Day 3 - Rest

Except not.  While I took a break from the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge, I did our menu plan for the week and made a shopping list and sent M out to the stores while the girls napped.   Then I sorted and folded and packed away clean clothes, including selecting the kids' clothes for most of the coming week.

Our girls now share a room (as of this weekend!) and that means they share one 6-drawer dresser and a small reach-in closet.   We have two of these 6-compartment soft-sided organizers hanging in the closet:

On Sundays I go through and select the girls' outfits for Monday through Saturday and put one outfit in each compartment, complete with undergarments and socks.  That way during our busy weekday mornings all we need to do is grab the contents of the day's compartment in order to dress the kids.  There's no hunting through drawers for a clean onesie for H, no listening to L sob that she wants to wear the purple shirt and not the red one, and most importantly no need for me to rely on M to try to match up coordinating separates for the kids to wear to daycare.  Sundays are more laid back and we take a couple of minutes to select the outfits that the kids will wear to church.

Day 2 - Cabinets over Stove/Top of Fridge

Today was a busy day for me, as M was at work for a 12 hour shift and I had both kids.  My parents took our 3 year old for an overnight and I spent the baby's afternoon nap re-converting the toddler bed back to a crib (she's slept in a bassinet and then a pack & play in our room since we came home from the hospital).  I ended up needing to switch around some furniture positioning in the girls' bedroom and then I changed the linens on the bed and crib.   So I didn't have a ton of time to work on today's decluttering and I opted to tackle the cabinets over our store and the top of our refrigerator.

The over-stove cabinets mostly hold spices, oils, and vinegars.  I cleaned out a bunch of old spices that were either nearly-empty jars or were clumped and useless.  I also installed a small spice rack on the inside of the cabinet door so that I don't have spice jars falling on my head while I poke around in the cabinets for something in particular.  Now our most-used spices and seasonings are easily accessible in the rack.

Then I hit the top of the fridge, but it was in decent shape.  All I needed to do was to put dog treats in the dog treat canister and to move some tubes of sunblock into the correct place in the bathroom closet.


Day 2
Thrown Away: One large Target plastic bag full of old spices.  The empty jars were recycled.
To Sell/Donate: Spinning spice carousel and jars and an Asian meal-for-two serving set (nice chopsticks, bowls, sauce dishes, etc.)

40 Bags in 40 Days - Day 1 - Hall Closet/Pantry

I really wish I had seen the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge a little sooner!  The idea is to take some time every day during Lent (not counting Sundays) and focus on cleaning, decluttering, and simplifying one area of the home.  It started on Ash Wednesday so I missed the first 2 days, but I think that the first day of decrapifying our space was a heck of an effort that more than made up for it.

Today involved cleaning out the abyss that our hall closet/pantry has become in recent months. The last time anyone did anything to organize or clean this closet was nearly a year ago when I was pregnant with our now 9-month old, and it shows.   My shame is great in showing you the condition of the closet/pantry before:

We really have the shitty habit of shoving crap in closets and pretending it doesn't exist!  Compounding the problem is our habit of buying in bulk at BJ's and then chucking the big cardboard multi-pack box into the black hole that is the hall closet/pantry.

I'll also thank you to overlook the presence of our high school letter jackets (which I didn't throw away) and two college graduation robes (which I did).

90 minutes later, you can see the floor!  All the junk was disposed of, I organized the food, and I was able to use the top wire shelf for the Food Saver, Crockpot, and bread maker (which we always have a hard time storing in between the 1-2 times a week we use each appliance).  The dog food bin has been wiped down and the golf umbrellas and flag have been placed in the corner with the extra snow brushes.  You can't see it in the pictures, but the top shelf of the closet (above the clothes bar) had a truly ancient emergency kit with expired canned goods for us and cat food for our late kitty who died nearly 4 years ago (and nothing for our dog, who has been a part of our family since 2007).   M is going to re-stock the emergency kit so it's available in case the stuff hits the proverbial fan.

When I tackle the kitchen cabinets I will likely revisit some of the food storage in the pantry versus the kitchen cabinets - but for now this will do.

The after shots:

Day 1
Thrown Away: 6 (!) bags of expired food, empty cardboard boxes, and assorted junk.
To Sell/Donate: An inflatable baby pool, a desk lamp, a mini blind still in the box, two boxes of scented tea light candles, a kids' Christmas baking set, a kitschy Christmas salt and pepper set, and a food slicer/chopper.

Let's get this party started!

We are a couple of thirty-somethings living in suburbia with two small children and a dog.   Both of us grownups have major pack rat tendencies that we've had all our lives.   We lived in a one bedroom apartment for the first year of our marriage and then bought our house, which is a pretty typical 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1970s-vintage suburban tract home.  As we lived in our home, the amount of "stuff" that we accumulated has filled every closet, every drawer and cabinet, and almost every inch of our unfinished basement - even the shed!   Things were slightly more manageable when we only had one kid, but as our second child is becoming mobile we're coming to the realization that we need to clean up our act.  

I was pretty anti-minimalism since it conjures up mental images of spare, empty, cold living space with no nice things.  Then I read about Joshua Becker's concept of "rational minimalism" and it struck a chord with me.  This is not going to be an easy or quick journey; there will be fits and starts and failures, but we'll make it eventually.

Our goals for this process:

~ Earn some money by selling some things that we don't need

~ Increase our tax deduction for charitable donation by donating some other things that we don't need

~ Organize what is left so that everything has a place and is easy to find

~ Create more functional space in our small home to accommodate our growing family

~ Reduce the amount of time that everyday housework (cleaning, laundry, etc.) takes so that we have more time as a family

This blog is going to document the process - complete with incredibly embarrassing "before" photos in some cases, running totals of money earned by selling/tax deductions for donating, and hopefully "after" pictures of our successes!