I have not done well keeping up with my "Chaotic to Orderly" blog this summer.  I'm blaming it on my chaotic and busy summer schedule.  Our seasonal business takes us to the coast for four days out of seven each week and there's not much room left for blogging about housecleaning.
 
Keeping two homes is a bit of a challenge.  It seems we're always cleaning up one of them in order to go to the other and vice versa.   I must admit though, that it's much easier to clean our tiny place at the beach than it is our rambling old big house with the high ceilings where spiders love weaving their little webs. 
 
I'm thankful that the seasonal business is coming to an end soon - only about five more weeks and we'll be home for good until next May - then it's starting all over again.  But speaking of seasonal - it's time to start packing away the warm weather clothes and get out the cool weather clothes.  Here in the South, we still have some 80 degree plus Fahrenheit days through October, so I always leave out a few transitional clothes to pack away later when it really turns cool.
 

Here's a few tips that I try to follow as I'm packing away each season's clothing:

• Go through your clothing and pull out what you haven't worn all season.  If you haven't worn it this year, odds are that you won't wear it next year.  Give gently used items to a charity re-sell shop - you'll be glad you did when you're not faced next Spring with the decision to keep or toss.
• Take time to launder or dry clean and neatly fold any clothing before packing away.
• Clean and disinfect plastic storage containers before putting your clothes away.  Also line plastic with a sheet to prevent fragile items from picking up any discoloration from a colored plastic
• Store like colors together - darker colors could bleed onto whites
• Store in a cool dry place.  I store my items in flat plastic containers under my bed.  It's a tall bed with lots of place to store shoes and clothes underneath.  I store my husband's in empty suitcases in the closet since we don't do much traveling in the winter months.  Try to avoid attic spaces or basements.  They're damp in winter and hot in summer - which can really damage your clothes.
• Our clothing that's been dry cleaned finds a spot in the back of the closet as do most of my dresses and my husbands sports coats and nice pants. 

I love bringing out my my good comfy Fall and Winter things.  They're much more forgiving of waistlines and varicose veins than my summer things.  Just thinking about it makes me want to get a cup of hot chocolate, a blankie and good book - turn up the gas logs and settle down for a long winter's nap.  See you next summer!!!

Blame it on Mama

If you've been reading this blog, you realize that I am not Ms. Suzy Homemaker.   And those who know me well know that I am a master at placing blame for my inefficiencies on other people.  Well, I have always blamed my messy housekeeping on my mother.  I was always the “outside” worker in my family.  It was my job to help in the garden, mow the grass – feed and water the animals, etc.  My mother didn’t particularly enjoy housekeeping either so we had a house cleaner, Miss Josie, who came in on Saturdays - and it took us the rest of the week to find what she did with all our stuff.

I can remember going for sleepovers at friend’s houses and we all had to pitch in to wash the dinner and breakfast dishes.  I very rarely had to do that at home .  The dishes just always seemed to get magically washed sometime between bedtime and breakfast.  On Saturday mornings, under stern instructions from Miss Josie, I did have to pick up my room and put all the dirty laundry in the hamper.  “Girl - you ought’a be ashamed o’ yourself, piling up those dirty clothes like that – don’t yore mama teach you nothin’!”  I can just hear her say it now.  So logically, it was my mother’s fault for not teaching me to clean house.

But recently I had a revelation, which I have quite often now that I’m retired.  Not the Biblical kind of revelation but like the revelation of realizing that the job you held for almost 30 years will not crash just because you left – or like the revelation that not working means you can’t spend as much money – you know, those minor little things.  Well, anyway, it hit me that I only lived in my Mom and Dad’s house for 18 years and I have lived in my own for 45.

Children do learn by observing the adults in their lives.  But we have plenty of time in our adult lives to learn what we need to know.  Maybe I’m just a slow learner. Whose fault is it anyway that I haven’t learned how to keep a clean, organized house?  You’re off the hook Mama - and you did teach me how to love, laugh and be a good mother so you did OK!

Backsliding on Chaos

The month of July has brought a boom to our summer business at the coast - so much so that I feel that I have been backsliding on my quest of turning chaos into order in my house.  We've been spending four nights at the beach each week and 3 nights at home.  I barely have time to catch up on laundry and paying bills when I'm at home.   My poor kitchen is suffering from loneliness and depression.  She's depressed that I brought a bushel of peaches home and plunked them on the counter and haven't yet found the time to prepare them for the freezer. She's depressed that I made a quick trip to the grocery store this morning for pantry stocking items and didn't have time to put them up before leaving to go sit with my grandchildren while their mom is working.  She's not happy that I haven't swept and mopped her floors this morning after hubby tromping in and out from a rainy wet, and then freshly mowed lawn.  She's lonely because I've not been spending enough time with her.  She does have my rooster collection on the shelves to keep her company but they're the silent type and not very good companions.  But we'll work it out somehow.

My quiet little eclectic rooster collection

I did stumble across a cleaning tip last night that I thought was worth sharing.  My guest bathroom doesn't get a lot of use since we're not home enough to have guests so I've noticed lately that the sink is discolored right at the drain - nowhere else.  I don't know if it's sediment or minerals in the water, but it looked dirty.  I've used cleaners on it to no avail, so I thought I would tackle it with something stronger.  As I looked in under my sink in my lonely kitchen, the first thing I saw was a box of dishwasher detergent.  I remembered that I had luck using the gel kind on some outdoor furniture one time, so I thought that using the powder kind in my sink might work.   I shut the drain plug, sprinkled some in and turned on the tap just enough to make a paste.  I left it for a few minutes and then scrubbed it off.  My sink looked like new!  I'm not sure why it worked, but it did such a great job, I'm going to try it on other things in the future - not just in the dishwasher. 

Speaking of dishwashers,  I recently posted on how to organize your utensils in your dishwasher so they would be easier to sort when it's time to take them out and put them back in the utensil drawers.   Now it's time to clean the dishwasher itself.   I borrowed this tip from a website called Tipnut.

Cleaning the inside of dishwashers isn’t high on To-Do lists since they do a great job cleaning themselves while they wash dishes. Sometimes though there may be a few rust stains, detergent or mineral buildup or even an off-smell inside your dishwasher that you want to get rid of. Here are few quick & easy tips for cleaning things up.

• Using citric acid to clean dishwashers is a popular trick, here’s how you do it: Fill the soap cup with 2 tablespoons of powdered citric acid (some even recommend just filling the soap dispenser with powdered Orange Tang since it contains citric acid) and run the dishwasher through a full cycle. This is especially good for removing rust spots inside the dishwasher (you may have to do more than one treatment).
• To remove buildup of minerals or stains, run a full cycle with vinegar, here’s how you do it: Start the dishwasher and once it fills up with hot water, open the dishwasher and pour in a cup or two of regular household vinegar. Let the dishwasher finish its cycle. Another method is to set a bowl filled with 3 cups of vinegar on the bottom rack of an empty dishwasher. Let the dishwasher run for a full cycle.
• Borax or Baking Soda Freshener: After dishes are done for the night and the dishwasher is dry, sprinkle a layer of Borax or baking soda on the bottom of the dishwasher. Close it and let it sit overnight. The next day take a damp sponge and scrub the powder into the inside walls and door of the dishwasher. Remove most of the powder then run a full cycle on empty to remove all traces of the powder. Another method to freshen up the dishwasher is to toss in a cup of baking soda to an empty dishwasher then run it on the rinse cycle.

Smelly Dishwasher Tips:

If your dishwasher smells, you could have food trapped in the bottom filter. After running a load of dishes, remove the bottom rack of the dishwasher and look for any crud trapped in the filter on the bottom. If there’s food trapped in the holes, you’ll need to remove it and clean it. Also look around the gasket (particularly at the bottom where the door and dishwasher meet), you could have an accumulation of gunk in there that needs to be cleaned.

This is going to be my project for this evening when I get home.  I'm sure my kitchen will be a lot happier.  I may even get a start on preparing my peaches for the freezer. 

The key is not to tackle too many projects at the same time.  If you can't obligate yourself to a couple of hours of organizing, just tackle a small fifteen minute project.  You'll be surprised at how those fifteen minute segments can achieve your goal of going from chaotic to orderly - one step at a time.

Declutter - one room at a time

 I don't know about you, but when I'm living in a cluttered space, I tend to feel overwhelmed, despondent and guilty all at the same time.  Sometimes I just ignore it, hoping the clutter will go away all on it's own.  I tend to get distracted from one chore and try to do another because it seems to need it more than the first.  Distractions tend to demand your attention and you find yourself going around in circles.  It's difficult to find things because there's so much clutter to have to look through.  Clutter confuses and refuses to let you have peace of mind.  

Recently I started decluttering my house - one room at a time.   I started with the kitchen, then moved to the den and then into the foyer.  My next project will be the dining room where everything we bring into the house tends to end up until we move it to where it should be.  My dining table is a virtual dumping grounds for things that don't seem yet to have a space of their own.   We bring something into the house and the very first place it goes is on the table.  It eventually gets sorted out and put in its proper place, but not quickly enough.  I keep vowing to stop this habit, but old habits are hard to break so I came up with something I hope will work.   I recently bought cute wicker storage baskets at a yard sale (remember, I'm frugal) and plan to keep them near the dining room table.  My plan is to label them so it will be easy to sort things by room and just cart things one room at a time instead of randomly carrying things room to room.

I have some tips for de-cluttering that may come in handy for you. If you will just do one room per week, you'll find that soon you will have de-cluttered your home and made it a peaceful and calming place to be.

Here’s how:

• First, choose a room to do this week. Don’t try to do your whole house at once, it will be too overwhelming. In the beginning, skip the closets and drawers that are out of sight for now. You can do those later - for now just focus on what you can see.
• Start with the big things. Is there too much furniture in the room?  If so, have a yard sale or donate them to a charity. 
• Clear all flat surfaces. Desktops, tabletops, countertops, etc.  Get a couple of boxes and a trash bag and start clearing everything off.  Remove all papers, piles of stuff, little junk, knick-knacks, anything.  Put it on the floor.  That may sound drastic but now you'll be forced to deal with it.  Use one of the boxes to deal with the things you want or need to keep.  Try to find a place for those things out of sight - not on your flat surfaces.  The next box is for the things you can give away or yardsale.  Put it in the trunk of your car so you'll not be tempted to get it back out and keep it.  The trash bag stuff should be thrown out NOW - again so you'll not be tempted to retrieve it from the garbage.  Now put back only what you really want and need on your flat surfaces.  Doesn't that look better?
• Repeat this process for any other “stuff” in the room, including stuff on the floor.
• Be merciless.  The more you can get rid of, the better!
• Pat yourself on the back!

Housekeeping is an ongoing process.  Work on de-cluttering daily if only for fifteen minutes at a time.  It won’t last long if you don’t have a system and develop habits to keep it that way.

Now sit back and enjoy the peaceful look of your home without all the confusing, distracting clutter!  When I get to that point - I'll let you know.  I'll just pray that I can learn to practice what I preach.

The Frugal Organizer

I'm normally a very frugal person, but my first thought when I started my project of organizing my chaotic house was to hop in my car and go buy storage things to make my job easier.  I was thinking about closet shelves, drawer liners, cute baskets and boxes to put on shelves to make my "stuff" easier to hide.  I thought about those little magazine storage boxes that look cute on your book shelves and turntable gadgets for your kitchen cabinets. But then it hit me - I'm trying to simplify by getting rid of stuff, not buy more.

The first thing I did was look around my house - I haven't yet had the stamina to clean out my attic - that will be a wintertime chore.  We've had some 100 degree days lately, so I know what my attic feels like.  Usually when I open the door to my attic, I slam it shut again because I don't like what's facing me.  Besides, attics in 100 year old houses are scary.  Although it was scorching hot this week,  I braved it and found a few things I can use.  I found baskets, office organizers, vintage pretty bowls and dishes and even an old magazine rack.  There was even a unique little drawer that I had saved when my computer desk fell apart a while back (see, I can't throw anything away).  I found a neat old green wicker hamper and proceeded to haul out a few items - if not to use in my current project, at least I can use them as I progress in my goal to be organized.

My goal this week was to do a little organizing in my den.  I had some magazines and books stacked on the floor beside my reading chair that really needed to be cleared away and as much as I wanted them to, they were not going away by themselves.  The den was beginning to look a little disheveled so it was time for action.

Time to get rid of some of those magazines!  I had planned on clipping recipes and things out of them but it just never became a priority.  I began by throwing some of the older ones into the recycling bin, some of the newer ones I saved for my son-in-law's law office, and then there were a handful that I couldn't let go.   I took an office file folder holder and stacked them in it for display - magazine front covers are so pretty, they should be displayed!  The books were the same way - some I'll be giving away but I have a stack that I've been given or have bought and haven't gotten around to reading just yet.  They went into one of the baskets I found.

books to be read

Magazines displayed in a file folder upright tray.  Check out the article on the BHG cover - Get Organized - I think I need to read it.

I placed the small magazine rack I found on my old Eastlake table with some of my "coffee table" books that I had just laying around.  They look much neater contained.

My mother's handmade quilt went in the green wicker basket along with some throw pillows (I'll probably spray paint this basket another color since the green is a little wild for the rest of the room).

Pens and spare change go in old ruby red glass and the remote goes in a vintage rectangular milkglass bowl.  A gold chocolate tin is in the background to collect this and that things that hubby likes to put on the lamp table.

All of this organizing started a cleaning frenzy.  I pulled out all the furniture, took the rugs outside and aired and beat them before vacuuming them, swept, dusted and damp mopped the hardwoods.  My den and foyer haven't been this clean in a long time.  I've concluded that when you start organizing, one thing leads to another and all of a sudden you're really seeing your way through the clutter!  It makes it more fun to document what I'm doing and taking pictures along the way.  All I needed was some motivation - and a public declaration that I was going to do it!   I've got more accomplished in my house in the last month that I have in the year and a half since I've been retired!

Frugal me!  I didn't spend a dime.  Bring it on - I'm ready for anything now!  I'll let you know later what I did with the little drawer out of the broken desk - I knew it would come in handy one day. 

Being single in a married world - One sock's story

As told to me by a lonely sock:  "We were both born to be part of a loving couple.  The two of us were meant for each other - we complimented each other in so many ways.  Our dreams, our goals were the same - we were a perfect fit.  What she did, I did - every step of the way.  "Whither thou goest, I will go" was our song, and now when I hear the lyrics, I'm sad because suddenly, I find myself without a partner - she disappeared without a trace - she didn't even say goodbye.  Now I find myself single in a married kind of world.  I am no good without her."

Does this look familiar?

This is my mismatched sock box - sort of a "singles club" for lonely socks.  Do you have one too?  This one is kept beside my bed where I fold laundry so that I can match when or if the other shows up again.  Eventually, most sock's partners do show up - they either get separated in different laundry loads or get left behind in the washer or dryer - making the single sock a "couple" again.  I have a rule of thumb that if they haven't made their appearance in about a month, they get relegated to my husband's workshop for wiping up oil spills or to my broom closet where they can be used as dust cloths.

Here's some tips on how to keep socks together:

• Buy men's socks in bulk packages - 10 whites for sport socks, 10 blacks and 10 browns, etc for dress or casual socks.  Then if you lose one, just wait until you lose another and you'll still have a matching pair.  The same can be done with women's socks.  Trouser socks and sport socks for women come in bulk packages also.
• Buy an inexpensive mesh lingerie bag for each family member's socks and place it beside their laundry hamper.  A 12" X 18" bag is about $2.  Just toss the whole bag in and you'll never have to match socks again.  In a perfect world, it could work that way, smile.
• Rubber bands also work well.  Place a bag of rubber bands within easy reach of the hamper and ask each family member to rubber band their matching socks together before putting them in the hamper.  Some people use safety pins for the same purpose, but I'm always afraid they'll come undone in the wash and give someone a pinch.

If these tips don't work, do what my granddaughters do.  They buy bright and crazy pattern socks and mismatch them.  It's fun and trendy, but only the very young can get away with it.  If I were to try it, I'm sure I would hear giggles and laughs saying, "look at that old lady wearing mismatched socks - she's probably either blind or senile" ---- and they would be about half right!

The last I heard from the lonely sock, he was doing a rendition of Three Dog Night's lyrics:
"one is the loneliest number, since you went away".........

A bit of organizing can save your electronics from disaster

You know those carrying cases that come with your electronic devices?  I'm sure you know what I mean - the pesky little things that with constant use of your camera, cell phone, e-reader, ipad, etc, get tossed into your desk drawer because sometimes it's just easier to carry in your pocket or tote.  Take my advice, take a moment to pack all your devices back into them before you make a road trip.  This is a tip that I learned the hard way - an expensive way.

I hurriedly stuffed all my electronics into a large tote before we left for vacation last week - not thinking to bring all my protective pouches and cases with me.  On one of our daily excursions down to the beach with our towels, sunscreen etc, I quickly tucked the spray-on sunscreen with the cap on down into my small waterproof bag that I carry my cameras in.  In it were my faithful companions, my Fujifilm FinePix HS20 16MP Digital Camera and my little FlipVideo camcorder.  I sat under the umbrella most of the morning and the grandchildren were out and about so I used neither the suncreen nor the cameras.  That evening when I unloaded my bags, I discovered that the cap had come off the sunscreen and that somehow the aerosol can was defective because it had leaked about an inch of liquidy gooey stuff in the bottom of my bag.  Aack!  I quickly took may cameras out - the Flip was virtually floating in the liquid.  I dried them out the best I could - took the batteries out and wiped them down with a damp cloth.  After they dried, I put the batteries back in.  The Flip was in working condition, although the USB connector on it no longer "flipped" - I had to manually flip it out - and the screen was damaged, but it actually recorded.  It's the cheaper of the two and of course, the only one I have insurance on.  The Fugi was not so lucky.  It's ruined.  Luckily, my daughter has her smartphone camera, so we were able to capture a few memories.

If only I had taken the time to pack the cases - I'm sure the Fugi would have been fine because it's a thick padded case - the Flip only has a sleeve so it wouldn't have helped much.  And speaking of organization - liquids and electronics don't mix - so my normal haphazzard method of doing things, cost me dearly.  If I had stuck either the cameras or the sunscreen into zip-lock baggies, I would not have had this problem.  It will cost me about $400 to replace the camera with a used one that I found on Ebay.

One extra tip - take along q-tips and alcohol wipes for your electronics.  I'm sure that without the q-tips I had in my first aid kit, I would not have been able to save the Flip - it reached down into little crevices that I could not dry otherwise.  The alcohol wipes helped with the sticky mess and have also come in handy on my laptop keyboard - beware though, alcohol is not recommended for your screens - use a microfiber or lens cleaning cloth for those.

I wanted to share my folly with others so that maybe it will keep someone else from making the same mistake I did.  Pack wisely and take those little cases along with you wherever you go.  They give them to you for a purpose, don't they?

Dishwasher Blues

I'm on vacation this week, so being away, my organizational duties have come to a screeching halt.    This is one I wrote a week or so ago,
Here's a tiny tip that may make your life a little easier.  Unloading the dishwasher is one of my least favorite chores.  I don't mind loading it, but I always forget to unload it until it needs loading again.  It's time consuming and having to unload it makes for a slow clean-up time.  Well, I've found that even your dishwasher needs organization.  To speed up the unloading process, start separating your flatware into sections when you're loading it.  Then when it's time to unload - voila!  The flatware is ready to pick up by the handfuls and put in your flatware tray. 

dinner forks and tablespoons

salad forks, teaspoons and knives

Just pick up they basket, put it above your flatware drawer and only takes a jiffy to unload!

Sometimes the simple little tasks can make a difference.

Are you ready for the Pantry Challenge? Hey, I found my beef broth!

Have you ever got ready to make a meal and can't find the ingredient you're looking for.  I recently needed beef broth for a recipe and knew I had recently bought some in those boxy looking packages they come in now.  I never did find it so I changed dinner plans in mid-stream.  I hate it when that happens!  I was so inspired this morning when I woke up to a sparkling sink and kitchen so I just went full steam ahead and started tackling other kitchen projects. 

This old house had no cabinets when we moved in 15 years ago, so we had some custom made, but our kitchen is so chopped up it was hard to fit cabinets in.  My kitchen has five doors and a fireplace.  Five doors!  One door leads outside, two of them lead to the dining room and hallway, one to the laundry room.  The last one is to a little closet of sorts that I keep large pots & pans, my mixer, Turkey cooker, extra sets of glasses and dishes - most of which we could do without but choose to keep (which may be in a future organization tip).  I've rambled enough so back to the subject.  My cabinets have no room for food items so a few years ago we bought a little cabinet that I've dubbed the pantry. 

Not big, but it hold lots of food.

This morning when I opened the pantry door to get the packets of sweetener for hubby's coffee, this is what I saw, so I decided it was time for a clean sweep. 

No wonder I couldn't find the beef broth last week!

• The first thing I did was empty everything out and line the shelves.   I would suggest you do the same.  It's much easier to sort if you've got it all emptied on a good work surface.  I used my kitchen table since it was right there beside the pantry.

• Next, I assessed each item:  I'm an impulsive buyer and don't even realize I have accumulated so many items.  If you don't think you'll use it, you need to get rid of it.  I made a box today to take to a Food Pantry in a nearby town.
• Keep like items together
  Of the items you're going to keep, organize like items together in the same pile.  That way, it will be easier to find what you're looking for.  For example:
  
  • Canned vegetables and beans
  • Pasta and rice
  • Flour, cornmeal, cake mixes
  • Canned meats
  • Canned fruits
  • Soups
  • Condiments, jellies, peanut butter
  
  After I put everything back in, it looked much better.
  

  

  Canned things on top - I love it when cans stack neatly.  They should require can manufacturers to make them like that!

  

  Crackers, baking mixes, pastas, etc. on bottom.

  Since I was on a roll in the kitchen, I took time to sort my cook book shelves and straighten up my mantle.  As you can tell, I collect vintage roosters and hens!  Take a look......
  
  

  

  Some of my collection on top of the cabinets

  

  A hen and chicks painting dated 1904

  

  Fireplace with an Eastlake firescreen in front of it and more vintage stuff on the mantle.  You can tell I'm a vintage junkie!  The old kitchen clock in the middle belonged to my grandfather who was born in 1877.  The clock is over 100 years old.

  

  

  Fresh flowers brighten things up!

  

  Even the cookbook shelves are decorated with vintage chicken paraphernalia

  Are you ready to take the Pantry Challenge?  Give it a go - it's liberating!

This little sink of mine - I'm gonna' let it shine

My daughter recently told me about a tip she had heard that if you keep your sink shined, it will lead you to keep other things in your kitchen clean also.  I thought I would give it a try today.  I have a white porcelain sink and if you do a lot of cooking in your kitchen, you know that porcelain sinks get a little surface scratching from pots and pans; however they do shine up pretty nicely if you use dish detergent and bleach.

Today, mine was a little grubby, so I cleaned it thoroughly with soap and water and let a little water/bleach bath sit in it for a while.  Then I dried it and it looked so nice, I just had to go on with my countertop doing the same thing - which led me to move, clean up and shine my rooster canisters.  They were so spiffy looking that I moved my toaster oven (umm - when did I last move my toaster oven) - and it surely needed a cleanup - inside and out and underneath.  Wow!  That toaster oven just shines!!  Next, on to my coffee maker.  I had just recently cleaned out my Pampered Chef cooking utensil carrousel, so it was fine.  This was all looking great so I moved on to the stovetop, oven and finally the dishwasher door.  And don't forget the center island!  My center island where I store pots and pans is made of 100 plus year old heart pine beadboard that came out of the old house behind us.   It's small, but I love it!  A little Murphy's Oil gave it a sparkle. 

Before I knew it, I had my whole kitchen clean - and just because I started shining my sink!  You know how marriage counselors tell you not to go to bed angry with your spouse?  Why not "don't go to bed without shining your sink?"  It will make you happy when you get up in the morning to a clean sink.

Before picture - cluttered and needing a good cleanup!

Much better!

Spic and span

You can see your reflection in that countertop!

The rooster canisters got a good washing!

And there's that sink - shiny as can be.

Have a tomato!

Now, it's your turn!

Defrosting the freezer - ugh

Our small upright freezer in the laundry room is not the self-defrosting kind.  This one has been around a long time and has served it's purpose well.  (I must say nice things about it or it will clonk out tomorrow, you know).  After a month or so of scraping ice off each package I took out of the freezer, I decided it was time to tackle the job.

I unplugged the freezer, took everything out and put in three coolers.  I discarded the out of date items but left a few burger packs out to fry up for Fox, our doggie.  He doesn't mind a little freezer burn and he has no idea it's been in the freezer hiding behind the frozen pizzas since December 2009.

Next came the defrosting part.  I have used a hairdryer in the past but that's tedious having to stand there chipping away, so I pulled out an electric heater from winter storage and plugged it in while putting large pans and trays on the racks and in the bottom to catch the melting ice.  I came back about 45 minutes later and used a spatula to scrape the remaining ice - very easy to get off.  Then thoroughly drying the inside of the freezer with a towel, I plugged it back in.  Things we use most frequently went on the top rack.  Here was the end result:

We've been eating all winter on that wonderful frozen shrimp that we bought off of a shrimp boat last fall ( containers in the middle of the top shelf).  Also frozen baggies of flounder and black bass we caught on my brother-in-law's boat is on the left.  Peaches frozen last August that were hidden behind a large pizza box from a school fundraiser.

I don't have a lot left in there, but at least I can find what I want.  One of the best end results was that I found some frozen blackberries from last summer's harvest and I made a fabulous two crust blackberry pie.

You can tell it was good - it's half gone!

  See - there's little added perks from getting organized!  So now, go clean out your freezer!  Have a great day.

Organization - tips on packing for vacations...

Today's a quick post and one that doesn't have a lot to do with housekeeping, but it does fall under the category of organization which is what this blog is really all about.  It's a tip on packing for vacation.  This wouldn't work for hotel vacations, but it's the perfect option for week long vacations for a car trip to a beach or mountain cottage.

Why pack suitcases when one or more laundry baskets will do the trick?  Buy laundry baskets - one for each person in your family.  Inexpensive ones are best because they're flexible - and be sure to get them all the same size so they'll stack easily in the back of your car.

In our part of the world, beach house rentals don't come furnished with linens included, but they do have washer's and dryers which makes it nice not having to pack so many clothes.    Assign each person a different color laundry basket so they can pack their own sheets, towels, clothing and accessories.  An added bonus is that they wrinkle less in a laundry basket than in a suitcase - just hang them quickly when you get to your destination.

The great thing is that you'll have a laundry basket available instead of wondering where to put your dirty clothes each day - very convenient for doing laundry each day while you're there.  Hopefully, you'll find the time to do your laundry before you leave to come back home so that when you get back home, all you'll have to do is pack everything back in it's place.   On weekend trips, we don't do laundry while we're there, but the basket is convenient for hauling back our dirty clothes - ready to go straight to the laundry room when we arrive back home.

Below are some photos that I took while packing for our weekend trip on Thursday.

Sheets & towels on the bottom followed by hubby's clothes

Next, my clothes and pj's

Oops - forgot my beach towel and a few more small linens

It's nice to take a bath rug or two

Next the cat.  Umm...Cello, sorry you're not going with us - get out of there!

The laptop, sunscreen, magazine and sunglasses tops it off.  Ready for the beach!

Have a fun and safe trip!  Do you have any packing tips you would like to share?

Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs....

I found a quote about housekeeping today that said "My house is clean enough to be healthy, but dirty enough to be happy".  It's a cute quote, but not one that I agree with.  I love for my house to be clean.  I love for the floors to shine, the furniture to be polished and the kitchen sink to be spic and span.  My house just looks happier that way - and I'm sure most of you feel that way.  I don't have any problems cleaning my house, I just have problems getting it to stay that way.  It's an endless cycle, isn't it.  But, I've found that organization is the key.  If everything has a place, then it's easier to put it there.

One of my main problems is that not everything in my house has a place.  We live in a 1920's bungalow home that was designed for a simpler lifestyle than ours.  A time when women had one good church dress and enough everyday clothes to last until a weekly wash day if you stretched them out a little.  Men had one good suit, and less than a handful of shirts and pants. Both genders usually had one nice pair of shoes and one everyday pair.  A hat or two rounded out the wardrobe and it all fit neatly in one tiny closet.  Closets were just a waste of living space back then.  There are three closets in my house that are about the size of a refrigerator.  One is for my seasonal clothes, one for some of the hubby's clothes and the other is a coat and sweater closet.   We do have a lot of attic knee wall space, but it's hard to get to.  Things get shoved in there and never find their way out.  And there's an attic closet for storing the Christmas tree and decorations - but that's about it.  Shoes are stored in storage boxes under our tall four-poster bed. 

During a renovation back in the 1970's a back porch was turned into a laundry room with a sink, chest freezer, water heater and a washer and dryer.  We recently closed off a small section of the laundry room to make another small closet for off season clothes,  hubby's hunting clothes and his fifty-seven polo shirts.  Yes, you read that right....fifty-seven (57), and that's the short sleeved ones. He buys his own clothes - do you think he's obsessed? Don't tell him I said so.

The obsession doesn't stop there.  We're both collectors.  I collect old pottery, vintage jewelry, vintage Christmas deco, and roosters.  He collects antique fishing stuff - so much that we've got our entire little sun porch themed like an old fishing lodge.  He also collects vintage kitchen items.  We have every size of Wagner Ware and Griswold iron skillets ever made.  And he loves vintage kitchen gadgets - hard to store items - and he never wants to part with them - just like recently when I said, "Let's sell this french fry cutter on Ebay".  "No", he said, "I might need that to make french fries at the next barbeque we have".  We haven't had a barbeque in ten years.  Besides, we don't even eat french fries anymore. 

Our chaos continues with the fact that we also have an Ebay store and a seasonal weekend business at the coast.  There's the problem of where to put things temporarily when we get in new inventory.  It usually starts on the dining room table and slowly makes it's way out.  Our dining table has become a half-way station!  We're trying to phase out the Ebay business and slow down a little on the weekend business simply because of the chaos.

These are the kind of things I'm going to have to work through one step at a time as I go through my journey of creating my own little organized world.  We're going to simplify.  Our bigger collections are going to have to go.  That will be the next project I'll be working on - it's time for a visit to the local Goodwill or Hospice re-sell shop.   Hubby won't even know that the french fry cutter has gone missing - by the time he gets around to doing another barbeque, I can truthfully say I don't know where it is - I probably won't even remember we had one.

***Note:  The title of this blog is a quote by the author, Dean Kootz.

Tackling the Junk Drawer

My oldest daughter called me this afternoon all in a tizzy and asked, "Mom, you aren't really writing a blog on housekeeping tips, are you?"  The way she said it, you would have thought she was asking Larry the Cable Guy if he was writing a blog on Shakespearean Tragedy.  Now, how insulting was that?  And from my own daughter!  It appears that she had been on-line and received a warning pop-up message that I had some blog activity going on..  She has it set up so she will get messages when I have a blog published on my As Life Happens blog.  At that time though, I had only begun to set up my blog and had not published anything.  She had only seen the title with the words "Simple Housekeepng Tips" and thought that I was going to lie like a dog in telling others how to keep a clean house.  She's a preacher's wife, you know.


As I said in my previous blog, I am attempting to bring order from chaos in a house that is in bad need of organization.  I don't have a dirty house, I am just beyond being an organized housekeeper, so I'll be bumbling along tackling one thing at a time until I achieve some law and order to the home I just charged with disorderly conduct.  I'm starting on a small scale and today I'm organizing the Junk Drawer.

My kitchen junk drawer has not been cleaned out in quite a while a long time.  A junk drawer starts off innocently enough - a screwdriver, pair of scissors, bottle opener, wine stopper, nail clippers, birthday candles,  leftover screws from a project - you get the picture.  But then it starts being a catch all for old cell phone chargers, a bracelet tossed carelessly aside, nickels and pennies, "dead or alive" batteries, half a pack of Rolaids, lip gloss, knife sharpeners, old keys - you know, just stuff you don't want to deal with.  Today, it was time to deal with it once and for all, so I slowly pulled open the drawer and this is what I saw:

Warning: the sight you are about to see may be hazardous to your eyesight:

This is a fairly deep little drawer and you're seeing only the top layer.

 The first thing I recommend doing is just dumping it all out of the drawer.  I have tried before just taking a few things from the top and sorting them to wherever they need to go, but I've never seemed to make it to the bottom of the drawer.  I'll throw away a few things and sort a few things, but end up getting discouraged and dump everything  back in with no progress made at all.  Here it is below all dumped in a plastic tub.

Ooh, look at some of the goodies I found!  Jewelry that I haven't seen in ages, a master key to my old workplace that I thought I had lost.  I also found postage stamps, some change including some wheat pennies and some bullets.  Bullets????  hmmm.....

The next thing I did was line the drawer with some pretty gift wrap I had.  I love gift wrap from those school fundraisers - it's nice and thick and stays put.  I used some pretty colorful stars as a lining.  You can buy drawer liners if you want, but I prefer using things I have on hand rather than making a special shopping trip.  Which brings me to the next picture.  

Instead of buying a drawer organizer, I found a couple of small loaf pans that I never use - and don't ask me why I saved Easter egg dye cups - it's just the kind of thing I do that contributes to my disorderly conduct.  But hey,  I did find a use for them, didn't I.  They're the perfect size for screws and things and they match my "star" drawer liner. 

After I sorted out everything that I had dumped, walked around putting things in other parts of the house where they belonged, I just dumped all the stuff I didn't know what to do with in the trash can.  If I hadn't used it in five years, I wasn't ever going to use it.  This is what was left:

It was a job that I had been dreading, but one that gave me a lift after I did it.  I have a new name for the drawer.  It is no longer my junk drawer - it is now my utility drawer.  I was feeling pretty good about myself until my husband came in and I proudly showed off what I had done.  "Look what I did today, Honey", I said.  He was hot, sweaty and stained from working in the yard and on a car for about 7 hours straight.  He stopped washing his hands for a minute, looked in my little drawer that was growing smaller by the minute, looked at me with a smirk and raised eyebrows and said, "I'm impressed".   "You had better be careful, Buddyroe", I said.  "I found some bullets today".  He didn't look a bit scared.  


Stay tuned - the chaos is not over yet.  Coming soon - how my house acquired it's chaotic personality.

I'm charging my house with disorderly conduct

Disorderly conduct - any act of interrupting, hindering, agitating, and otherwise depriving individuals from having the piece and quiet that they are entitled to.

The above definition totally describes my house.  My house interrupts my life with its carelessness, it hinders me from finding what I need when I need it, it causes great agitation when I trip over something that's been put where it doesn't belong.  And peace and quiet?  How can you have peace and quiet with all of the above going on?  I know what you are thinking and I'll admit it's true.  I have totally let my house take charge of my life, when I should be taking charge of my house - and that's what this blog is all about.  I'm hoping that by committing to writing about it, and offering up things I've learned along the way, I can restore some order in the life of my chaotic house.

If you are a disorganized housekeeper and you want to join me for my journey, please feel free to follow along.  If you're the best housekeeper in the world, my blog may just give you the chuckle you need for the day.   I would love to get your tips on housekeeping so I can pass them along. 

This is giving you fair warning, my lovely house - you'll be under arrest if you continue to break the rules.  I'm hoping to take you from chaotic to orderly.  It won't be easy, but I'll start the journey one step at a time.  Tomorrow we start with the dreaded JUNK DRAWER.  Stay tuned......