Week 28?!? We are somehow over halfway through this year and I honestly don't have the first clue how that even went and happened. It's been a mad whirlwind and it's just been over the past couple of weeks that I've been starting to feel like I have some control over things again. This is a good thing. It means that things are getting done. Things  getting done means that I'm a calmer, more contented person. All in all..things are good.

So, know what that means? I got last week's challenge done! Now, I'll confess and say that some of the items were stacked in another location. This is because I need to come up with some new organizational plan for "The Wall" aka my studio aka the office. That and I need to do some purging in there. For now though, here is my finished space!



Ta da! I have space! It's a lovely thing. This week will be a continuation of the never ending attempt at catching up on laundry. Since it's also a make up week, I'm going to go back and tackle one of my drawers. It's time to purge some clothes and to just generally tidy it up so that I can actually fit the clean clothes in the drawer again! Let's see if I can score a picture of my top drawer for you...I'm honestly a bit afraid to open it up and see just how bad it's gotten...


Hmm..I suppose it could be worse but there is certainly work to be done. I wonder when the last time I purged this drawer was..Well, I guess next week I'll be able to answer that question for you. Until then, don't forget that I love to see your before and after pictures, so please feel free to link up to your posts here!



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Since we started the Facebook group for this challenge, I have gotten lazier and lazier about posting these here and I apologize for that. This started as a blog challenge and I really would like for it to continue that way. For those who prefer the Facebook Group, please don't hesitate to head over there and send a request for an invite if you need it.

Until then, let's just jump right back in where we are, ok? This week, we're tackling our desks. Now, in this house that could be any number of spaces. There's the desk in the boys room, the desk in the office, the folding table in the office and my two tables in there as well. For this week, I decided to tackle the table where my laptop currently resides. Ready for the picture? It's not as scary as some of the spaces I've posted, but it still makes me cringe!


Yick, right?!? It looks like the dying ground of technology or something. Oh and let's just ignore the fact that I *may* have been playing a game instead of cleaning when this picture was taken. Well, it's just a starting point and not an ending point and by next Monday, I should have a much tidier space to show you. Until then, don't forget...you're not behind. Just jump in on this week's challenge. Any tidy space is better than no space!


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I want to start out with a quick apology for those of you who have been following along all month with my turning The Wall into a room. I need to post one final very photo intensive post for the challenge. It's going to contain the before and after photos as well as answering some tough questions. If you don't want to read, I totally understand! For those of you who do, let's go!

Let's start with the Before photos. Just a quick reminder as to why my son is wearing shorts in February, in Michigan. He wasn't. My camera batteries died and the batteries were buried well...in there. Luckily (?) for me, the room hadn't changed at all since August when I took these photos. Well, except to get worse since we kept shoveling things in there and the cats kept coming in and knocking stuff over as they used it for their personal jungle gym. So, even though it's embarrassing to admit, these before photos make the room look better than it was.
This is "The Wall." It's called that because as you can see, it was nothing more than a wall of boxes. Boxes, boxes, everywhere...and a cute kid who tries so hard to help mom get rid of those boxes (mostly so he can have them to play with.).

This is "The Wall" from inside. I risked life and limb to climb in there to get this shot. There aren't any other angles simply because you couldn't move off the tiny path enough to get any other angles. But, aren't my suitcases fabulous? lol!

This seemingly random shot was included to show that the nice clean spot on the floor in the first picture was totally gone by the time February rolled around. You can see the disaster around and under this poor chair (which has since had a makeover!).

Now, for the after pictures. I have to say that I am incredibly proud of this makeover because all it took was hard work. I didn't put even $1 into doing this space.

This is approximately the same angle as Before Photo #2. As you can see, there are no boxes. They are totally gone. This is my "tech desk" and the left side of my craft table. I hung those shelves all by myself. I had the aching muscles to prove it for two days after! All of the jars and storage items were things that I found in "The Wall" and reused!

This is an angle that you couldn't see before. It's the inside wall of "The Wall". The card table is now the boys' craft and work area. There are 2 chairs (you can only see one in the photo) and each of the boxes is sorted into different categories and labeled. My 8.5x11 craft papers are in the paper sorter and the containers on top hold all of my 12x12 papers sorted by color. My unused albums are stored on top of the bookcase and the bookcase holds albums (finished and in progress) as well as crafting books, computer books and fantasy genre books. The box in the lower right corner is actually a Build A Bear house that our kitten has taken as her personal hideyhole. The basket next to it holds all of the cords I found while doing the room that still need to be matched up to electronics in boxes elsewhere in the house. Once they're matched up, all extras will be gotten rid of and the basket will be reused elsewhere or Freecycled.

This is our PC corner. What I love best is that I got this desk (in August) from Freecycle so I didn't pay anything for it. Now that I think of it, my blue craft chair and the red desk chair were also freecycle items. The white/clear drawers hold various crafting/scrapbooking supplies all sorted by type and are labeled. The totes/baskets to the left of the desk hold office supplies and some of the boys larger crafting items that need to be stored separate from the ones on their table because they're mom supervised crafts only.I wish I had moved the desk chair. This angle makes the desk look cluttered on the corner, but it's not at all. Neither is the top of those drawers. Bad camera angle strikes again!

This angle most closely matches Before Photo #1. This is from the doorway looking in. Again, you can see the "tech desk" and my craft table.

Whew! The final picture of my After photos. This shows the full craft desk/tech desk area. As you can see, I've stored my crafting/scrapbooking travel bags under one end of the table where they're out of sight but easily accessible if I need to pack one to go somewhere.

Now, onto Laura's questions:

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?

- The hardest part...Getting into the room? Quite literally. This room was full of boxes, some of them stacked higher than my head. It was almost impossible for me to get into the room and then the challenge became where to start and now letting the whole process overwhelm me.

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?

- Everything has a place now. If I want a pair of fancy scissors, I know where they are. If I want a computer game, I know where it is. There isn't anything in this room that doesn't belong in it. Plus, now that I have it looking this good, I have no desire to see it going back to looking like a junkyard. My kids are also thrilled with the change and instead of coming in here and dumping things, they're picking up after themselves. In fact, I heard my younger one chastising his brother earlier for not picking up fast enough!

3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?

- The Stuff. Yep, I think that deserves to look like a movie title. By the time I was done decluttering this room, I had freecycled over 250 pounds worth of stuff from this room. That doesn't count the approximately 5 trash bags of recycling that went out to my curb for my service to pick up. Anything else that didn't belong in the room was moved to the room it does belong to.

4. What creative storage solutions were you able to introduce in order to create additional space as well as establish some limits and boundaries?

- Yay for storage solutions! Yay for me being an organizing junkie like Laura! I didn't have to go out and buy a single basket, drawer or shelf for this space because I already had them hiding in the room. I don't know how creative any of it was because to me organizing is like breathing. It's just something that I'm good at doing. I think though that two of my ideas were maybe a little bit creative. I took old fashioned canning jars and used them to sort buttons and ribbons into. Now, I can easily see what I have and pull out just that instead of everything. I also have a free standing cd/dvd rack in the room and after I finished purging software, I didn't have enough to fill it, so I took a few of my smaller books and filled one of the top shelves with those. As for the rest of the storage, it's mostly made up of boxes and baskets and drawers. It took forever but each one has a specific purpose and now I know right where everything is!

5. Why do you think you should win this challenge?

- Did you see this room before I tackled it? lol! Well, how about 5 points as to why I think I ought to win:

1. I single handedly kept my local Freecycle group going for the month of February. I actually got emails thanking me for my generosity from people who weren't sucking up to get my stuff!
2. I took a wall of boxes and turned it into a space that my entire family can use.
3. I recycled enough papers and cardboard boxes to save a dozen trees from the rainforest.
4. Because my kids said I did a good job and I should win.
5. Because I've taken the momentum from this room and have been using it all over my house. This hasn't just been a declutter challenge, it's been me finding myself hiding in that disaster and turning my home into my sanctuary. I'm finding the woman who let perfectionism and depression fill her house with stuff and loving her and taking care of her instead of berating her for letting things get to this point. I'm reminding her that she is a strong woman who is loved and who can do anything she wants to..she just has to take the steps. My awakening is the Freecycle world's gain!

Wow, that got pretty deep there at the end but you know, that's ok. If you managed to read all the way here to the end, thank you. If you didn't..well, if you didn't you're not reading now, are you? *grins* I don't know if I'll win, but it was worth going through this process anyway. I'm not done with my cleaning or purging and I'm sure there will be more posts about it in the future. Stick with me folks and we'll all get there, one room and babystep at a time!

My thanks to Laura over at OrgJunkie for hosting this challenge!

I promised you pictures and I have pictures! I'm sorry for making everyone wait so long but it seems that my body decided it was going to sleep in some this morning. No worries, though. I'm obviously awake now and I have all of the pictures downloaded off of the camera and ready to go right here onto the blog! So, without more of me babbling...here are the photos!

Photo #1: From the doorway, looking in on the two desks. The two pieces of paper you see are actually my work space. I do a lot of stamping and this protects the table cloth.

Photo #2: Welcome to the tech table. As you can see, it holds my pazzles, scanner, stereo and just to the left is my printer. Above the table are two shelves, holding craft supplies and other things that make me smile.

Photo #3: This is the PC corner. The tote and containers to the left of the desk are holding office supplies and some smaller scrapbooking albums and supplies.

Photo #4: This is to the left of the desk area. The box on the floor is full of wall hangings. It has my certificates from college, some photos and other hangings. The reason that it's still sitting in the room is that it's too heavy for me to move out! Some of those frames are darned heavy. As I find places for them to be hung, I'll take them from the box. When the box is light enough for me to move, I'll move it out!

Photo #5: Here you can see my bookshelf, dresser and part of the boys craft table.I just realized I need to tidy up on top of the dresser, but have no fear.. I'll do that as soon as I hit post on this. You can just see the handles of the two baskets that are on the floor in front of the bookshelf. One is holding all of the cables and cords that I found. I still have electronics in a box in the laundry room, but once I"m sure we don't need these, out the door they will go. The containers on top of the paper sorter hold 12x12 papers and the albums on top of the bookshelf are empty and waiting to be filled.

Photo #6: Another shot of the tech desk area.

Photo #7: One last look towards my craft table. As you can see, I have my craft bags stored under one end of the table.

And that's it! It's done! I'm so excited! I know there's more purging to come but I am in love with this room right now so I'm going to enjoy it.

Thursday...Thursday...la la la la...

No, I have no idea why I'm singing that again. It just seems to get stuck in my head when I see this graphic. I'm just hoping that today turns out to be as warm and happy as this picture. If it snows more, I'm going to scream. I shoveled so much yesterday and I didn't get the entire driveway done. There's still the chunk from the sidewalk down to the street. On the radio they kept mentioning all of these accidents and sheets of ice. Ugh! It doesn't make me look forward to the drive into Hastings, tomorrow. Hopefully even if it's cold, it stays clear so they can get out and clear up these roads.

As for today, I don't have a ton of plans. I'm going to move some stuff so I can get to the laundry room and clean the bathroom. Those are the big plans. Oh and I also need to call FedEx to come out and pick up the broken satellite box. The new one came yesterday and I got it all hooked up and working. Yay, me! I won't say that I don't need a man's help, but you know, it feels good to accomplish things on your own. In the past, I might have waited for some man to help me, but this time, I unhooked the old one and hooked up the new one all by myself. Now, I won't tell you how easy it is because I want y'all to be impressed..lol!

I also need to do something in the time for me category. I know! I'm going to spend some more time in "The Wall." I'm not sure what I'll do yet. I might use the pc in there to work on some more changes to the blog. I might light my candle again and relax, listening to some music. How can I do these things you ask? Because the room is done! Woohoo! I finished it! I can't wait to show y'all the pictures! In fact, I might even go ahead and put them up today. Not yet though, you're going to have to wait at least a little bit longer.

That's because I have to give you today's challenge! You didn't think I would forget, did you? Let's head into the bathroom, again. I know that we cleaned out the cabinet under the kitchen sink, but now it's time to do under the bathroom sink. I know that this area seems to collect things for me. For example, it's currently holding crafting items like shaving cream and hair gel because it's a safe place to keep them where they won't spill. Since I'm going to be cleaning my bathroom, I'm going to join you in this challenge. I might even do before/after pictures and submit them to the 28 Day Challenge. I did say I was going to do 2 small areas, after all!

Keep your eyes open for those pictures! I'll be back later!

Happy middle of a darned snowy week, everyone! I cannot believe it. I went outside yesterday and cleared the snow from the porch and the porch steps. Then, I shoveled a pathway to the driveway and shoveled half of the driveway. What did I wake up to today? More snow! Nononononono! C'mon weather gods, have pity on me!

Well, I'll deal with all of that outside later. For now, I need to deal with the next phase of "The Wall." The end is within reach and I'm not giving up. I also need to show you my photo for this week. The theme at Sunday Shutterbugs is Door. Well, since I've been so focused on The Wall and getting stuff handled around here, I didn't take the time to go take a cool picture. I had some awesome photos from England that I wanted to share, but I can't find them anywhere. I'm a bit freaked by that. So, instead, I went back to May of last year and found this photo.


This is actually a set of doorways. These are important doorways. These are the doors that I walked to on my way to Commencement 2009. I almost didn't go because I didn't have anyone there cheering for me, but I went because I had walked through a lot of doorways and up a lot of hills to get to that point. I won't say it was easy. It wasn't, but I don't regret any of it for a moment.

I want that for all of you. I've learned that sometimes the most rewarding things are the most difficult things to achieve. I count cleaning, organizing and decluttering in that. I know just how hard it can be to start, let alone to finish. When your physical surroundings are in chaos, so are you. I want you to find peace. So, your challenge for today is to go through your bed linens. Do you have those that have holes in them; that are just plain wearing you? Donate them to a local animal shelter. Get them out of your house and keep only those that will surround you in comfort and peace while you sleep.

And here we are, another day and another blog post. I do love my blog. Do all of you love yours? I mean really you should. It ought to be the one place you can go and just smile when you see it because it's all yours. If you don't love it, you should change it until you do.

Now, after that bit of deep wisdom, I bet y'all can't wait to see what I'm going to be doing today. Of course, really you already know because I told you yesterday. Today, I am tackling my craft table. I am thrilled to report that not only did I get those other 2 tables done yesterday, but I also started working on the desk. That's mostly because I was bored and when I'm bored I start to putter. Well, I puttered my way to a nearly finished desk which is just a nice head start.

So, did any of you get to see ice dancing last night? I am so bummed. Our satellite box decided it no longer wanted to work the other night. According to tech support, they say the hard drive in it must have failed. What is it with me and technology lately? I still haven't heard back from Dell and now this. Calgon, take me away, eh? Sheesh. So, no television for me until the replacement box comes which will probably be a couple of days. Not to mention that we just lost everything that we had recorded which is a major disappointment. They say to back up your hard drives, but how do you back up a dvr? lol!

Well, no use fussing too much over it. It's only tv, after all. It's not as if it's a hurricane or an earthquake where you could lose everything. It's just hours and hours of mindless entertainment. There, I think I feel a little better...hehe

So much better that I'm going to give you today's challenge. Are you ready? No? Well take a few deep breathes, stretch and do what you must and then scroll down a little bit and see what I have in store for you.


Challenge -- Let's go to the linen closet. I don't think we've stopped in there yet. How many towels do you have? Now, how many do you need? I'm actually putting a new towel "law" in practice around here, come the Spring (when I can easily access our camping gear). I have 4 levels of towels: bathroom, laundry room, barn and camping/outdoor events. The ones that we love and that are in good shape get to stay in the bathroom. We get to have 2 each of those. If I'm doing laundry regularly (which I ought to), that's basically one dirty, one clean. The camping/outdoor ones are those huge beach towels. I'm thinking one each of those, stored in the giant ziplock bags and tucked into our camping equipment out in the barn. Then, there's the laundry room towels. These are the ones that are starting to wear out but have tons of use left in them. I use these for dusting (the small kitchen sized ones) and for emergency spill/oh my gosh, there's water everywhere events. Once the towels get too bad for that..you know...where they're starting to wear thin or whatever, they go to the barn for use when we wash cars and stuff like that. Now, if there's any towels left after I divide them up, they'll be donated to a local animal shelter.

Did you manage to make yourself read all of that? I just want you to go through your towels, wash clothes, etc and decide if you need/love all of them that are stacked there. If not, find them a new home or a new use. Good luck!

Day 22..Can you believe it? After today there are really only about 5 more days left in this challenge. Since I'm going to be gone a good portion of Friday, that means only 4 more days left for me. It's hard to believe how fast this month has zoomed by and how much work I've gotten done. Of course, it's hard to believe how much work there's still to do, you know? I can't wait though. At the end of this week, I get to see how all of you did and that's exciting for me. You guys have been my teammates, my partners and yes, my challengers. When I see what one of you has gotten accomplished, it's only pushed me to work harder. Thank you for that. Now, let me give you the update.


This was taken from the doorway, looking in. As you can see, there is still plenty of clutter on my tables. However, I do have my boards hung on the walls and my shelves up, as well. You can't see the shelves in this picture, though. Shoot! Now, the box on the floor is being filled up for freecycle. The trashcan is full of items that go up to the boys room.


This is the arrangement that I put together on the lower shelf. The bottle and vase were picked up at a thrift store in Buffalo. The sand bottle was a Mother's Day gift from Ben. I've very carefully moved that on the last two moves, praying that stopper didn't come out. The kitten..well, I plain don't remember where I picked her up at but she always looked so happy and content. I just love her.


And this is the PC corner. As you can see, I still have some items waiting to be gone through and put away. That poor desk is totally covered in things. I've decided that my goal for Wednesday is to work in that corner and get it tidied up. Goals are good, right?


And this is the boys crafting table. As you can see, I've started getting it put together. Each of the photo boxes has different crafting items in it. I still need to do labels for them, though. The clear box under those holds items that are too big for the photo boxes, such as their scrapbooks and such. The items in the corner are waiting for me to go back through them, again.

It's really starting to come together and I'm thrilled with it. Today, I'm going to be working on clearing the boys table and the tech tables. I figure I have 4 days left so I've broken the room down into 4 segments:

Monday - Tech Table/Boys Table
Tuesday - Craft Table
Wednesday - Desk/In front of file cabinet
Thursday - Pile in corner in front of bookshelf

So folks, that's my plan. I just have two more things I want to mention.

1) For Sale - One Flute - $350 or best offer. I have all of the details on this but on the other PC, of course. It's an Olds French Style Open Hole flute. It was used for about 2-3 years in high school band and college pep band. It's in great shape and comes with the cleaning rod and hard case. It originally retailed for $880. If you know of anyone, please have them get in touch with me. I will ship this if need be.

2) Your challenge - For some of you this one will be quick and easy. I want you to walk around your home and take a look at your knickknacks and all of the little items we seem to find on our shelves. You know, those things we grumble about when it's time to dust. Yep, now you know just what I'm talking about, don't you? Do you love them? Are you holding onto some of them for purely sentimental reasons even though it's really not you? Well, today I want you to let go of any of those that you don't love. If you're keeping it for sentimental reasons, take a few pictures of the item. That way, you still have something to trigger the happy memories, but it's taking up far less space!

I'm off to grab something to eat and then back into the wall, I go! I will be back in Twitter and such today, so feel free to tweet at me and to retweet. I'm still working on my goal of 30 followers here, so your Tweets can only help!

I told you I'd be back and here I am! I had a really productive day in "The Wall" today so I'm thinking that my day off from technology was a good thing. Ok, I admit that I played games on Facebook when I would stop to take some breaks. However, I didn't deal with email. I didn't sign into Twitter and I just work work worked. I think the best part was laying under one of the tables, plugging in a power strip and talking to the cats. It was actually kind of peaceful. Plus, did you see what I said? Under one of the tables! Woo! Suddenly, I'm actually looking forward to the pictures that will be posted on Monday. Nope, no sneak peaks this week. We're too close to the end and I'm planning on spending my weekend in "The Wall" to push it towards completion. I have another box of freecycling going out tomorrow and one more that I actually need to post. I'm sure it will get snagged quickly because it's baskets and crafting items. I'm so excited to finally be able to really start to see changes happening!

As for today, I'm going to be out and about, at least for the morning. I'm taking the van in to have the tie rod replaced. I'm so blessed to have someone who is helping me with the cost of the van repairs. I can't afford to have the front end alignment done yet but hey, progress is progress. After that, I need to make a stop off at the IGA to get some emergency food supplies to get me through the next week. I'm hoping that even without the front end alignment, I'll be able to get into Hastings next Friday to pick up the boys and to get some serious groceries.

After that, I need to do my Finish It for this week. My goal is to finish clearing out from under the craft table so that I can start getting the "organizational" units placed under that. If I can do that, I'm going to be so excited. It will make for some really good progress over the past couple of days.

As for all of you, we're going to go someplace that we haven't gone to yet this month. Are you ready? I want you to go to your laundry area/room. Collect up all of the empty soap bottles, empty dryer sheet boxes and any other garbage that may be floating around that area. If you're like me, you empty one out with the intent on taking it to the recycling bin or trash can in the other room and there it remains. While you're in there, take a quick inventory. Are you low on anything? If so, make a note on your shopping list so that you don't forget them when you next go shopping.

And that's it for me, folks. I have a busy day coming. Have a great Friday and I'll see you back here tomorrow for another Saturday tip!

Ok, I told you I'd be back with photos and I am. Now, I know I worked in "The Wall" last week but ugh, by looking at the photos, I just can't see it. I'm starting to have serious doubts as to whether or not I'll even come close to finishing this challenge. I only have 11 days left and in those 11 days, I have to spend hours at the mechanics and (in theory), go into Hastings and spend a day there. Ugh! Well, I'm not giving up even if I am feeling beaten at this. If it's not done, well at least it will be closer to done, right? Right. So, here we go..."The Wall"....


The Wall from the doorway, looking in. You can see I got the table clothes on both of the tables and am starting to organize them.


This is the PC corner. The desk is still covered with items and there's a pile of things to the left of the chair.


This is the crookedly hung wall rack over by the PC. I've been using the ribbon holders to hold various cords as I find them. I have no idea what a lot of these go to but I hope to figure it out soon.



The wall rack that is hanging by the door to the room. This one is hung straight and is slowly filling up with a variety of items.



This is what will be my crafting table. I got a lot of the core pieces into place but it's covered with the corkboards that I somehow have to get hung up behind it. Sometimes I wish I were 6 inches taller so I could actually reach. The box on the corner of the table is actually freecycled items that should be picked up by noon tomorrow.



And this folks is what has me paniced. This is the floor by the two tables. The space under the tables is full and it's flowing out from under both tables. I know that I have to cut this amount down to at least half, if not more, for it to fit into this space. That's a lot of tough decisions to make and like most emotional packrats, it's tough for me to do this but I know that I have to.