I DID IT! Thanksgiving Praise!

Well, today is Thanksgiving. And I have a lot to be thankful for! I am thankful for many things in my life but I am thankful that I was able to accomplish 3 goals I had for the November Procrastination Challenge! My 3 Goals were: 1. To get a temporary kitchen pantry for my canned goods and other food items. 2. Tame the wild papers that were overtaking our kitchen countertop! 3. Organize our home entryway that was a functional space for our busy family!


Below are my before and after pictures!

1. BEFORE KITCHEN PANTRY


AFTER KITCHEN PANTRY

I just bought a single-standing (put it together yourself) cabinet at Lowe's. And bought a couple of pantry organizational items to help organize our food items. And that got the overflow of food off the counters and into a great space! Yeah, we can actually see what we have now!

2. Taming the Wild papers off countertop!

Before Paper Organization!

AFTER MY PAPER ORGANIZATION!

I was able to find a a great mail sorter/paper sorter online. This is called the "Banker's Box" I believe. But i found the best deal on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000J09CPK/ref=sr_1_olp_15?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1227795113&sr=8-15

I bought mine, new off shoplet.com from Amazon. This isn't the sturdiest paper sorter/holder but it will do for us for now. There are 8 slots and I labeled them -- (To Pay, To File, To Trash, Undecided, To Follow up, Kids School Papers, Church Resources, and Take out Menus/Coupons)

Wow! I can actually see my counters now!

3. Entryway Clutter (Family Launch Pad)

Before Entryway Organization

AFTER ENTRYWAY ORGANIZATION

I went to my favorite place TARGET for these organizational items. I found two great hook racks from Target. I placed one at adult level and one at kid level. This is great when we come home and need a place right away to hang our jackets, scarves, and the kids bookbags.

The cubicle storage unit is from TARGET as well. It is called the "ITSO" storage organization. I think these are great. I put together this custom storage unit with cream fabric storage boxes. I used clear address labels to print our family names so each person could have their own box. The small top box has a organization tray that fits right in and we keep our keys, wallets, sunglasses and things we were always looking for on our cluttered countertops, so they are there and when we're flying out the door!! Each kid has their own cubby to put their shoes and hats and whatever else they want! Since this is practically the first thing you see when you walk in our front door I wanted it to be functional yet stylish to match our other decor!

Overwhelmed and Stuck!

It seems I have been in a funk lately. I can't seem to manage life lately. What happened to the young 21 year old (before kids) that was a night owl, loved tackling projects and needed only 4-5 hours of sleep? Is that girl gone forever? I don't know. I certainly do not know her anymore and am in survival mode. With 3 lively little ones, all under 5, a stressful job, and plenty of volunteer work at our local church; every minute of my life is consumed. My home is not a haven of organization and peace and has seemed to throw our life into chaotic turmoil. I have under-estimated the value and importance of being organized. This stark realization hit me several weeks ago when I felt the walls were closing in on me and it seemed like everything I needed this particular week couldn't be found underneath all the clutter. Mentally I was screaming, "I can't live like this!!" or " I know I saw that somewhere around here, where did I just see that?"
It wasn't long after I found the amazing site http://www.dandrcustomorganizers.com/ and Debbie Jordan Kravitz. I read her online book and have been following her e-zines and blogs. Her expertise and simple, clear instructions made it easy for me to mentally wrap my mind around possibly solving my clutter problems for good! This is the first time I have been motivated in years and it's about time! I have decided to join the November procrastination project. I always like a good challenge and love to win!

So, I was inspired by the family launch pad concept. Our typical (before school) morning was digging through piles on the floor looking for shoes, backpacks, lunchbags and more! Complete dissaray! This lead to high-stress, chronically late mornings! So I have been working on an area that will be an organized family launch pad for our home. Also, we recently moved to our new home around a year ago. My kitchen does not have a pantry, and our kitchen was overloaded with boxed and canned food and papers all over! So, I finally went out and bought a temporary pantry and worked on putting this together for a much better storage option! Before and after pictures soon to come!
3 projects for November:

1. family launch pad
2. kitchen storage
3. taming papers (mail and papers inbox)

just starting

i have a wonderful husband who loves me, our family and the Lord. I have 3 beautiful children, Ethan(5), Wesley(3) , and Emma(1). We never get sleep these days! we are just hoping one day our sleep will return. brad is pastoring at a church in wilmington,de. I am working at a private christian school in finances and web and database management. our life is very busy and i wish we had more time to catch up with old friends. we barely have time to do anything these days. the demands in ministry and life are overwhelming at times. wesley just celebrated his 3rd birthday and we are trying to potty train him to get him ready for entering the k3 class this fall. we are so blessed to have 3 beautiful children they definitely keep us so busy in every way right now.

here is emma, finally our girl! she is so different from the boys is so many ways. she adds the sweet stuff to the family.

God has recently blessed us with being able to move into a new home in august of 07. we have much more space now for our family. we are so happy in our new home. however, we still have boxes piled in the garage and many walls to still paint. its hard to get these things done with the kids the age they are and all the other demands. so i am still anxious to finish getting our home decorated and set up.

here are some pics of us (our praise team at our church and our newly renovated children's room at our church)

we attended a conference in CA in january of this year called "rethink" and it really caused us to "rethink" and evaluate the way we do church. we are still learning, growing and moving forward.