Organizing...

Just this month I did a series of organizing over on my VIP page.  I'd really love to share one more.

I've spent YEARS trying to get organized and then stay that way.  In October of  '15 I remarried, he's a wonderful man, and more importantly he's my best friend.  That wonderful event meant regrouping and reorganizing, which also meant downsizing.  It's been almost two years now, and I'm nearly to the goal of not having to move anything to get to something else.

Blessings,
Valerie

Extra help organizing on a budget.

TOTAL COMPUTER OVERHAUL Finale

I was unable to finish this Friday due to having to make a cake for a friend of my son's.  Yesterday was a catch up day, but that can be a good thing, we had plenty of time to finish up.  I honestly did not finish, I still need to back up files, but the laundry is caught up and the kitchen is presentable, even after Sunday's football games and a day of my husband cooking!!!




I hope that you were able to at least get a good start on backing up your files and pictures.  We have had computers crash that had tons of family pictures on them, those pictures are gone, no negatives to take to Wal-Mart and have copies made.  I recommend putting pictures on a flash drive so you can keep adding to it.  You can also use an online account to store your pictures, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and Photo Bucket are good places to start.  If you work from your computer you may want to check out a place like Mozy or Go to My PC, to back up and/or access your files anytime from any computer.

Now that you have your computer backed up, now you can start on that office, or office "area".  My office area is where ever my laptop happens to be, right now it is the couch.  HERE is a great place to start.

TOTAL COMPUTER OVERHAUL Day 3 & 4

Backing up your files is key to helping your computer run smoothly as well as keeping your sanity, not to mention saving you money.  How can it help you save money?  Well for a small investment you won't run the risk of double purchasing.



Yesterday we starting organizing our files on our computer.  Today start transferring those files to either disk or a flash drive.


I just open My Documents, fix the window to the size I want, open My Computer, click on the drive I am transferring to, size it, and then drop and drag.  If you are just starting, just take the whole folder over.  If you already have a flash drive or a RW Disk you can add to the folders you already have there.

I mentioned saving money earlier. As I was going through some files a week or two ago, I noticed I had 2 or more files that were for school, and not only were they the same subject, they were the same topic. Most of these were freebies I picked up, but some were purchases. I also have many free patterns for crafts and sewing I need to put on a Flash Drive and keep with my sewing stuff, I will make a list for these, so I don't purchase one later.

I have tons of things to move and tomorrow my Mother-In-Law is taking my daughter and I for a panty run, we are headed to Sulphur Springs to the outlet stores to stock up on socks, stockings, and yes, undergarments.  So, I am off to catch up on laundry, transfer my files, and make a music CD or two for our road trip.

Happy Organizing,
Valerie

Getting it All Together

If you really need help getting it together I have 2 great places to start.
First is Molly over at Econobusters.
The second is Leslie over at The Total Home Overhaul (I have blogged about this in the past.


Day 1 with Molly is HERE.  The 31 Days of organization to date can be found HERE.  Just because you are not starting with Molly on Day 1 does not mean you cannot start, and you are not behind, just start where you are.

Leslie has done a wonderful job of being open and honest about organizing her home and her life.  There is even a yahoo group for those of us who just want a nudge or can go ask for help.  We are a very quiet group, we will not inundate you with charts, chores, assignments and such.  We are just there waiting for someone to ask for help or pass on an idea.  I have one I hope to be sharing next week-stay tuned.  Sign up to join the group on the left, as I said we are VERY quiet.

So what are you working on?  I did a complete overhaul a few years back and have been maintaining as I go, using the FLYLady system.  I also box things up that are not used very often and date the box, if I have not used it in 6 months, it GOES, unless it is canning supplies, those I only use once a year-all summer long.  I do need to get some organizers for my kitchen drawers, I HATE knives running loose all over the place, and need to replenish some cleaning supplies, each bathroom has their own set and then the kitchen set.  Molly gives you details on how to do this HERE.

Stop by both of these places, tell them I sent you!!!!

Kitchen Helps

I love it when I run across something that not only makes perfect sense, but I realize it is something I am already doing, or even better have been doing for some time. Loi over at Mentoring Moments (see button on right, too) posted this and it arrived in my email this morning and I started doing the Happy Dance when I read it.......

I realized it was about something I had been doing for a few years now, de-cluttering. Of course my problem is I am a reformed pack-rat married to a pack rat, I mean he brings home things like old water heaters (I mean you can make a smoker out of those suckers things right?), old, broke dishwashers he removes from some one else's house when he replaces it with a new one, Things like that. One day he even brought home an entire garage door complete with tracks and broke opener. I threatened to hang it in our driveway-we don't have a garage.

But I complain digress, here is the email from Mentoring Moments.; Sign up to get your email while there.

Taking a tidy up approach to kitchen cleaning will only result in rearranging clutter rather than organizing.

Act like you are moving when it comes to de-cluttering the kitchen. What would you take with you? Chances are you are only using 20% of your stuff on a regular basis. Try this approach with cookbooks: take just the ones that are tenderly worn from years of use. Ask yourself would it be worth it to pay someone to moves these cookbooks for you. Pack away, sell on eBay, or put in a garage sale those you do not need.

Uncluttered space makes the best impression. For an instant face-lift in your kitchen, clean off the front of the fridge. Put your favorite pictures, artwork, and missionary prayer cards in an album or on a bulletin board.

For pantry organization I suggest using canning jars. They are affordable and you can see what is inside easily.

WOW, now everything here goes with what Leslie and I were doing for our Total Home Overhaul, and I have incorporated this into my daily life. Call it what you want, de-cluttering, culling, trashing, donating. I call it survival. I have arrived at a place and time in my life where I cannot stand clutter, OMG, I have become my father. Funny thing is I can usually handle a few items here and there, as long as they have a home and a function, but it is behind closed doors that the clutter starts to eat away at me. My dad owned a grocery store when I was a Junior in High School. I got paid $2 an hour to check and when things were slow, face the shelves, that means all nice and neat (dusting included) and all the labels facing out. Honey my cabinets could rival ANY grocery store shelf almost any given day, depends on whether my husband has been looking for something. Oh, and yes most of my items are ABC order. No, I am not OCD, I am CDO which is like OCD, but all the letters are in alphabetical order like they SHOULD be.

Oh boy, I'm rambling again. Click on the link for Mentoring Moments and check out the picture they have with this post, it gives even the most hopeless kitchen hope. I have a drop down shelf for my cookbooks, but it neatly hides again when done. Don't get me wrong I LOVE the one in the picture, but sooner or later it would get in someone's way and end up in the front yard.

A word of caution, don't make a resolution this year/next year to get organized, just start doing it. If you realize things have yet again gotten out of hand, don't beat yourself up, just pick yourself up and start again. As FLYLady says "You're not behind, start where you are". Some one should make a resolution to NEVER make another resolution, heck we should make it a proclamation to stop them from ever being made again. Each day is a fresh start, a Do-Over that God blesses us with, use it.

My tip for Kitchens-computers, flash drives & e-books. We live in a wonderful age and time. Most of my recipes are in e-books or being transferred to a recipe book on a flash drive. I have a few that I use regularly (not enough times to memorize yet) that I have printed out. The few REAL books that I do have are either sentimental or I have not yet weeded out the keepers and put them on flash drive yet. I had about 30 books, I now have about 10, all the recipes I wanted from those 20 books along with the miscellaneous cards and ripped out pages from magazines, and copied pages from someone else are ALL on a flash drive that takes up 1" x 2.5" of space. Now that's organization!!! Yes, I will make copies VERY soon, as the main reason I started this is so I could pass them on to my kids, some of the recipes are family recipes and are older than my parents.

Now, once you make space, the KEY is to NOT fill it with new stuff, unless it is needed NOT WANTED. I NEED more kitchen towels, who doesn't, but I have run out of space. As soon as I cull the recipes that drawer will be for towels only. When we finish our kitchen remodel (right before I die) I would like a small shelf for the 1 or 2 books I plan on keeping, simply because they were given to me by my grandmother the year I graduated High School and then another when I married. Oh, and my Cajun cook book my Mother In Law loaned gave me because I love the stories in it, I may frame that one.

Bloggy Planner

Lynette Chandler and her crew over at Blog Energizer have created this AWESOME Library of resources to help Energize your blog. Two of the things I love are.....

FIRST, the Blog Planner,
I absolutely LOVE this planner. It is very user friendly, I slip it into my regular planner and keep it handy for when an idea comes along. I have a place just for jotting down ideas and then I have another place to schedule that idea on my weekly planner. I can also assign someone else like another team blogger or ask a guest or ghost blogger to write on something I have no idea about.
 
The planner has 2 pages.  
The first is a list type page, I use 1 page per month for each blog I have. This is the page I jot down my ideas on. The second page is a weekly spread type page. I write the name of one blog at the top of each column and plan out which days to post what topic for that blog. This was so helpful over the Christmas Holiday, I did 5 days of blogging for 4 blogs on Tuesday, scheduled them and all but two went out on their assigned days. Had trouble with WP, but that's another topic.

SECOND, the blog calendar.  
Did you know there is a peanut butter day, or was it week? There is also a National Organize your home day-now that should be a month or at least a whole week.

The crew over at Blog Energizer have really put some time and effort into these 2 helps alone. There are TONS of resources there just to help you with your blog, and many of them are free just for the asking. If you need more help with your blog go here, Blogging Starter Pack Blog or here 5 Ways To Sabotage A Blog Before Starting And How To Avoid Them. If you are looking to Unleash The Selling Power of Your Blog eCourse try that link.

Happy Blogging,
Valerie

Wordless Wednesday

My new 2010 Planner!!!

So sorry the bottom one is sideways, I fixed it on my computer, but Blogger kept uploading it this way.  The planner is a freebie from Lowe's, I taped the FLYLady no whining sign on the front-I love it!!!

http://www.wordlesswednesday.com

A Gift from a Friend

My friend Leslie Valeska over at Journey To Simplicity (don't we all need one of those) has a gift for you. Leslie has been spending time lately organizing and simplifying her life, her time, her family, and her home.

She started a group a while back on Yahoo called Total Home Overhaul, and she has been doing just that. The group is a quiet one, I may still have the link on my page here, if not leave me a comment and I'll email you. We don't talk a lot about organizing, nor do we send out tons of information, even though there are some AWESOME tips there, so if that is what you are looking for this may not be for you. However, if you are tired of gathering information, I mean let's face it we all have tons of books, boxes, storage bins, organizers, and on and on and on, but we never DO anything with them, and f you are just looking for others trying to get it together and then keep it together and are willing to help you along the way, look no further you just found it.

Well, Leslie has done it yet again, see my post on her book Gift Giving From the Heart, she is sharing something she made to simplify her life and ours. She has made 28 pages of Workbox
tags and is giving them to all of us, just for asking. The system will be akin to Sue Patrick’s Workbox System. Now this is the first I have heard of this, but I am on my way over to check this out. Stop by Leslie's, read her honest post, which is all I expect from her-honesty, enter your email for your tags, and if you have never heard of Sue Patrick's Workbox System, check that out too.

Confessions of a Binder Junkie.....

I am a Binder Junkie, I love to buy the latest, neatest, coolest, binders. The 2 main qualifications of my binder is their must be a clear pocket outside on front AND back, and pockets on the inside of both said parts. I tend to stash and dash, (file in under "to be filed"), I know this, I accept this, I embrace this. This gives me the liberty to dump things in a spot for later, for example, do a brain dump on paper, put it in the pocket, come back later, edit it and file it, or put my ideas in the spot they go. I get to just jot everything down to clear my mind, then "organize" it later if I still need the info, some of the stuff running around my brain is just junk, but it still needs to be dumped even if it ends up in the trash, that for me is a visual of DUMPING it.
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My favorite place to get Binders is Staples. They let me come in, sit on the floor and just explore, they even put carpet down for me to sit on. I also get a teachers discount because I am a Homeschool mom, isn't that cool!!!!
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Right now I have a couple of binders, I have to catagorize a few things, and keep them seperate in my mind, so they are seperate in binders. Most of my binders are the white, clear pocket on front & back, with pockets inside. Only thing about those is they are cardboard inside the vinyl, and if something heavy gets set on top of one, the cardboard bends and eventually breaks. The rings on the 3" binders are also those D rings, I just HATE those. I found some 3" O ring, totally plastic binders, yes at Staples, and they had all the pockets AND were only about $2-$3 more than the other kind. Now, yes I make my own laundry detergent and am researching making my own soaps and such, but I will pay a few bucks more for something that will last years longer so I can save even more down the road. Also, one reason I make my own when I can is so I have more $ to spend on quality, like my Olay Definity!!! Yep, I spend the $ for that, I had major sun spots on my face and nothing on the market would cover them, so I forked over the money saved from making my own and well, the ugly brown spots are gone, so gone in fact my husband commented on it. But I digress.....
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I have had so many types of binders, and so many types of forms and calendars and all kinds of junk in them, that by the time I got done cramming them full of the latest "got to have" system, I would not touch them, first of all they intimidated the fire out of me, second of all they were just to heavy. I keep a homeschool binder seperate from everything else just because I have to have so much information and printouts at hand to put it with my main binder would be to much.
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As much as I wold love to give everyone a tour of my binder, right now I just can't. My laptop is my camera, I have a huge garden that is right now hollering at me to come plant broccoli & tomatoes, and my binder is a work in progress at all times. What I have in mine may not be what you need in yours, plus there are so many others out there that have tours, and printouts, and all kinds of help, why re-invent the wheel, especially when my wheels tend to be the ones that a hamster jumps on.
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If you have a specific question please ask me and I will gladly answer, but keep in mind although I have CDO tendancies, I am a messie who has no idea what to do with those tendancies nor her stuff half the time. Also, I have somewhere along the way picked up anxiety attacks. I used to be able to pull out the entire contents of a closet, sort it as I pulled it, re-organize it, put it where it belonged in 2 hours total, that included taking the shop vac and detailing the whole thing. The last 2 times I have tried to just clean one side of a closet, I pulled it all out, sat in the middle of the pile and cried. I could not breath nor could I stop shaking. I still need to get some kind of closet organizer for the master bedroom, but this time I have hubby's help AND I am purchasing & building shelves and things for the closet piece by piece.
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As you can see I need to do a brain dump, I have so much running around right now.
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I found a really neat place a while back. http://www.tipnut.com/ and went there this moring, can't tell you why now, I found something on binders. Clicked on it and found several links to binders and forms and helps and yes, I started clicking. Now I have not hit all the links, but the ones I did hit were worth mentioning. One spot had forms that you could download for free and some that were for a minimal cost. Time was I would have resented paying for things like that, BUT, along the way I have made so many of my own forms and worksheets and planners that I now understand the time that goes into them. Also I have lost said forms and had to re-do them, or things changed and I had to edit them, and again that is more time spent not doing other things. Granted sometimes making a form is a brain dump for me, however that is still time that I could have (or should have) been doing the floor or dishes (or the dishes on the floor, heehee).
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The main spot is http://tipnut.com/make-a-household-organizer-notebook-buncha-links/
The link that is titled Full-sized Household Planner Printables has some forms that some of you from the TotalHomeOverhaul have been looking for. If you cannot find them email me or comment and I will send you the direct link to that form. The website is http://blog.yorkteachingstudio.com/store/ This is the one that has freebies and purchases. I was happy with some of them, and plan on grabbing some of the freebies.
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Okay enough for now, kitchen needs a quick 5 minute room rescue, I need to eat, and get outside and soak up some sunshine!!!!

Valerie Neal

Total Home Overhaul-Master Bath

Well, it is the end of the week for our Master Bathroom in our Total Home Overhaul. I just snapped a few pictures here to show you what our Master Bath looks like. I want to start with the sink. Yes, I am VERY aware that I am putting a picture of a broken mirror on the world wide web. I want to share that there was a time that not only would I NOT post a picture like this, but there was also a time that I would not have bothered cleaning the sink area and/or mirror with it broken. Yes, I do clean a broken mirror, just makes the view from the camode a little nicer. As we move on from our Master Bathrooms, I want to say to those of you who did not get to finish overhauling the MB, make it a goal to clean and keep clean the sink area. This does not mean stop cleaning the toilet, and focus on the sink as I would have done in the past. Did you realize that in most homes in America the toilet is cleaner than the kitchen sink? What this means is if you drop one carrot in the sink and one in the toilet, you are better off eating the one from the toilet? Why, because at least the toilet gets rinsed. For me personally, keeping the sink area clean, inspires me to keep the rest of the bathroom at least straightened up. Now I did not post pictures of under the sink because it is a little full, I have a foot bath that needs to find a home, right now it is renting a space under the sink, just to keep it out of sight. If you look closely, you can see I need to wipe the cabinets down, they have tootpaste on them, but I will get to that later today. I know a mom who had problems with kids getting toothpaste all over the sink and counter. Of course each one said "Not Me did it". What she did was to buy each child their own toothpaste, what they did not know is each kind was a different color or a gel or paste. Within 2 days she had found the culprit. Just thought I would share that, someone may need it, now here I know who gets the toothpaste all over my master bathroom, and it is certainly "Not Me".

Okay, here is the view when you walk in the door. Yes, I know there is an exercise bike in my bathroom, I put it there, only place for it to go for now. The shelves and window are full of egg cartons that have our seedlins in them. 16 different kinds of tomatoes, every color of Bell Peppers exccept purple (I even picked up a Coca Cola Colored Bell). To check the progress on those head on over to my garden blog.

Next, is Garden Tub & Camode. I love being in that tub, I HATE cleaning it, it hurts my back, so what I usualy do is before getting out, wipe the sides down, and when I clean it I use my mop.

Next is the view of the shower and sink, the towel from hubby's shower last night is hanging to dry, I will run it through a 10 min dryer cycle with a dryer sheet to "freshen" it up. My thoughts are you get in the shower, you get clean, the towel can be used 2-3 times. This saves you money on buying so many towels because they have frayed, saves you money on running the washer (electricity & water) and saves wear and tear on your wahser.

Well, that is my Master Bath, it usually takes about 12-15 minutes to maintain, depending on how well I keep the sink area and tub area clean. I need to get in my shower and clean it, but I do that while taking a shower so next time I hop in I will spray it, get in, wipe it, and shower. We also have extremely hard water, so once a week I throw the shower curtain in the washer for a rinse cycle with a little bleach.

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To maintain the MB, when that room is the zone of the week, here is my schedule.

Monday-use sponge mop to wipe walls, front of cabinets.

Tuesday-Window, glass (clean mirror REAL good), & faucets.

This weekly zone is also shared with one additional room, which happens to be my sewing room, so for that one...

Wednesday-Windows

Thursday-Clutter

Friday-Floors

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Now, on Firday, (that is the day I clean the MB) I sweep, mop, do a good cleaning of toilet. When I do this routine faithfully, each cleaning session only takes about 15 minutes. If I keep the sink area clear, wipe tub as used, swish & swipe toilet each morning, it takes less time than that. Sometimes I will do little bits of my Friday routine on Wed. or Thur evening saving me time on Friday.

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Things I want to do to this room, invest in one of those automatic shower cleaners. Fix the mirror, & pick up a few rugs. That is really all I want to do for now, as my hubby has plans to remodel it. We have a jacuzzi tub we are going to install soon, but we are discussing rearanging the bathroom, possibly combining tub & shower, which means one less thing to clean!!!! Iusualy have more candles out, but put them up a couple of weeks ago, just wanted less of a cluttered look.

Storage Solutions

Well I finally did it, I packed up my Christmas ornaments and decorations. They were in “boxes” but not packed. I had put them in my sewing room in a corner for later packing. I was tired of finding decorations here and there up to a month later so I just put it all in a corner to pack away later.
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I have used the Sidetracked Executive system to store things in the past, and wanted to do that again. 3 Christmas’ ago we had a very tough time so things were just thrown in a box and put in storage, and then followed suit the next year. This year I pulled out my green index cards, filled under storage, out of my index card box and went over the cards. I had labeled them C1, C2, C3 & C4, then I also had CC (Christmas Can, the trash can on wheels I store the tree and lights in) CV 1-3 (Christmas Village) and W-1; Winter decorations, you know snowmen, snowflakes, all that stuff that can be brought out the day after Thanksgiving and left up till the first day of Spring, or until you get tired of it.
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I then crossed off the things we had gotten rid of or given to older kids as they moved out. Got smaller boxes and labeled them with the C#, and on the index card adjusted what was in each box. This may sound like a time consuming thing to do, and it was the first time I did it, but it only took my 20 minutes this time. This way when if have a smaller house or less space, or grandkids who will play with the village, we don’t have to drag every thing out. We can just glance at the index cards, pull out the coordinating boxes and leave the rest in storage.
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Also, if you just want to know where one thing is you just have to look at the cards instead of going through the whole thing, which is usually what happens, you drag everything out and then finally find what you are looking for in the last box, then have to put it all back. This works great for lots of things in storage, not just Christmas stuff. I also put on the box a note to self, like C-1 Under the tree, this tells me what is in the box when I glance in it. So if you were doing kids winter clothes you could label it, WCS for Winter Clothes Sarah. Or if you have a big family but need to store what is not being used, BC-5 for Boys Clothes size 5.
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Tomorrow I will put it all in storage, I try to do just a little at a time, or I will spend all day on doing one thing and then look at the clock see it is 5:00 and realize I have nothing thawed for dinner. I also found a Christmas Candle Holder in a closet as leaving the room and it needs to be put in a box, so rather than run into lunch time and then overhaul our storage area, I stacked it up nice and neat by the door in my sewing room and tomorrow (my zone for the week is extra room) I will put all of that in storage, sweep the floor and do the windows in my sewing room.

Coming clean

This is in relation to The Total Home Overhaul that my friend Leslie Valeska is doing. I took some pictures of my son's room a while back. Now keep in mind, I am in the maintain stage of my Keeper at Home career, but that does not mean my son is, or anyone else here for that matter. I just wanted to let you know that setbacks happen, kids get "lazy", yes I said lazy, hey even I get lazy so let's just call it what it is.

So without further ado I want to show you what my 12 year old son calls clean, and then what I think is clean. Yes, I keep the pics so I can show him what clean is.

Laundry Detergent

Well today I took the plunge, I made liquid laundry detergent. I have been making powder for a while, last batch was made prior to Thanksgiving and using 1 tbsp per load we just finished it this past weekend (Jan 17). Don't ask me how many loads I did, I had a bucket that held 96 oz (6 lbs) and used a tbsp per load for a family of 5 with occasional visits from a grandchild. The cost was about $1.50 for the bucket. I got this recipe from Sherrie Graham.

1 bar grated soap (Fels Naptha or Ivory)
1 cup baking soda
1 cup borax

Mix everything and store in an airtight container. Use 1 tablespoon per load. Use 2 tablespoons for heavy soiled loads.Note: Add powder to empty washing machine and start water. Once the powder is mixed with the water a bit, then add your clothes.

I loved it and actually I prefer powder to liquid and loved the baking soda in my laundry (keeps hubby's clothes, and him fresh) but got tired of making it and did not feel like making a big batch of this. Last batch was a double batch by the way.

Making the liquid I could make more at one time and just keep some baking soda in the cabinet above the washer and sprinkle as needed.

Sherrie also had 50 uses for vinegar on her site that is awesome. I use the 1/4 cup vinegar for my fabric softener, just put it in my Downy ball and shut the lid of the washer. I will be picking up some essential oil this month for smell, put it is not necessary, I mean after all what does clean smell like? Most of what we call fresh and clean is perfume and chemicals.

Okay, on to my liquid recipe, I got this one from the Duggars, yes I am a Duggar fan. For this one I am gonna send you to their site, they have several options for detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets.

I made the liquid yesterday, and gooped it into containers today. I knew I wanted to try the liquid soon, so I saved 1 lg liquid laudry detergent container, 2 gallon vinegar jugs, and a small liquid laundry detergent container to keep on the bottom shelf. This makes 5 gallons as is (I had to use a milk jug too). When using mix half of the goop and half water in your container, shake and use so you actually get 10 gallons. I "watered down" just enough for now, and put the rest up in jugs, I use vinegar for cleaning too so I have those jugs sitting around. You will need to adjust the amount for your washer and water. Just remember, just because you don't see bubbles does not mean there is not enough soap. This is a low sudsing recipe and since most detergents stay in your clothes causing wear and tear, this is best. Also using vinegar for your rinse cycle will remove any left over detergent, and you will not smell the vinegar. We have been fed lies for years from manufactures and one of them is "lather up". The bubbles and lather stay behind on your skin and in your clothes causing dry skin, and wearing of clothes. If you don't believe me, just look at your shower curtain.

For stain remover, I use vinegar and baking soda, however you cannot let it sit too long, or you will have to treat the whole garment. I had a blood stain I treated this way once and I had a light spot where the stain used to be, kind of like a bleach spot but not so white.

For light cleaning I use a mixture of water, vinegar, and baking soda. This is quite challenging as we all know what happens if you mix the vinegar and baking soda..... In a bowl or large measuring cup mix half water half vinegar, slowly add 2 Tbs of baking soda, let fiz die down and add more. I use an old spray bottle and shake before each use. Don't make to much at one time as the baking soda's power weakens. Also if you have a stain on a counter, baking soda and vinegar (and maybe a little lemon juice) work great.

Okay enough for now, gotta go tackle my next project, maintaing!!!!

The Total Home Overhaul

Although the only thing that would truly overhaul our home is to haul it off (we live in a mobile home that was manufactured in 1978), I strive to keep clutter at bay. Truthfully though, our home's foundation is sound, the walls are still sturdy, and only a few minor repairs are needed. However just as letting a few minor repairs go, like not fixing a leak right away so that you don't have to replace the floor later, letting those little piles of paper and clutter go means that we will have to invest large amounts of time cleaning, when all we had to do was maintain. Don't get me wrong, from time to time we will still have to do a "spring cleaning", but if you maintain that cleaning, that "spring cleaning" could be done in a weekend instead of a month. If you are not organized by nature, or were not taught organization skills while growing up there is hope.

One of my online friends and Talk-A-Latte sisters is overhauling her house and inviting you to join her here. Leslie Valeska is that friend. Although right now she is in week 2, you can still join her. Just start with week one and go from there, you can still post and blog about your progress, and comment with others. Even better you can see the problems others have had and learn from their trials. I hope that you get to know Leslie through the process too, maybe we can get her to put a youtube video of her on her blog, especially of her wonderful laugh!!!

I am joining in, although I will not be doing as in depth as those of you who join in. I am constantly watching, maintaining, and purging. This has been an 11 year journey for me, beginning before the birth of my daughter. I have since moved 3 times, acquired a grandchild, sent one son to Iraq, and I am also married to a pack rat, who brings home things like water heaters and basketball goals. We do haul these things off for scrap when we get a trailer full, and it has put food on the table, so I am not complaining, just letting someone know they are not alone, I too have a spouse who drags stuff home.....

I hope and pray many of you are blessed (ya, like I have throngs of followers) on the Journey to Simplicity (Leslie's main page) with Leslie and friends. I also hope and pray that I can share some of my set backs and failures so that someone else does not make the same mistakes I have made along the way.

One tip I want to leave you with is one of the FlyLady's tips, you are not behind, just jump in where you are. Quit beating yourself up, put your big girl panties on and deal with it (that one is mine). Each and every morning that we wake up, we get a do-over from God. We get to begin again. Simply say, "okay, so I had a set back yesterday, life happens, today I am going to begin again and do what I can".

KISS (Keep It Simpe Sweetie)
Valerie

TightWad Decorating

What is Tightwad Tuesday? Head on over to Mary's place and get all the details.

Part of this post is from last weeks post, can you guess which one?
Actually this was writen last week, which is actually this week now, but will be posted next week. HEHEHE!!! In other words, I got an idea wanted to try it, and then wanted to share it, so I wrote this up on the 14th saved it to draft so it could be posted on the 21st. Not that I am organized, just had to share this with you and did not want to add more to today's TWT, and knew that if I did not save it, I would forget all about it.... You know the old saying "I have slept since then".
Anyway, I have had almost everything her for awhile now, the candle is new, oh, and smells of pumpkin spice, MMMMMM, the stringy beady thingy was a gift from my mother a few years back (free is good) the glass heart shaped candy dish was on clearance at Wal-Mart for 50 cents about 5 years ago, the glass candle holder was from a candle that burned out, yep, I dig out the metal wick holder soften the wax and re-use the glass container. Throw this together with one of last week's (or this week's to be posted next week which is actually this week now) items (find it yet???) and all total it cost me $3. Not bad huh? Pretty too, not that I am bragging, and that smell, MMMMM. Let me know what last weeks tightwad item is.
VALERIE