OrgoDay 15 And some Orghonesty

I counted up the days we've worked, and we've had 15 OrgoDays so far! Of course, we didn't work all day on many of those, but still. Wow!

So Day 15 was The Finishing Of The Garage. And boy howdy was it COLD! So cold I had to trick Hollie and her son into enjoying some hot tea and hot cocoa, respectively. I knew if I asked first they'd say "no, no, I'm fine" so I made it first, then told them they'd be wasting it not to accept. Manipulative of me, eh?

Anyway, I'm sure you really just want to get past the rambling and on to the garage, so here it is! And just in time!

Here's one teaser pic, but follow the link below to see the rest of the garage pics.

OrgoDay 15 - The Finishing of the Garage

One thing (of many) that amused me ... while we were working Hollie took all the rakes and shovels and arranged them. And then stared at them - she stood before them, motionless, like the pictures you see of people staring at fine art in fancy museums. Then rearranged them. Then re-re-arranged them. Several times. So I was teasing her about spending so much time trying to get the rakes and shovels just right when the whole north side of the garage was yet-to-be-done. We laughed and got to work on the north side. Until *I* turned to look at the shovels and rakes. They were all hanging crooked. Turns out the pre-existing hangy-thingies on the wall (which had previously been turned into an awkward angled shelf) were deliberately uneven, one side set about 1" lower. We speculated as to why, but agreed it was annoying, and that we couldn't leave them all crooked. So then I spent the next half hour adding side supports to where the handles hung until, at last, all the shovels and rakes hung neatly upright. So I guess there's potential for me to become a perfectionist organizer, eh?

In related news, alert reader Shari asked:

"Since you are answering some readers questions... ;-) I was wondering how it has been keeping up with it. Some of the rooms have been done for a while so is it easier to keep them up, or has it been stressful to try to keep it organized? Do you think that once Hollie is gone that you'll be able to handle it? Is it "you", or is it like living in someone else's home and trying to keep it their liking? I would love to know how the upkeep is going for you. "

In the interest of honesty, I offer you a few pictures, taken this afternoon: OrgHonesty

To specifically answer the questions:

Has it been stressful to try to keep them organized? A little, but mostly no. I mean, it hasn't really been any more stressful than simply trying to clean up was before. And it's paid off in being easier to get things cleaned up, between the less stuff and clearly knowing where almost everything should live.

Will I be able to keep it up? Ahhh, there's the big question in all our minds. What I'm finding is that, while the organization is nice, the long-term is going to come down to how diligent I am at doing my daily tasks, and doing them to 100%. One bonus is that I see more easily where I've been only working until the job is 50% or 75% done, or "better than it was" -- but now that it has been TOTALLY done and clean, one bright and shiny day, it is more obvious to me when I stop short that I am stopping short. So a big part of the "will I keep it up?" comes down to the family and I retraining ourselves to pick up, put away properly, right away, and to really persevere until a job is done. We've still been often operating in "catch up" mode where we don't pick up when we should, but scramble to do it before some deadline (like Hollie's visit, LOL). So that's better than not doing it at all, but still not quite the standard we'd like to live by. Can we do it? Yes. Will we do it? That remains to be seen.

Is it like living in someone else's house?
No, not really. There are a few cupboards where I consistently reach for the wrong one, out of habit, but for the most part things still feel like mine, only more organized, LOL. Hollie has been very gracious at asking for and listening to our input, and operating under the idea that it needs to work for us, not for her. She's encouraged us to try some new things - like hanging shirts - but the pay off (of having nice neat shirts and easily finding the ones we want) is worth it. And, most of all, it's still our stuff, just easier to find and use. So rather than like being in someone else's house, it's like living in our house, only better! LOL!

One last thought ~ a few of you have said how all this has encouraged and inspired you, and I'm so glad! And amazed at those of you who can do it on your own! Woo! Someday I hope to be able to do so (and just have Hollie over socially!) I just want to encourage you to take pictures! Not only is it fun to see the change, and remember, later, how bad things were (and aren't anymore!) but also, having before pictures helps me be more honest (remember my superhero power to overlook reality? pictures don't do that!) ... and if you're feeling brave, post them where we can see them and be encouraged and inspired by them, as well as oohing and ahhing over your good work!

Proof It Didn't Kill Me

So Hollie and I finished up my bedroom today. Yeah yeah, pix of that coming some other day. Actually maybe I'll wait until I paint and decorate it. But the closets and drawers look great. WOOT! But that's not what I'm here to talk about ...

Hollie's son volunteered to sort out and prep the garage for organizing -- I should've done it when it was warmer, it was eleventy-billion below today. But since he's a young man, he has no fear of the cold, no need for hats and gloves. I sent my eldest two out to help do some of the moving stuff out. We didn't really take everything OUT and organize it, because I wanted to sort of sort it, see what we had. You don't know how many shovels you have until they're all in one place.

So when Hollie and I were done in the bedroom, nearing the end of her time there, we went out to see how the kids had done. I only hyperventilated a little. And had that sinking "all this stuff, spread all over" feeling a little. Okay, a lot. But I bucked up and didn't freak out too much.

And they'd done a great job of sorting and spreading the things out. Except we had to get things back IN the garage before we were 'done' for the day, just sorted. And Hollie was out of time. But couldn't stop working. Here it was, past time for her to go, and she was trying to sweep the corner before putting the trash cans in, even though we'd just have to move all that OUT again tomorrow. I had to shove her into her car and quick lock her in to keep her from working. She was very unsure about leaving me with any tasks -- and with good reason! Since she always tacks on the phrase "if you want to" to any assignment she gives me ... well, you know how that turns out. I take the leeway she gives, and never want to. ha ha!

So today I told her to tell me to tidy up the sorting and put it back, and not to say "if you want to" ... and I promised I'd do it and it wouldn't kill me.

So this link is really for her, tucked away in her cozy home with her family, to prove that I didn't freeze and die trying to sort things out there. LOL. I present:

The Garage, put away sorted neatly but not yet organized.

I guess I should've taken before pix, you would've appreciated them. But I didn't. So you'll just have to wait for tomorrow, Organized With Room for the Small Van.

But see, Hollie? I told you I could do it without dying! I almost could've even made room for the van to fit, but I figured since we'll get it all out tomorrow or Friday, I didn't need to go that extra mile today. So I didn't. But still! It's even pretty tidy. I think you'll be pleased.

Tomorrow and Friday we'll toss and organize and it'll be like a new garage. Too bad I waited until it was too cold to paint.

Oh, and I didn't see any dead mice. So that's good. THAT might've killed me.

***

Oh, and I almost forgot to try to answer Reader Questions.

Betsy asked (and I paraphrase): "Where are the containers and shelves coming from?"

Most of the things we've used have been somewhere else in the house. We've bought a few cute basket packages from Meijer, and a few wire shelves ... I had some cute baskets buried in clutter here and there in the house, and the cubes with totes in the living room and boys room were things I'd bought previously in my attempts to control clutter myself. And I already owned lots of plastic totes that used to hold our too-too-too many toys in the past, in my various previous attempts to organize myself, which Hollie reclaimed with more thought and order than I'd done.

On top of that, Hollie is a prodigy in box customizing. She's taken shoe boxes and cardboard boxes and tapes little dividers and such, so that they hold things that are alike yet distinct. So many of the tidy spaces you see are divided with things I already had, and aren't cute and fancy when you look close, just amazingly functional. I really haven't spent a whole lot of money on organizey things yet, the most was on some cutesy baskets that I haven't figured out where to put yet.

As we've successfully decluttered, we've emptied out some dressers and cupboards and shelving units and been able to use them in other spaces.

Which brings me to Peggy's Question: "Okay, I have to know. Where IS everything? I see all the nearly-empty shelves and I have to wonder where all the boys' stuff went."

That's the other thing Hollie has really been a wonderful blessing with ... she has helped us to be more successful in our decluttering. In the boys' room I can't tell you how many times I'd swooped through (usually crabbily) and boxed up all their toys and stuff and stomped the box down to the basement to ... well, to be ignored or eventually just brought back up. Getting rid of stuff helped a little for a little while, but never really helped a LOT. Hollie helped us narrow down what we kept to fewer things, but additionally provided clear, labeled spaces for those things we DID keep.

If you look back at the boys before picture, you'll see that most of the mess was papers, toys, and clothes. We got rid of clothes the boys said they didn't like/wear (yes, even the ones I was fond of) and made clear homes in the closet for the ones we kept. We got rid of almost all the misc. toys, keeping just a few categories: Bionicles, Lego, Killer Bunnies game. We put in one of those magazine holders from elsewhere in the house to hold special papers and pictures and creations.

There was a bookshelf in the boys' closet that held books and piles of papers and misc. toys. We relocated the books to downstairs, leaving a very few to "live" in the bedroom, and we gave away some toys and relocated others to the rest of their "family" downstairs. Then we hung all their shirts and pants (Hollie's idea, she claimed it was easier, and it's working wonderfully!) which cleared out most of the dresser. Jammies, socks, and underwear fit into tidy canvas totes in that cube-thing, since those totes were no longer filled with miscellaneous junk.

Likewise in the rest of the house, giving away and throwing a way a fair amount of stuff is the main thing that has enabled us to find *space* -- and part of the idea is that if we leave a little free space, we'll have room to put things as we relocate them or buy more and such. So we're only aiming to fill shelves and cupboards 75-80% ...

We've had at least one "goodwill" box and some days two or three, for each day we've worked. And there's been a lot of things going to the trash, too.

I don't think I could've rid our home of so much stuff without her encouragement, gentle but firm questioning, and persistence. But it's been worth it.

Does that help answer those questions? Good thing it wasn't a 100 words or less essay question. LOL.

MoreOrgo Pix For You

I have totally lost track of number of days for the OrgoFun

And these aren't all my pictures.

And I forgot to go through and label them when I dumped them to a little web page.

But here's some more pix. I'll put just a few here, and you can go look at the rest if you want more, more, more.

Maybe later today I'll take more pix and put them up.

Hollie and I are almost done with the main floor.

But what we've got left is the "doozy" stuff to me -- all the boxes of "Kim's Stuff" I just have been shoving back in the house and in my mind. Ugh. I hate boxes of my stuff, LOL. And the BASEMENT. Ooooh, scary. Although really, I'm looking forward to the day when the garage and basement are tidy and useable, even if there's still issues with the cat and the basement. To be able to go down and find something quick would be nice.

So anyway. Enough rambling. On with the Catch Up.

Here's the link to all (well, many of) the pix: MoreOrgo! (don't be fooled, it's the same link!)

here's the upstairs (kids') bathroom, after:

I can't find a before picture of that bathroom, but trust me, you don't want to see it anyway. SCARY!

Part of the big boys' room, after:

they've been doing a great job of keeping it clean! And they got bunk beds out of the deal, so they're thrilled. You can see a little of their before room here and here.

Little Boys' room:

They each got bigger beds out of the deal, and we left room in the cupboards for them to still climb in and play, which you might remember from this before pic...

And then there's the guest room, as it was just before Linda arrived:

here's a pic from before, when I was using the room to store extra unfolded bedding, mending, and all the OrgoBoxes ...

the funny thing, to me, is that that guest room, bad as it was before, is the one room I thought as we did it that I could've done myself -- because on Guest Room OrgoDay we didn't actually sort and declutter, we just *relocated* all the sorting and decluttering to the basement. While I'm terrible at Organizing and Decluttering on my own, I am not too bad at relocating everything quickly. LOL. But Hollie did help me get some of the clutter out of there and we moved a dresser into the guest room closet, with some space for guests to use and also to hold my yarn stash.

Maybe I'll take some more pix to link to, I see as I look over my pictures that I don't have any after of the back room and my desk, both of which are impressive changes even if Hollie let me hide (for now) all my stuff I wasn't prepared to thoughtfully sort. Okay, she wouldn't call it hiding. But she was gracious enough to let me make a box of "I'll think about it later" for my desk and for much of the back room.

The back room is a story in itself, I'll save that for later.

Anyway, don't forget that there's a few more after pix of the boys' rooms here, if you want more, and those you can click to see bigger. But again, it's the same link as above! Ha ha! I just didn't want you to miss it.

Phew, I'll call this half-caught-up on blogging. I feel better already.

We Interrupt this ... uh ... blog hiatus ...

... for the first "real" snow of the year!

Real meaning the first one to *stick* ...

Oh, and before I show you the snow-on-plants, I must add this disclaimer: I DID take a few of the children (too few, they were all coming back in, cold and wet, before I got the camera out) but they were blurry. I guess blurry with excitement, I don't know. At least since it's the first snow of the year I'm guaranteed more kids in snow photo ops!

Tiny pix for my dial up friends ~ you know who you are! ~ click for the full size Flickr pix.

Regarding the lengthy dawdling pause ... I could claim I've been busy. I sort of have. Hollie and I have pressed on and are running out of jobs I can deal with, LOL. We even did my DESK the other day! I'm sure you want to see that.

Have you ever gotten so behind on blogging and pix that you figure the job of blogging the pix is just too overwhelming, both to do and for your dial-up friends to read? No? Well I have. And so I keep meaning to get around to it, but then I think of all the before and after pix to round up, and all the rambling to do, and I think "Yeah, I'll do that in a few minutes." and you all know what THAT means.

But today's a holiday and Linda is here, handling all the cooking, so maybe I will have time to blog. I could try.

Of course, you'll all be too busy to read it today ...

hm.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

Boy am I behind in blogging! It's been almost a week!

Yet to come:

More Organizing! Big Boys Room! Guest Room! Bathrooms!

More Fun! Our Concert and Movie Date Get-Away!

More Rambling!

Right now I have to fly, for more organizing, but stay tuned for more, more, more!

First Performance of the Season

Today was the first performance for the girls' Youth Honors Choir season!

click for larger picture

Iliacat performed both this year and last year with the Ensemble, which is the middle group in the age range, 5th - 7th graders, in the royal blue shirts.

Eminoodle performed this year, for the very first time, with the Singers, the younger aged group for 3rd to 5th graders, wearing turquoise.

if you'd like, here are two short clips of each choir singing. The Grand Lunar took these from quite a distance, so I was pleased with the sound and video quality over the distance:

Noodle's choir - click for a link to the movie:

Iliacat's choir - click for a link to the movie:

The Sixth Day

Phew, are you keeping up with the pace of this?!?!

Today, OrgoDay6, we started upstairs with the girls' room.

http://www.andfam.net/kim/OrgoDay6/OrgoDay6.html

I took some 'before' pictures the day Hollie came for the initial consultation, when we'd tried our best to tidy up. But this morning she came before the girls' had cleaned their rooms, so here's a 'worse' before. Having a place FOR things I think will really help them keep it clean.

In the pictures you might see that the hallway and boys' room are also in process. Hollie was busy organizing the girls decluttered and sorted things, and didn't really need me hanging around trying to help. So I took the big boys and we started the initial sorting into categories. I'm not sure how much we helped - but we did have a trashbag full and some things to give away, so at least it was a start. Of course, the 'magic' comes when she puts everything away, since that's when I feel most helpless.

While Hollie was busy and there wasn't much room for anyone else in the girls' room with all their stuff *out* Hollie's son took to the upstairs hallway. Not only did he sort and pile and organize the not-yet-gone through stuff, but he vacuumed AND scrubbed the railing clean. And he said he was having fun. I think he actually meant it. Learning to work cheerfully is a discipline I need, but to be honest, I can't really imagine scrubbing things being fun. Maybe I have a gene missing?

Anyway, stay tuned tomorrow for Boys' Room Part 2 - the Real Work

The Real Day 5 and an Easter Egg

I'm back! Did you miss me when my email and blog server were dead?

OrgoDay 5

Today was the 5th day of 'real work' -- we had a little less time, but still made good progress!

http://andfam.net/kim/OrgoDay5/OrgoDay5.html

Today we attacked the storage in the front hall ~ there's some built in shelves with a cupboard underneath, that I've 'curtained off' as storage because I just don't have (or want?) that much cutesy display stuff. If you were to come in my front door and down the front hall past some bedrooms, you'd pass this area.

Also, the coat closet doesn't have a door because long ago the carpenter ants ate the bathroom door, and the door isn't a standard size, so we replaced the bathroom door by stealing the coat closet door, which just has a curtain now. Is that weird?

So I don't know if getting those two areas cleared out doesn't look like a lot, but really, a lot of it was "nightmare" stuff to me -- things I'd stashed up there long ago and just made me weary to think of going through. But with Hollie to chat with and keep me moving (and guilt me into working with her ceaseless work, and me standing around realizing I ought to be working too) it wasn't too bad at all.

I think tomorrow we'll start on children's bedrooms!

And an Easter Egg ... of Yarn

In other news, I spent my non-organizing time on a craft project.

Yes, that's right, I didn't work on any decluttering and organizing without Hollie.

Aint no Orgo when she's gone ...
Aint to work when she's away ...
Aint no Orgo when she's gone,
and she's always gone too long,
and I find new ways to play ...

So yeah. I bought some undyed superwash wool sock yarn from http://www.knitpicks.com/ ... and read up on Kool Aid dyeing at knitty.com ... and finally decided Sunday evening to get to it.

So I knit a row of stockinette and a row of the funky zig zag in the sock pattern I want to use. I marked the start and end of the rows, then frogged it and measured and got about 40" per row. I decided I wanted 3 rows, more or less, of each color band, and that I wanted it to go blue, green, blue, pink-variegated, and then repeat.

So ... 3 rows x 40" = 120" per color band, which equals 10' per band. (right?)

4 colors before repeating = 40' circumference of the pattern.

So I made a 40' circle of some old burnt orange yarn, and placed it around two chairs around 20' apart, and then walked with the hank of yarn around, and around, and around.

You would think that would be one of those peaceful, mindless tasks, right? But it wasn't. It was really stressful! I had to keep carefully flipping the hank so that it didn't tangle as I went. And as careful as I was, I couldn't keep the tension of the big loops even, so some were saggy. At the end the last few rounds got tangled and I had to sit and carefully untangle before wrapping and I was just really stressed out by it. Plus it took a lot longer than I'd naively imagined.

After wrapping, I measured off a 5' (doubled) loop at one end, then two 10' sections next to each other in the middle, and let the last ~5' (a little more, I don't know where I measured wrong) doubled end be for the red. I carefully did a criss-cross banding to mark the separations and to hold the loops so they would tangle less ... for the pink I zig-zagged the loop back and forth and tied it loosely so I could just dip half of it in the pink, giving myself a few stitches pink, a few white, repeating pattern for those rows. I hoped.

Then I dyed the sections in Kool-Aid on the stove.

green = lemon lime kool aid, 2 packages
red = strawberry, 2 packages
blue = ice blue raspberry lemonade and berry blue, mixed, 5 packages total

A few things I'd do differently -- 2 packets strawberry was a much deeper and redder "pink" than I wanted. Plus I should've wrapped the zig-zag much tighter, effectively tie-dying the white section off, because it started to come undone and I got less white banding than I wanted. I pulled the red out early, before all the dye was absorbed, and so it bled onto the 'white' and made it pink. Oh well.

There's more pix at Flickr by the way, if you want to see the rinsing step and the hanging in the basement to dry part.

If I thought wrapping around the chairs was tedious, I hadn't even dreamed of laying out the 20' long band and then UNwrapping the dyed loops, trying carefully to pass the half-rolled ball over and under the places where it had twisted. It took me over 3 hours to roll it into a center-pull ball.

I'm really hoping there's some sort of yarn dyeing initiation that I just went through, and someone will say, "ha ha, now that you did it the hard way, here's the easy way!" because the Kool Aid part was fun, but the wrapping and unwrapping, not so much!

But in the end I got this pretty little easter egg, with which to make socks from. Do you think I'll get them finished by Easter?

Fifth Day Thursday Soup Day Friday

I didn't blog the Fifth Day, I'm sorry. All that nap skipping is catching up with me.

Thursday was the Fifth day, and I completely forgot to take pictures.

I worked on finishing up some toys and puzzles, sorting and making sure all the pieces were there and helping the children choose which to keep. Hollie and her son worked on the books in the Living Room, and all the little things that were NOT books that were crammed into the shelves. How does that happen? Hollie started by - you guessed it - taking down ALL the books.

I tried to tell her that The FlyLady had told me (well, not ME specifically, but people like me) NOT to take down all the books because it's too overwhelming. But Hollie is not overwhelmed and daunted by that, so she took them all down. She piled them up for me to go through, and I plucked a few to get rid of. We brought stray books down from upstairs, sorted out schooly books from fun books from Christian books from parenting books. We set schooly books aside for their own zone elsewhere. Hollie's son organized all the little kid books at their eye level, and bigger kid books nearby. Hollie "preorganized" all the other books back in. I like that term she used, "preorganized" ~ she left spaces and options so that, as we finish going through the house, we can work in things that were left out, or re-reorganize if what we did before doesn't make sense.

I forgot to take a picture at the end, but, since they're books lined up, they don't look a LOT different. I'll take a picture maybe on Monday when we wrap up the living room.

So what about Friday? We didn't work today. It was planned that we'd work 9-5, and we were both excited about what we could get done. But Hollie was sick and in pain all night, and had to unwillingly call it off. I did my best to encourage her to stay home and rest; I was disappointed not to keep working but would've been more upset to have her trying to work through pain! Sometimes you just have to listen to your body's signals. And I know her well enough already to know she's not a "drop everything at the first sign of not feeling well" slacker like me. :-)

So what did I do today?

I tried to catch the 'done' rooms back up to 100% -- I've found that, in keeping with my bad habits, I work until things are maybe 75% done. Like dishes washed, counters washed, but stopping short of drying dishes and putting them away. Or putting MOST things away but leaving the last few out. So I started at the door and worked my way around the kitchen and living room trying to make sure I'd at least caught up to how we'd left things.

And then, because my husband was also feeling not well (although with an unrelated ailment!) I made chicken noodle soup for dinner.

... and because the counters were clean enough to do it ...with homemade noodles!! Or dumplings, as Dale's family called them. But you can't fool me. They're noodles.

Then we watched the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and ate popcorn.
Then we sent the children to bed, and The Grand Lunar sent himself to bed.

I'll be sending myself, soon. It's been a long week.

Hopefully we'll be back on track with the Organizing on Monday, if Hollie is available. I'll keep you posted!