Rearranging my cabinets

Yesterday, I was baking my son's birthday cake for his party (which was today) so I needed to find ingredients that I don't use very often. That required me to get into an awkward cabinet. It is a cabinet in the corner of the kitchen, but it's not what I consider a corner cabinet. It's door isn't angled. Instead, the cabinet is super deep. It is very hard to get to anything at the back of the cabinet. I'd heard the tip about using a lazy susan in cabinets and gave it a try. It has worked out very well.

Here is what I saw when I opened the cabinet yesterday.Having the lazy susan in the cabinet allows me to see what is in the back without having to take a bunch of stuff out. I don't remember what I was looking for, but I was looking a little more thoroughly than I normally do. (The stuff I use most often is the closest to the door.) I looked a little more closely and this is what I saw:(I had to use the flash to really show what was in there.) If you look closely you can see the top of a box in the very back. That box is not on the lazy susan so I did not know what it was. I pulled everything out and this is what I found:I must have bought the powdered milk for a recipe--which I must not have ever made because the box was unopened. The jar is marked for making your own salad dressing, which I have never done. I would never have looked for the powdered milk back there. So, if I needed it for another recipe, I would have bought more. I would have looked there for the jar but we received it as a wedding or shower gift (11 years ago) and have never used it so I probably would have never even looked for it.

When I put the stuff back there I guess I thought it was the best use of space because it is stuff I hardly ever (or never) use. Now I see that I might as well say good-bye to anything I put behind the lazy susan because I won't see it for a long while. I decided to make a small change to see if I could make it work a little better.

Here is what I did:It is a very small change. I pushed the lazy susan back farther and brought the powdered milk up front.

The lazy susan turned just fine and I was still able to get what I needed off of it so I decided to check the top shelf.

Here is what I saw:Looks pretty good. The lazy susan works great up here.

Here is what I couldn't see:These items were behind the lazy susan. The oil and vinegar thing is another wedding/shower gift that has never been used. I have no idea why the matches were back there. My husband was looking for matches last fall when he was having issues with the grill and we couldn't find any (because I hid them.) Obviously not a good place for them because I would never (and didn't) look back there for them. The box contains cupcake liners, decorative icing, and Wilton icing color. Guess what I bought yesterday morning before I baked the cake?Wilton black icing color. (It worked out because I ended up using what I already had in addition to what I bought, but still.)

So, I moved that lazy susan back also.Not much of a difference as far as how the lazy susan works, but a big difference as far as how effectively the space gets used.

Now that I am looking at the pictures I am not so sure I am going to like having to reach inside the cabinet to get to the items on the lazy susans. I know I tested them yesterday but we will see if I still like it when I am actually in the middle of cooking. Even if I don't like them so far back and decide to move them toward the front, I am still better off not having anything behind them.

I'm linking up to Works for Me Wednesday and Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing (for both the using of the lazy susans as well as moving them so far back in this corner.)

My coupon binder

The challenge this week at A Bowl Full of Lemons is to create a coupon binder. I'm going to share what I created.

I've used coupons for a long time. I just can't stand to think I paid more for something than I had to. I think I am pretty smart about how I use coupons. I only use coupons for things I would otherwise buy or for something that I want to try. (If you use a coupon for something you wouldn't buy without the coupon it's not really saving money.) Over the years there have been times I used a lot of coupons and times when I didn't use them at all.

For most of that time I used one of those coupon organizers that looks like a big envelope with several sections. That was not an effective way to use coupons. It was always frustrating. If I wanted to use a coupon I would have to dig through the entire section to find the one I wanted. Often I would find expired coupons because I forgot they were in there. To combat that, before I went shopping I would look through the entire organizer to find coupons that were about to expire. So, each week I would have to take out all the coupons and look through each one.

Last year I heard about a blog called Clippin' with Carrie. Carrie matches up coupons with the current ads. (I know there are lots of other blogs that do the same thing.) At around the same time I saw many examples of coupon binders. I knew I needed to change the way I organized my coupons. I created my binder based on the ones I saw at that time.

In my binder I use:
baseball card protectors that have nine sections (I found them at Wal-mart.) Most coupons fit nicely into them. (It's hard to see in this picture but they are on the right, behind the divider. I couldn't get a good picture without a lot of reflection.) For coupons that are just a little too big I got sheets with four 4x6 sections (I got them at Office Depot.)
For coupons that are way to big to fit in either of those I use 81/2x11 page protectors.

Here is my binder:
As always, more practical than pretty.
Inside I have a couple pencil pouches but up to now they really haven't been necessary. I have a Target reusable bag but usually if I remember to take the binder I remember to take in my reusable bags.

While my binder is NOT cute, it has a feature I don't think I would trade to get a cute binder.
It zips. I like that feature because it keeps everything contained. If I drop my binder, nothing falls out of it. I can't imagine being in the store, dropping my binder and having coupons fly all over the place. Lucky for me, I already had this binder. I got it many years ago on clearance. (That was one time buying something on clearance that I didn't need worked out for me.)

When I go to the store I carry the coupons I am going to use and my list on this clipboard:It's just the right size.

I carry the clipboard and binder in this:It's a bag I got from Thirty-one that just didn't work for what I originally wanted it for. The binder fits perfectly in it and I don't feel like a big dork carrying my binder into the store.

Although I quit getting the local paper, my mom saves her coupons for me. I have not figured out a way to work coupon clipping into my routine. That means it could be weeks (or months) before I clip the coupons. This time, this is what I have:
Yikes. They date back to January. (Did you know the inserts have the date printed on the edge? Knowing that will make it much easier to organize this mess.)

I was about to just chuck them into the recycle bin, inspired by one of my favorite bloggers (Nony at A Slob Comes Clean) who threw away 21 pounds of coupons (see her post here.) She blogged about how she just didn't have time for that right now. I felt the same way. Obviously, if it was important to me I would work it into my schedule. On the other hand, if I didn't care I would have already gotten rid of them. So, when I saw the current challenge at A Bowl Full of Lemons I thought I would give it one more try.

There is one thing I do that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. It's this:
After I clip my coupons I keep the inserts. I put them in a hanging file folder and use mini-Post its to label the date on them. When I look at Clippin' with Carrie (and sites similar to hers) they often match up coupons that are in older inserts. By keeping my inserts organized in this way, I can refer back to those inserts easily if there is a coupon I need later. This has been so good for me keeping my sanity. If I hear about a great deal on something that I use but I no longer have the coupon for, it drives me crazy. I would rather not have heard about the deal. Plus, I would almost rather not do coupons than have something like that happen over and over.

Hopefully, I will be able to keep up with all of this--this time.

March decluttering

One of my favorite bloggers, Nony at A Slob Comes Clean has begun hosting a monthly decluttering link party. Perfect for someone like me. I know I need to get rid of stuff, lots of stuff. I don't know if it's because I'm a procrastinator (which I am) or because I am worn out (which I also am) but sometimes I need an incentive to get my butt in gear. I need someone (or thing) to be accountable to. That's why this is perfect for me. I know I am going to blog about it and link to the party so I am going to do as much as I can. Here is what I decluttered this month:
baby swing
bouncy seat
baby gym
(All three I acquired last fall because I began watching a baby. It is really hard to bring baby gear back into the house after I purged us of ours because we were are done having babies.)
100+ Girl Scout cookie boxes
From my electronic recycling (see here):
2 DVD players
1 portable DVD player
5 cell phone batteries
1 cell phone
1 CPU
1 computer power cord
1 scanner
(Thank you Best Buy for taking all of that.)
I cancelled the newspaper (I consider that pre-clutter decluttering)
Did not renew many, many magazines (again, pre-clutter decluttering)
(see here to read more about my pre-clutter decluttering)
Hundreds of magazine pages (see here)
My "to file" file (see here)

All of that decluttering in addition to my March jobs:
Clean...
ceiling fans
master bedroom (check)
office (check)
family room (check)
kitchen (check)
dining area (check)

hall bath
door (check)
baseboard (check)
light (check)

master bath
door (check)
baseboard (check)
lights (check)
vanity (sort of, this is where lots of magazines were)

lower bath
light (check)
picture (check)
mirror (check)

kids' rooms
headboards
footboards
window and sills (check)

I considered hurrying up and cleaning the headboards, footboards, and my vanity before I posted this. They would technically have been completed but I chose not to because they weren't completed in March. (That whole being honest in the blog thing again.)

Great cleaning & organizing advice

One of the best pieces of advice I have heard about cleaning and organizing is

"If it takes less than a minute or two, just do it."

I don't remember where I heard it first but I have heard it several times in a couple different forms. The first time I heard it I believe the advice was "If it takes less than 30 seconds, just do it." Well, I can convince myself that most things that I don't want to do are going to take more than 30 seconds (true or not.) Thirty seconds is only half a minute, that's nothing.

Then I heard the form I agree with, "If it takes less than a minute or two, just do it." While I can talk myself out of doing lots of things because they are going to take more than 30 seconds, most of them can be completed in less than two minutes.

Often, if I do the job right away (instead of putting it off) it will save me time overall. Even if it won't save me time, they are often things that I am glad to just be finished with.

Here are a few examples:

One of my monthly jobs is to vacuum the dust ruffle on my bed. (I have a black dog that likes to rub up against it.) I remember last month realizing I was supposed to vacuum the dust ruffle right after I got finished wrapping up the cord for the vacuum. I really didn't want to unwind the cord and plug it back in, just to vacuum that small piece of fabric. Those words "If it takes less than a minute or two, just do it." popped into my head. So, grudgingly, I did it. When I was finished, I was glad I did.

Another great example is washing plastic bags. Unless absolutely necessary, I try not to throw away plastic storage bags. I like to wash them out and reuse them. Unfortunately, I hate washing them out. So, I let them pile up until they look like this:


and this


Once they get to that stage it takes a lot longer to deal with them than if I would just wash them out as I use them. Last week, I finished cleaning up the dishes and there were two plastic bags sitting on the counter staring at me. I so wanted to walk away and just deal with them later. Again, "If it takes less than a minute or two, just do it." popped into may head. So, I did it (even though I wasn't happy about it.) I know that it took very little time to do then and I didn't have those bags on the counter constantly mocking me, making me feel bad for not dealing with them.

A last example just happened over the weekend. My husband was out of town so as a treat the kids got to sleep on the trundle bed in the office. I made the mistake of looking under the bed before I pushed the trundle back under. This is what I saw


what you can't really see is the extent of the dust. Look at this:


I so wanted to just push the bed back. I hadn't planned on cleaning under there. I didn't want to. I had other things I wanted to do. But, those words just wouldn't let me leave the mess. I timed myself and it took 3:14 to finish it. That is over a minute or two but my son was also in there "helping" me and that could've added time. Even if he didn't add time, 3:14 is still not very much time. While I'm not convinced cleaning under there at that moment saved me any time in the long run (like some other tasks might) it still gave me peace of mind. I felt better knowing I cleaned it up than I would have if I had left it.

So, my advice, if it takes less than a minute or two, just do it (especially if it is something you really don't want to do.)

I'm linking up to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Famiy.

Conquering Paper Clutter-magazines

Like most people (I think most is fair to say) paper clutter is an issue for me. I have several areas where paper clutter sometimes get the best of me. One of them is magazines. Here is what I've done recently to overcome that issue.

Within the last few years somehow I subscribed to many, many magazines. I say somehow because it happened gradually and unintentionally. Off the top of my head these are the magazines I had coming here each month: Real Simple (my favorite by the way), Parenting, Parents, Rachel Ray, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Money, Oprah, and Consumer Reports. Nine magazines. That's a lot. I no longer spend time reading magazines. If I have time to read, I want to read a book. I did read magazines while sitting at my vanity while I was drying my hair. I say did because I got an iPad last year as a Mother's Day/birthday gift. Now, I like to sit with that at my vanity and read blogs while drying my hair instead of looking at magazines.

So, the first step I took was to not renew any subscriptions. None. Some have already expired and most should expire in the next several months. It's such a relief to know I won't have all that paper to deal with. When I get a magazine I feel the need to look through the entire magazine. That's only part of the problem. The other part is this:


When I look through magazines, if I find something I like, I tear it out. It could be a recipe, a craft, a product, activities with kids, books to read, money advice, marriage advice, or many other topics. From nine magazines, that's a lot of paper. After I tore them out, I didn't know what to do with them. Once, in the past, I organized all of those papers into file folders. That was many years ago.

For a long time I didn't even pull out the page I liked. I just folded it over. At the end of 2010 I told myself that if I hadn't dealt with the magazines before the end of the year I would recycle them. Just before 2010 ended, I went through all the magazines and pulled out the folded pages. I told myself that was enough. They have been sitting in a bag inside a box inside a basket, waiting to be dealt with. Every time I saw the basket I would stress a little.

Yesterday, I decided I was going to begin organizing them. I started with sorting. Then, I thought, forget this and (inspired by Nony @ A Slob Comes Clean and how she threw away 21 pounds of coupons) decided I was going to recycle them without even looking at them. As I was doing that, I saw something that I really liked and decided I couldn't get rid of them without looking at them.

So, I started sorting again. I was thinking about what I was going to do with them once I had them sorted. I already had folders started with some articles that I had never looked at. I thought about putting them in binders. How would I do that? Put them all in page protectors? That would take a lot of time. I thought about the amount of time it would take to do that and compared it to the amount of time I would probably use them. I haven't looked in the folders I created years ago. I figured it would be unlikely that I would look in them now. Usually, if I need something, I look online. It was going to be more trouble than it would be worth.

I stopped sorting.

I put all of that paper in my recycle basket and immediately walked it out to the recycle bin. Relief.

I went into my bathroom and then under my vanity found this:


Nine more magazines. I walked them right out to the recycle bin.

I feel like a weight has been lifted. That's one thing I can cross of my To Do list that has lived there for a long time. I won't miss one thing in that pile. The only word I can think of to describe how I feel about that pile being gone (I've said it before and I'll say it again) RELIEF.

Now, about that coupon pile.

I'm linking up to Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing.