Organization Update

I can hardly believe the first month of the year is already over.  I wanted to share a little update of how my New Year's Goals are going.  If you remember one of my goals was to take care of myself and I am happy to report that I have made several doctor's appointments, including my first ever dermatologist appointment.  I was having a major issue with my chapped lips and it was becoming unbearable.  It was more than chapped lips though. It was red around my mouth and so painful.  At first I thought it was just excessive chapped lips or sunburned lips this summer.  Then it continued and after about 6 months of off and on with the same issue I finally made an appointment. Can you tell I don't love going to the doctor?  Anyone else would not have allowed it go on this long, but I kept thinking it would go away on it's own. Well one week after seeing the dermatologist I can say that the issue is finally resolved.  She thinks it was a contact allergy reaction of some sort.  She instructed me to stop using all chapsticks, lip glosses and lipsticks for the time being and only use vaseline to hydrate my lips.  I LOVE chapstick. I'm addicted to it and have it all over...stashed in my car, in drawers in the house...everywhere. I also have many different varieties and brands so I have no idea which one was causing my problems. All I know is the problems are gone after I went cold turkey on everything except vaseline. Now I'll slowly reintroduce one lipstick or chapstick at time so I can figure out what was causing the allergy.  So happy to have this mostly behind me though.

I have also really gone to town on my goal of getting organized this year.  It has felt SO good.  This next month will be crazy busy for us with some travel and trips, so I wanted to work overtime in January to check some stuff off my list.  The first place I started was in our pantry. When we built our house I wanted a really large pantry, which has been great, but it also becomes a place to throw stuff and close the door, so I was excited to throw out old stuff, organize what was left, and have some order to what was in there.

Before 

Boo-boo kept asking what was in all those baskets...its all your snacks, Buddy! 

After 

 Next up was the playroom.  For the most part the playroom stays pretty organized. I make the kids clean up each evening and everything has a basket or place to stay. However, large items sometimes begin to float around and get left out. I picked up a few more basket and bins and am happy to report everything is staying in it's place now.

Another thing that had been on my to-do list for quite some time was to add to our art gallery wall. I love, love, love this wall in the playroom. I use it to display the kids' artwork and I add to it every so often. It had been a while and I had a stack of artwork collecting so I went to Wal-Mart and picked up a variety of black frames and got to work.  This is SO much better than having all of this artwork sit in a closet somewhere.

My girls' rooms were next. They love stuff.  Any kind of stuff. Things form friends, little do-dads, art work, trinkets...anything. They love it and they don't want to get rid of it. It took a major cleaning out, but their rooms are so organized now so I hope to keep it that way.

Before

After 

 Even their closets got a make-over. I already had lots of bins and baskets, so we just went through what they had and re-organized what was there to make it make more sense.

Under their sinks was a mess.  They love products and accessories (like their mama) but it was getting out of control.  By just putting things in a place and giving everything a home, it made it look so much better!

Before

After

Blondie's closet was more of the same.  She would be a total slob if I let her.  So I had her help me go through her things, clean out, organize her room and it has been great. I've also encouraged her to keep putting things away where they belong and it has really helped.

Before

After

After 

While I was working away inside, the Mr. took over the garage. My organization must have rubbed off on him because he even labeled stuff.  Yes, labeled!  I was so very happy and hope we can keep it this way!

Mostly I used bins and baskets I already owned, but I did got to HomeGoods to get a few things to help in my mission and that was the case in Boo-Boo's room. He loves playing in his room after I put him to bed, and I'm totally fine with it.  The problem comes when he doesn't put his stuff away and the next day looks like this:

Drives me crazy!!! So a few baskets later, everything has a place and I keep encouraging him to pick up his things and he has been great about it.

Lastly, my little work space got spruced up and is so much easier to work with now.

Before 

I threw out old papers, put things where they belonged, got rid of a few things and now my space is more open and manageable.  

After

I still have a long way to go. There are a lot of closets that have been collecting things and rooms that need some attention, but I got the year started off with a bang and hope we can just all keep it this way!

 

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