31 Days: Day 15 - The laundry room

After I finished the first junk drawer, I needed a change of scenery. The laundry room has been whispering my name for a long time now. Actually, every time I go in there to do a load of laundry and I have to step over things to get to the washer and dryer. I put a curtain on this window a couple of years ago while getting ready for a baby shower. It lets light in, but the mess behind the door is obscured just enough to keep people from doing a double-take.

This is why I'm always intercepting people with bags of ice or questions of "Where can I store this until after the party?" It's a mess people. I realize it. It's just one of those things that seems so daunting, it's just easier to walk by or pile one more thing on top and say I'll get to it, I promise. The problem for me, lately, has been that I just don't have the time. I started some of these projects during the week and decided that homeschool was just going to have to be put on hold for a few days. Now that I've gotten into the belly of the beast, I feel like I can finish it by working in the time I've got here and there.

Something I didn't even realize until I got some space cleared was that one of the outside doors doesn't even close completely unless it's dead-bolted. I don't know what the problem is, but what's the point of having a door if it's always got stuff piled in front of it as if it's a wall and it doesn't even work properly? This is worse than I thought.

An old game I bought for a friend as a joke for Christmas last year. Ha, ha, looks like the joke's on me.

This is a great cabinet, albeit a little too big, that I was excited about when we built the house. Somewhere along the way, when I still hadn't figured out how to utilize it, my husband claimed it as a place to heave everything school board related after he got home from a board meeting. And, of course, sometimes I would use it to hide stuff from the kids. The pile was twice that height. I had already started filling a garbage can when I realized I should take a picture.

I actually made some headway in the afternoon I worked on it. I'm no where near finished which is why I hate even posting. But it's all about the process, right?

Someday soon, I hope to have an awesome before and after post with everything staged perfectly. At least with everything put away. I will say that I had my husband haul off 4 bags of trash and I took a couple of loads to the storage building that didn't belong in the house. Yeah me!

I'm having a party for my 8 year old today and as you can imagine, I have lots left to do and bake and clean, etc.

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31 Days: Day 14 - Tackling the dreaded junk drawer

I drank my second cup of coffee and set the timer for 30 minutes. I opened the first drawer in my long bar in the kitchen, pulled out the contents and this is what I saw...

Then, I took that pile and tried to separate it out so I could see exactly what it was I was looking at. It was quite a mess. Everything from hair accessories to coupons to a fake tattoo sleeve. You see, this is the drawer that on occasion, spends a week, at the most, being organized and then people start using it as a place to dump things they don't know what to do with. If I hand one of my kids something and say, here, take this to your room and put it where it belongs. They will usually get distracted with something else and that item will magically appear in the junk drawer. When I clean for company, whatever is left on the bar that I don't know what to do with, I slide it off into this drawer. It's a pitiful mess.

Some things I could immediately tell needed to go into the trash, then it was just a question of sifting.

After the trash pile was established, I started categorizing. School stuff, stuff to go to the bathroom, to file, pictures, etc. 

My timer went off and I was not finished. So I put everything back into the drawer that I wanted to stay there permanently, minus pretty shelf liner paper, and admired my work. All I have to do now is find a place for the stuff that didn't make it back into the drawer.

Here are some interesting finds from my junk drawer foray. 

Storage containers. Not filled with anything in particular. Just floating around in a mess of objects.

A picture of an unidentified woman getting a hug from Elvis. Who knew he was such a committed hugger?!? From now on, when I'm feeling neglected, I'll just say I need an Elvis hug.

An assortment of past years Christmas picture cards. My refrigerator isn't magnetic on the front, so I don't have any place to display these kinds of things. And where do things go that don't have a home? The junk drawer, that's where!

Napoleon Dynamite glasses my son wore for Halloween a couple of years ago. He won the contest and now I can't thrown the glasses away. I popped out the scratched lenses and put them in the kids dress up drawer.

A hopeful craft project supply. We'll see.

More to come. I have three more drawers like this in my kitchen alone!

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31 Days: Day 12, er 13 - Re-evaluating things

Here we are, day 13 of the 31 Days challenge. I see now why the word 'challenge' is in there. Yesterday, I just completely ran out of time and ideas and thought I was done. I'm sure a more seasoned 31 Dayer would say something like, "Oh, yeah, that 12th day is when it really starts getting tough. If you can push through that, the rest will be a breeze!"

Actually, It's not the writing part I'm having so much trouble with, it's my subject matter. When I first decided to do this, I had an idea that I would systematically go through my entire house, tackling ugly closets and forgotten junk drawers and sharing it with the world. Then I chickened out broadened my subject to include other things like recipes and crafts and furniture projects so I wouldn't completely chicken out get burned out. Then, I discovered this blog. Jules is doing exactly what I wanted to do, but, as you can see, haven't. I haven't shared a single decluttering/reorganizing thing since I started. I'm fascinated and inspired by the idea, I just can't take that first bite of the proverbial elephant. And, let me tell you, I'm staring at a very large elephant here.

I have been doing a decent job at keeping my house presentable mainly because I have people over at least 2 times a week. That has forced me to keep things picked up and looking nice - on the outside. But there are still rooms in my house that I keep closed off to friends and even relatives because they are just catch-all rooms used for last-minute stashing. Even my bedroom is that way. For as long as I can remember, I have been at peace with that. I've felt that I have a right to have places in my house that are closed off to others. Now, I'm not so sure.

I accidentally brewed caffeinated tea last night so I had plenty of extra time to think before I could fall asleep. One thing I realized was that I'm not really content with my current system anymore. I live in constant fear that the guest bathroom toilet will explode and someone will have to use the bathroom in my bedroom. Oh, no, please not that. Or that, God forbid, someone would need to put a bag of ice in the freezer in the laundry room. My husband and I are always having to intercept that one. Why has this been ok with me for so long?

In my personal life, I'm going through a season where I'm trying to be real, completely real, with my friends and family. I'm trying not to keep hidden those things I've thought best to keep hidden for the good of everyone. I gotta tell ya, it's not a very fun process. I'm having to go to neglected corners of my mind and sift through ideas and thoughts that, for whatever reason, have been there for years. Sometimes, someone will stumble on one of those places and I've just stood aside and let them enter to find whatever they find. That's been the hardest. Kind of like letting someone go through your stuff even before you have and just sitting there, watching. It's the ultimate 'before' picture, left to linger for a while before the 'after' is revealed. I want the 'after', but I'm very hestitant to share the 'before'. But, in the same way that I want to be 'known' by those who know me, I want my house to be a reflection of that. I want my friends and family to feel completely comfortable and at ease in my house. I want them to feel like it's their house, too. That's what I've always wanted. That's how I've always felt. But instead, I get irritated with myself that they don't have all of it because I haven't been willing to share all of it. 

I thought this whole thing was about a William Morris quote, but, for me, it's turned in to something else. It's about letting everyone in on my process. It's about deciding, once and for all, to let my friends and family have an all-access pass into my home and my life, no matter what the current state. Then, when I've let people in to my 'before', they'll really appreciate and celebrate the 'after' with me.

P.S. Tomorrow I'm starting small. My kitchen junk drawer. 


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31 Days: Day 11 - It really is the little things

Funny thing about little things. They do make a difference, yes, but they also can become part of the surroundings and aren't noticed by people who see them every day. Such is the case with my living room curtain rod brackets. Once upon a time, when I first moved in to my beautiful new dream house, I wanted curtains on the windows. I guess it's something left over from my days of living in the city. But, now we don't have any neighbors so there's really no point in curtains except for aesthetics.

So, one day, I took my curtains down, wadded them up and stuffed them in a bag bound for Goodwill. And then I walked away. I just forgot one little, teensy, weensy thing. The brackets that my curtains hung from. They were small and black and had lots of screws and I figured I'd get to them later. The only thing was that later didn't come until several years later. 

 Even with the poor lighting in this picture, you can still see those hideous brackets

To tell you the truth, I didn't have any intentions of taking those brackets down until I got into a conversation about my curtain situation with one of my friends and she said, "I think your windows look great without curtains. You just need to get rid of those brackets." Hmmm, I had started to look at them like they were part of the window trim and they didn't even look out of place to me anymore.

So this morning, I got a screwdriver and took those suckers down. Now I can see how much work really needs to be done with wood putty and paint, but I think it's a major improvement.

Now go through your house and look at things like it's not your house. Or, better yet, invite a friend over and find out what they see. Then, do something about it!

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31 Days: Day 10 - Stain removal

This post was originally from May 27, 2008. I feel like I'm cheating a little, but I wanted to do a post on cleaning the stains from my grody carpet, but I'd already done it. Part of me improving my home, is learning to be efficient. So here's me at the peak of efficiency...

Today, ladies, we're talkin' stains. I don't know what made me do this, but the other day, while I was cleaning, I decided to document some of the stain removal that took place. I do love a product that does what it says it will do and that is what I want to share with you.

I give you Exhibit A:

This is where my youngest little darling ate a red popsicle while sitting in my new chair, and apparently dropped it on the floor...unbeknownst to me. Now, some of you may say, "Just move that rug over a little and no one will be the wiser!" Well, I would know. End of discussion. Here it is a little closer up...

Closer...

That's close enough. If I were doing an infomercial, I would show you pictures of how I used everything under the sun to get this stain out and how I struggled and strained and made myself look like a complete idiot who had never even seen a rag before. Instead, I went right to the product that I knew would do the trick and I went straight to work.

Here is where I sprayed the product on the stain and already it's starting to work.

That's red popsicle on the rag there. It doesn't look as bright in the picture as it did in real life. I was impressed with how it picked it right up.

Oh wait, here's a better shot of the rag.

There's the place where the spot was. It has a little bit of a pinkish hue, but I have three girls so I'm not really afraid of the color pink. And besides, if anyone notices that I have a small pinkish colored hue on my carpet by my new chair, I think I'll just move the rug over a bit.

Aren't you just dying to know what this miracle cleaner is? Well I'll show you. Ladies, meet Folex. Folex, meet the ladies.

Now this is one of those cleaners that doesn't have any fancy packaging and kind of sits there in the cleaning aisle either on a shelf far below or high above the national brands. I imagine it sitting there, just waiting for someone to take a chance on it. Knowing it has a big secret. What's that secret? IT WORKS! And I have my mother-in-law to thank for telling me about it. She has lots of pets. In the house. Dogs. And Cats. In the house. She goes through this stuff like you wouldn't believe. And I have a toddler. In the house. And we're potty training. In the house. Well, you get the idea. Nevertheless, it works every time.

Here's another problem area that I simply got tired of looking at the other day. I just had to do something about it.

This is an area right by the door that everyone comes in and out of. I can't even tell you what those stains are. They're the kind of stains generated by 4 kids. Some of them were sticky and some were hard. It wasn't pretty. This sounds like a job for Folex.

I know the carpet still looks a little dingy, but that's another problem all together. I barely put any elbow grease into those stains and look at how much better it looks.

I have one more product to share with you. This is the stuff I pull out when I've got a really stubborn stain. Like this one here. And don't underestimate this stain because of it's size.

You want to know what that is? That, my friends, is a little glob of silly putty. The rest of it I found in the pocket of my daughter's favorite jeans. It has a nasty habit of melting wherever it lands and fusing itself to whatever it lands on. I tried to pick up this little bit of green goo no less than 10 times before I finally got it through my head that it was fused to the carpet and it wasn't going anywhere.

Now it looks a little more like chewing gum. Which would be equally impossible to get out.

Enter my new best friend, Stainz-R-Out. I bought it one day in a moment of weakness watching an infomercial. Some idiot lady was trying to figure out how to use a rag and suddenly all of her problems were solved by this little yellow bottle of goodness. I actually used all of my first order and had to call the 800 number on the back and order more. I love it.

I works particularly well on sticky and greasy things that seem to repel water based cleaners. It's made with banana oil so it gets in there and really breaks up the offending stuff. It does smell like bananas, though, so if you're like my friend Francesca and hate the smell of bananas, you won't like what you smell when you start using this stuff. I, on the other hand, don't mind the smell of bananas, so we get along great. Here's where that spot was.

I know, I know. You say you see a little bit of a greenish hue. Well, I'm not going to try to pick up that greenish hue 10 times while vacuuming. I'd say that's another victory for Stainz-R-Out!

Here's one last story. You know those things little kids bring home from Chuck E. Cheeses or Mr. Gatti's that look like a mini lava lamp? It's a clear plastic tube that has goo in it and you tilt it back and forth watching the goo slowly move from one end to the other like slow moving waves? Then you wonder what that goo would do if it were outside of the confines of that plastic tube and you throw it to see if it will break? Well, my son wondered that very thing and I'll be darned if that goo didn't leave a permanent stain on my mother-in-law's carpet that would come and go at will. Some days it was really dark and sticky and some days you couldn't really see it at all. When I got my Stainz-R-Out, I was really excited about how well it worked so I took it over there and it got almost all of it out. Even I couldn't believe it. Here's the link again, just in case you missed it. That link again is Stainz-R-Out. Now I'm starting to sound like an infomercial!




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31 Days: Day 9 - Using what you have

This is sort of a continuation of yesterday's post because I gotta get to church. Another way you can be frugal is to use what you already have. Sometimes you won't even know what you have until you start looking at things with a different perspective. I needed a container to hold the homemade laundry detergent I made yesterday. The liquid version I previously made, made a batch so big, I needed an empty liquid laundry detergent container and a large glass pickle jar. The powder version takes up a lot less space so I needed to find a smaller container. The metal bread box I ended up using wasn't ever a real bread box. Obviously, since it's only big enough to hold a half a loaf of bread. It was one of those gift tins that had a collection of kitchen stuff in it and shrink wrapped. I liked that the container was metal so I saved it. It's served as a candy container for most of the years I've had it, but lately it's just been sitting at the back of the pantry taking up space. It turned out to be a perfect fit for my homemade powdered laundry detergent. It only needed a coat of green spray paint that I had left over from another project. Voila!

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31 Days: Day 8 - Frugality

I don't know if I like that word 'frugality'. I imagine some lady from Minnesota saying it the way Minnesotans say stuff and it sounds kind of lame. Like something SNL would do a really funny bit about. Aside from my thoughts about the word, though, I am a real sucker for the concept. Sometimes, I get a little over-anxious and actually waste money trying something that I think will be frugal. Like the time I made up a huge batch of homemade dish soap only to realize that I hated the smell of it and there were almost no suds. I'm the kind of girl who needs suds. No suds, no clean. Oh well, live and learn.


The recipe I'm going to give you today is for homemade laundry detergent. Now don't let my previous story deter you from wanting to make this stuff. I've made it and even tweaked it and I'm sold.


A while back I found this recipe on Pinterest for homemade laundry detergent. I'm not loyal to one specific brand of detergent and the ingredients were such that it wouldn't be a waste of money if I didn't like the way it turned out, so I tried it. It was a liquid version and I was pleased with the results, but it was always seperating so I had to shake it before I poured it every time. And it was way more liquidy than commercials detergents so it dripped and was messy. I just see myself sticking with it forever.

this is what the front of my washer was starting to look like from all the detergent drips

So I went back to the drawing board, er Pinterest. There, I found a really simple recipe for powdered laundry detergent. I already had the ingredients on hand because they are the same ingredients used in the liquid version. Here they are...

Most of these recipes, and there are a lot out there, call for a bar of soap, grated, and melted in a pot. I do enough cooking around here, I didn't want to also have to cook my laundry detergent. So I found another recipe that called for grating the soap in a food processor and then adding the rest of the ingredients and processing it further until it was a fine powder. That I can do.

 I would have taken a picture of the soap bar being added to my food processor, but the second I dropped it in the chute, it was gone. In literally 3 seconds. That was easy.

Then I took my soap shavings and poured them into another bowl so I could change attachments to the blade. And yes, I know my food processor is dirty. I forget to wipe it down. Maybe I'll do a post on Improving your home through appliance cleanliness. Nah.

Now that my soap shavings were back in the food processor, I added started to add the other two ingredients. One cup of Arm & Hammer super washing soda...

and one cup Borax.

Then I pulsed the processor until it looked like powdered detergent. 

This recipe doesn't call for any essential oils for fragrance because you choose what kind of bar soap you want to use. I can't remember the name of the flavor Ivory I used, but I like the smell of it. Next I poured it into an empty tin I had in my pantry, added a tablespoon measure and put it on the shelf above my washer. I've already done a few loads and I think this relationship is going to last a long time. 

And, of course, the tin will not stay looking like this. I have to stretch this stuff out for more blog posts, so check back tomorrow for a post on that.

This detergent only calls for 1 tbsp a load. 2 if it's heavily soiled. The recipe I made only filled the can about a third the way up and now that I know I like it, I plan on making it again and doubling it so my can will be full and I won't have to make it for awhile.

Here's the website where I got the main recipe.

P.S.  These kinds of topics usually generate a lot of questions, so feel free to ask in the comments if you have one.

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