting equipment to places that just plain made more sense. 

You see, we've lived here for almost 7 years (I can hear the gasps from those who know us well, since prior to this home we'd not lived in one place more than 2 years since leaving our parent's homes.)  Without the mandatory purge that goes with moving all the time, we have accumulated a bunch of "schtuff" as my friend Tracey would say (check out her blog on my favorites list - Makin' Schtuff.)  Worse yet, it has haphazardly been placed in any free nook and cranny instead of given a permanent, organized, know where to find it next time, HOME.  Soooo...

We have embarked on the task of reorganizing our home, making some room shifts, and purging all we can in preparation for the new member of our family who will be joining us in 2011.  We could not be happier about expanding our family and the news gave us just the push we needed to clean and organize the garage and shed this fall for the first time since we moved in.  We've also tackled my son's closet and bedroom, our closet, and now the new task of relocating the arts and crafts room so that space can again become a nursery.  Whew!  With Christmas right around the corner it feels very busy in our home right now.

Back to my first paragraph of the post - tonight I have been surfing around looking for ideas to better organize the arts and crafts room when it moves.  It needs to be well organized and efficient since I enjoy sewing (machine, notions, fabric, trims), crafting with felted wool, making jewelry (beads, shells, sea glass,) doing paper crafts (scrapbook paper, card-making supplies, stamps,) and projects with photos (frames, albums, photo storage.)  Add in my son's paints, crayons, stickers, pop-it beads, and other preschool craft items and you have one awesomely busy, extremely fun space!!

Here are a few of tonight's finds you might want to check out...  The blog, Chez Larsson, has an awesome section on organizing - it breaks out each area of your house and gives solutions for organizing or reclaiming those spaces.  Plus, the 12/7/10 posting is called Holiday Loo so you know I'm hooked on this blog, since I also change my "Loo" decor seasonally.  ;-) 

Simplify 101 has organizing tips, articles, and a link to their blog, Creative Organizing.  Perfectly Pretty also has amazing tips for organizing things (and she has a great sense of humor - like laughing at herself because her small designer handbag collection is kept in a drawer of her IKEA dresser. HA!)  

So friends, no photo with this post, just a few links to get you lost in blog-land for a few hours if you too are craving some new ideas for organization.  Enjoy!