Lose the Junk

I have been working hard the last few weeks to complete a Clean House Challenge that I was working on in the Spring. This week I tackled just a couple of spots in my kitchen.

I have people help with dishes and sometimes that is not so wise. I forgot to take before photos but basically I have a silverware drawer then junk mix drawers. I removed everything and started over. I am not sure how I never thought of putting the small cutting boards that get used all the time in a drawer but when I reorganized everything, the thought came to me and its been GOLDEN. I  hope to create a divider thing for the silverware, we bought the wood but we haven't had time yet. My poor organize holder is 22 years old. 

I love this little cart, somehow it always feels with junk though.

I had some odds and ends so I allowed them to stay in this tiny drawer.

Now knifes have their own drawer, this was needed for sure.

This is my favorite part of the To Do list, reorganizing all these Kitchen Utensils. These little picnic baskets were perfect. I hope to put a light in the cabinet though as it gets very dark and is hard to see. More obstacles to conquer in the following months. 

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Martha Home the Mary Way Prep Day

So life is super busy. I am eager to start the 31 Days to a Clean Home Challenge. This week focuses Mon-Thur on the Kitchen. I have my work cut out for me. 

Outside of cleaning just every day things, I need to find a way to organize better. 

Cabinets in my home are limited and they were not done very well either. It has been a struggle the entire time we have lived here. I have decided we also need to down size on some stuff, put some lights in, build our own drawer organizers instead of using premade ones etc. 

This silverware organizer I have had since we lived in a rental for a while, that was 10 years ago.. time to part ways for sure.

Asking kids to help with dishes is great, except that I end up with cabinets like this one

Somehow like most homes we end up with a million bottles. I need a better organizing solution for these too.

One thing I was reading in a book was about throwing out old spices. These two cabinets will likely look bare once we go through them. I think it has been a really long time.

This is probably the best organized cabinet, it is just for canning supplies, however its behind the dishwasher when the door to it is open so I think it prevents people from even using it, thus it stays pretty clean.

Always my nightmare, but I saw a cool solution on pinterest that we are going to try.

This I truly need a solution for.

Fridge and freezer~ they are the one thing I never look forward to, with six people living in our house come Mid May we will need to have a good solution to a better organized space.

Also time to make sure we throw out anything that isn't good. So ...
if you are wanting to participate Monday's Challenge is to
Put a load of laundry in your washing machine.
Do the Dishes, scrub pans, clean out your sink
Gather papers from the counters (and if you have a table in your kitchen space there too)
Set them aside.
Then clean your counters.
Let me know how you do this week.
I would love to hear from you.

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Martha Home Mary Way Book Giveaway

I am giving away one copy of Sarah Mae's new Book

I posted some more information about the challenge, links to her blog earlier today. I wanted to do a little more and provide you with a copy so that you can participate in the challenge. I will be posting the days challenge and accomplished task, so you can follow along for the 31 days if you would like, you can also participate along with her Blog or mine until your copy arrives.

If you have cleaning tips of your own, supplies you love, I would love to hear all about it, leave me a blog post comment.

6 Months of House Cleaning

A few years back I participated in something called 31 Days to Clean, what a blessing that was. You can see a post here
Sarah Mae has written a book based on that printable/challenge many of us followed called Having a Martha Home the Mary Way. I absolutely love it.
Recently I entered a contest for 6 months of house cleaning for free. I truly need it. Working in your own home is challenging. It is difficult sometimes to balance everything from quilt orders to homework to being a taxi service for my high- schoolers and college student.
At least once a week I ask the Lord to help me in this area, probably truly much more often than that.
Organization is something I truly need help on. Its challenging because this house has many old features, it lacks a garage, attic space, closets. These are places where you store things you aren't using, things you don't need every day. We have none of that. One of the bedrooms is so challenging because the previous home owners put the washer and dryer where the closet should be. The Loft, which now houses two boys isn't even tall enough for them to walk in. At the very center of the room where the stairs lead you can actually stand, but if you veer either direction you must duck otherwise you hit your head. We recently added some mock closet space to it, but it requires some other creative solutions to become a little more livable.
When I saw this new book, I new it was calling out to our family, not just to me. I had been following Sarah Mae's daily posts on her blog and I entered the contest. I will admit I never dreamed I would truly win 6 months of house cleaning. I don't even know what that would look like.
Surprise, I won~
It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time. We live in a small town, it has stores and a post office and lots of schools, however, we live in a sort of farm lifestyle as well. I mean you have seen my posts we are hatching chicken eggs inside our home. Now how exactly do I explain that to a house cleaning service, it seems a little strange I am sure.
The only obstacle I saw was that I had planned to go through the 31 Day Challenge that starts April 11th. I didn't really want a service to come in until after that was complete. (If you would like to sign up, you can go to the link and their is a place for your email. Her blog posts can be sent to you directly)
What is truly interesting is as side work to help ends meet I often clean peoples homes, watch their animals while they are out of town etc. Now I am looking at someone clean our home. What an awesome prospect.
I need a service that does more than clean. I need help organizing our tiny space, which is much smaller with a quilting business in my living room, an exercise area in my den and my daughters personal study nook in my bedroom.
Anyway it is going to work out wonderfully. I feel a sense of relief. I know the Lord is answering this desire of my heart. I am super grateful to have this GIFT.
I can't wait to see how it all unfolds between June and December. I plan to post some photos of the progress. I also am wanting to host a giveaway of Sarah Mae's new book, you can also purchase a journal to go along with it. The challenge starts April 11th. If you need to do a little spring cleaning, organize a room, get something under control, then join us. Lets take back our homes and make a martha home the mary way.
I am very excited for this new journey.

January 1st Success

My goal is to have a more successful plan to keep our home clean and clutter free. It is difficult with 5-6 busy people in the home. It seems often that surfaces find clutter quickly. Things get placed on anything with a flat surface and then it soon becomes a mountain. We lack closets, attic space, a garage.. so it really means creative planning. I have some projects for the year that I hope will help get us steered in the right direction.

While I would love a desk that was more functional for me, for now I am working to clean this one up. Its probably over a year of paperwork and other things as we have moved rooms, done repairs in our room etc. The den tends to collect anything that comes out of a room that is being worked on. 

I had a plan to use expandable files and binders to clean this area up. I hope to get my external hard drive set up to start taking scanned quilting files, from purchases, to recipets, to orders. I think that will help. I am playing with the idea of doing the same with bills. I have no idea how to stay on top of all the papers that come in. I do great with mail and then getting bills into my slots. I now have one metal rack for things that need to be filed and I have a binder for monthly bills, and one for quilt orders. Will see how it looks in  a couple of months and if this is the new system for me or not.

Another issue is shoes and jackets. My husband surprised me with this jacket "rack" by the back door. To create a kind of mud room. Let me tell you I pick up jackets constantly and shoes as well. You can come in and out of two main doors through the back or front and it seems that shoes and jackets follow. I am hoping to train children to put their jackets here and their shoes in their rooms or the shoe rack. We will be working on a new shoe rack that is taller and narrower. We built our old one 7 years ago and we both agreed a better solution is needed. 

Its these small things that will make a difference, just need time for more ideas like this one. This was simple to create with some pegs from Hobby Lobby, a Pallet board and a little bit of stain. I love it.

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Spring Cleaning My Daughters Room

My daughter and I have a different version of what clean is. She stacks things- I do this also but there comes a point where you just have to get in there and get it cleaned. The trash bag is clothes I had cleaned over the weekend that are all nicely folded but I couldn't begin to know where to put them away for her.

We had the boys bring all the containers to my room that had clothes in them. I sorted them into piles on my quilting tables and then filled her buckets. I would still like her to go through them and decide if things are too big or two small or if she doesn't like them. We were given clothes from several people this year and it has created a tad of chaos, unless she makes some decisions. Its hard in such a small room to really keep everything and she has no closet space since there is a washer and dryer in that portion of her room so it must ALL fit under the bed to some degree.

She still has quite a bit of work to do. I am hoping that I at least gave her a head start and maybe some motivation.

It will be nice when the room is clean because then I can get in there to take measurements for curtains, paint her vanity etc.

Soft Scrub Coupon Giveaway

I was given two bottles of Soft Scrub to try out and write a review on. I was also provided with coupons for a giveaway. I decided since they offer a TOTAL ALL PURPOSE cleaner, we would try this out on my stovetop. We have the hardest time with this stovetop, the previous owners purchased the oven/stovetop. This would not have been my choice. I had my 14 year old son do the cleaning to show you how easy it is to use Soft Scrubs product.

Well I would say he did a really good job cleaning with it wouldn't you? It is nice and easy to use and has a new foam option. He let it sit a few minutes and then started scrubbing away. I really like this new household cleaning product Soft Scrub Offers. I love that you can use the bottle upside down in places like your toilet or microwave too! So now is the fun part where I get to give you a coupon to purchase your very own bottle of Soft Scrub. Valued up to $4.69

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tackle it Tuesday

This is what my den looked like this morning. I had six buckets of fabric to go through. My husband had a misc bucket and there was a bucket of incubator supplies, then just some random things. Really it wasn't too bad but still took most of the afternoon. I still have a few papers to file.

This is my newly cleaned den. I still need to organize my desk and clean under the stairs, the stairs will be my tackle it Tuesday next week. It will take a while.

I have now touched every piece of fabric I own and this is what I will donate this week. I am excited that it is going to a good home. I am also excited to have the entire floor under my quilting tables free and have most everything truly organized in the quilting section of my pantry closet. I still hope to get some of those shoe containers to finish organizing the rest but that will have to wait until the 15th when I get paid. On a positive note someone gave us a bunch of clothes yesterday to go through. I have already gone through them kept the few things that we could use and drove the rest to the donation site so that I am not storing them. That is great progress!

Summer Deep Cleaning

After spending some of last week cleaning our closet and pantry- a very huge deep clean I was left with a mess that my husband had said he would help me "weed through" over the weekend. That didn't happen. Yesterday I woke up and decided I could not take anymore. So I decided to get some empty containers and start piling everything in.

It did take me all day but I did it. I got everything put away, found new homes for fabric. Gathered fabric that I was not going to use and boxed some up for a dear friend and then bagged the rest 7 bags~! That fabric will go to a Mormon Church to help with their quilt/blanket ministry.

It is amazing how clean it truly became. Now I have plans to put up some peg board for some quilting supplies, purchase new blinds, I had the same curtains up for 5 years which I made and to be honest I didn't ever like the fabric and I didn't quite know what I was doing. The current blinds let in a lot of light and I sleep better in a very dark room, otherwise my mind races for hours.

This is the fairly organized quilting portion of my closet. I want to purchase a few more shoe containers, I already had these, they really do help with sorting fabric by projects that I have planned. I have two containers of fabric that still need to be put into shoe boxes.  Today I plan to tackle my den, some of the containers of fabric had been put in there when the room was so full I couldn't store anymore. It will be a tall order. 

Today's Tackle it Tuesday

Tackle it Tuesday

But all things should be done decently and in order.

1 Corinthians 14:40

This is obviously pretty dirty. I had all these containers etc under the quilting tables. I have been so busy the last couple of month things just get piled and I move to the next order. The flooded floor was the Lord saying, "Jenn, enough is enough." Today I listened and cleaning was my Tackle it Tuesday

Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.

Luke 12:33

I will admit that in order to pull off some of this cleaning I really needed to go through my fabric and some clothing that was donated to Kenzei. I have a friend that quilts, and I will be mailing her three medium size boxes of mixed fabric. She is amazing at using scraps and creating something out of nothing. I am hoping some of what I send her can help her out too. Maybe give her some inspiration for a new quilt. Its fabric that has sat or maybe I had a plan that is no longer there, so it was nice to get rid of some of my storehousing..

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

Monday was a very trying day for me. I did not sleep well last night. I woke up this morning had an early meeting, had some trying school PTO stuff to handle, had to pay bills, saw the depleted money in the account and panicked a little. I knew I had some quilt orders in hold, two of which by the end of the day I had payment on but I was a tad panicked. I had a meeting tonight and knew I wanted to tackle something. I had planned to quilt but that did not happen since well the condition of my tables was unbearable. I am thankful the Lord helped guide me through my cleaning. I now have a more organized spot to work in. My friend Stef gave me this wood unit and I immediately thought of my quilting area. I can store fabric for current projects and repairs on the shelves and then batting scraps in a container underneath. I am hoping to add a peg board this weekend to the other wall so that I can hang my supplies, rulers, scissors etc. It will be nice to start 2012 off a little more organized. I like that I am making better use of my space too. The quilt money I made today pays for Paul to have gas in his truck and food on our table next week. For that I am very grateful. It has been a good Tackle it Tuesday.

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Psalm 46:10