Category: House & Home

Organize This!

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I was very productive this morning. After grocery shopping I organized the bottom of our pantry where Joe keeps all the alcohol. Now I can actually close the door. Imagine that!

I also started a new recipe – chicken and rice soup – in the crock pot and then cut up some red peppers to store in the freezer. I couldn’t pass up the deal at Meijer (4 for $5) and I love having chopped peppers on hand for recipes. I also froze some chicken breasts. Now I just need to find a better way to store all the food in my freezer since it doesn’t stack very well and drives me nuts. I’m thinking about getting some clear storage bins like in this photo for both the freezer and refrigerator. I haven’t in the past simply because they aren’t exactly cheap, but I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’m willing to spend money if it gives me joy and/or peace of mind, and I derive much joy when things are organized. Let the shopping begin!

My Brother’s Birthday & New Planter

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Saturday we went to my parents to celebrate Brother #1’s birthday and play Cards Against Humanity. Brother #2 and his girlfriend were also there. I hadn’t seen either since Christmas. I’m really not sure what’s going on with Brother #2 because he hasn’t been keeping in touch. I’ve tried reaching out a few times only to be ignored so I’m done. He’s either angry at me over an imagined slight or he’s too caught up in his own shit. Either way I’m not going to keep trying. It’s too frustrating.

Anyway, these are the presents I gave my brother.

Brothers Presents

He likes goofy shit, I like buying presents, and it was all less than $20 so that’s a win win win.

My mom made him an orange-flavored cake which was better than it sounds. With vanilla ice cream it was like eating a dreamsicle.

Brothers Cake

We stayed until just before midnight so we didn’t get to bed until late even though we had errands I wanted to run in the morning. I finally dragged my butt out of bed around 8 am on Sunday and we ran to Walmart to get that out of the way early. I hate grocery shopping on the weekends unless we can beat the crowds.

Sunday afternoon I cleaned the rat cages and the rest of the house while Joe built a planter for our patio.

New Planter

I love how it came out. It’s a Pinterest un-ironic nailed it!

Next weekend we plan to buy flowers and more soil to set it up. Plus we will be transplanting that bush to the right to a newer, nicer planter we picked up a few weeks ago. Coupled with the umbrella my mom gave us, our patio will be a tranquil place to relax once it warms up. I’m looking forward to it!

Spring Organizing

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Got the spring cleaning organizing bug this weekend and purchased a ClosetMaid 9 cube organizer at Target which we put in the loft. It was a little pricey at $60 but nicer looking than the $40 version Walmart sells. So far I’ve got a bunch of purses and other stuff in there which really cleaned up the area around my desk.

We also bought some storage totes and tackled organizing E’s closet. Joe has a bunch of his old Star Wars toys in there, plus we were using his closet to store old video game systems and electronics, etc. We made it more organized so I could move some stuff out of the rat room closet which was getting to be a mess. Plus I organized our master closet better by throwing all my Cure vinyl and other memorabilia in the remaining storage tote so I could stack items on top of it (whereas it was in a heavy black milk crate before).

The next thing I’d like to tackle is all the damn paperwork we have. I have three plastic file totes as well as a locking fireproof safe with paperwork in it. That just seems like way too much stuff even though we clean it out annually. I started going through it this morning but got fatigued. I was able to discard a decent pile of stuff before I lost my energy, though!

Trying to organize everything is a double-edged sword for me because on one hand it helps me feel less anxious when I feel like things are in order. On the other hand, I start to feel anxious when I realize we have too much stuff! But that is why we started a box for stuff we want to donate or sell to Half Price Books. We’re getting rid of most of the books we own, which admittedly, isn’t a lot to begin with. But who needs a book on cat behavior when we can’t have one? Or one on the proper care of a Betta fish when we can look that up online? Might as well free up some space even if that space isn’t huge.

I pulled a TON of burned CDs out of a cabinet that were just thrown in there and my grand plan is to go through them so I can throw most of them away. They weren’t all labeled, though, so I don’t want to chuck them until I’m sure there’s nothing on them I want to keep. The task seems daunting, however, so that will have to wait for another day.

Rug Shopping

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About five years ago my mom gave us some brand new throw rugs she had purchased that she decided she didn’t like. Unfortunately the rubber backing on them has started to fall apart and we need to replace them soon. The problem is no one has any rugs We like! We’ve looked at Kohls, Meijer, Walmart, Target, TheDump, Bed Bath and Beyond, Home Goods, and even Kmart to no avail! I don’t know why all the rugs out there are so damn fugly but this is getting ridiculous. I might just have to shop online to find something decent. At this point I don’t even care so much about the money (although if they weren’t falling apart I’d gladly use them another five years), but I can’t find a pattern I like. Plus I need a total of four rugs in two different sizes which makes things a little more difficult. Ugh, I hate shopping for home decor sometimes!

Master Bathroom Remodel

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So the remodel has been complete for awhile, and we even re-did the color scheme. I was just too lazy to get the necessary photos.

Here’s the before and after with the new floor tile (click to make larger):

Master bath remodel 01

Here’s the after with the new green theme we decided to go with (click to make larger):

Master bath remodel 02