Menu Plan Monday (give it a go)

I'm really not the best menu planner, but there were some killer deals this week at the grocery store and I have it all planned out. First of all, I saved 62% off my total bill, and only spent $58. Score! With the rest of the stuff I have at home, it will be a very frugal week for us. Lunches are usually subject to vary, my 3 year old usually gets to pick lunch, so I try to give him some options, usually just swapping days around. I might make a broccoli cheese soup in there somewhere as well. Hoping for a no going out week for food.

Monday-      Lunch- Chicken Nuggets and Waffle Fries
                    Dinner- Linguine Alfredo

Tuesday-      Lunch- Chicken Salad Sandwich
                    Dinner- Tuna Caserole

Wednesday- Lunch- To Be Determined
                    Dinner- Chicken over rice

Thursday-    Lunch- Pigs in a Blanket
                    Dinner- Ham Steaks and Pineapple

Friday-         Lunch- Cheese Quesadillas
                    Dinner- Pierogies

The dreaded baking pantry!

I'm not sure why I was so hesitant to do the above the microwave cupboards that house our baking stuff. It really took less than 40 minutes with the "help" of my 3 year old to take everything out, clean the space, purge, sort and refill.

 Before

 Removed from Cabinet

 Empty and ready to be cleaned out!

 The items put back and look, some space!

 The get rid of stuff

After I finished that project, I went and gave the kitchen a nice scrub down. Usually it is something that gets done on Saturday mornings, but tomorrow I can relax with a nice clean kitchen!

 I love a pretty clean sink area!

Looking for an idea to help out this open area!

Unsubscribe

Decluttering my spam box. I know it seems silly, you can usually just hit select all and delete in a few quick clicks. I am hoping by removing myself from those 150+ unsubscribes in the spam folder that it will reduce the incoming spam. It makes it hard to find something in the spam folder (say, an important reply that got sent to the wrong place on accident) if there are so many messages. So for a a little while, I opened every spam in my box, went to the bottom to unsubscribe and typed in my email address over and over in the hopes that all of those third party spam offers become less frequent. Not exciting in the least, but I am hoping it works!

Lots of Jewels, cases that is...

Some people really like the ability to grab a jewel case for a CD. Unfortunately, they take up a large amount of space, and I'm looking to take up less space for these things. What works for me is keeping them in a binder with clear sleeves. I took all the CD's and front and back info sheets and put them in individual clear sheets in my binder. Now I need a new binder because this one is overflowing.

Scary mountain of CD's                                                   Time for a new binder!

Off to freecycle or if they are unclaimed, plastic recycling.

Now I have to go through the rest of the CD's that are in the blank CD holders. I don't know what is blank and what may have something on it, but that will be a project for a later day. I have a trackback to a previous attempt at this project, they are the labeled CD's of pictures or songs that I printed out. Hopefully Part 3 of this project will be the completion of it!

Photo Albums!

Well, you know that big photo organization project I took on a few weeks ago with that beach bag? I have started putting those pictures in photo albums. I got about half of those pictures organized in chronological order and started putting them in the albums. I got two full albums, or 400 pictures organized and put away. I threw away over 100 pictures that were bad quality or things that I just didn't need taking up valuable picture slots in my albums. The best part about the picture put away is that I got 6 albums for under $15 at CVS in the 75%  off clearance section. It feels better to not spend a fortune organizing. 

   Two completed albums!

My reward for a job well done!

On this Saturday...

Well, this week has had all my spare time looking at places to live. We found something we both LOVE, but we are waiting to hear back from the application. We are concerned with the dog being a few lbs over what they accept on the pamphlet. I have already started getting a whirlwind of ideas for our new place. What to put and where, how best to organize the space, etc. It will definitely be a big change. We have been great about the daily maintenance here, but I have yet to cross off new things on my list. I think I will try for a few small tasks this week. I also want to get an idea of what I have that I can use from my dads stuff for the new place.

New beginnings?!

So my boyfriend, Rob, and I went out "house-hunting". Really more like apartment, condo, townhome etc hunting, but you get the idea. When we move in together, I want us to bring only the things that make us truly happy, and not start out our new home with a bunch of junk. Looking at some of the places today, I think I have a bit more purging to do. I won't be moving into a house and combining our things is going to be a lot of stuff. The places are not too small, but there is no room for extras to tag along with us. I'm excited, and back to the 52 weeks of organizing. I fell a bit off track, but have been pretty busy since returning from vacation. I have maintained all of my spaces though and nothing has gotten worse. Sometimes you have to just maintain until you can go full force again, but I am ready. I need to get my list out and start tackling some more projects!

Also, please keep me in your thoughts as I am interviewing for a new job this week. I will keep you updated on that. Lots of new beginnings, just in time for Spring~!

Garage Cleanout

So Rob and I cleaned out the garage today. His garage, not mine. It is essentially the place that houses our adventurous sporting gear- scuba and snowboarding take up a bit of space. I helped because half of the stuff is mine, and his parents have been asking us to get something in order for our gear. It feels good to have all of our stuff in a nice orderly fashion and out of the way in the garage. In addition to creating homes for our gear, we gave the garage a good sweep out and used the shop vac to get all the crap out from what we track in during the winter. Feels good that it is nice and clean!

I'm back!!

What a wonderful vacation! Key West was absolutely beautiful. We got back on Friday night, and I had everything unpacked, washed, folded and put away by 8:30am on Saturday morning. That is a record for me considering my bags usually sit in my room a lot longer than I care to admit. It was so wonderful coming home to a clean space, and I'm glad I took the time to get things ready before I left so that my return was that much smoother. I guess it should be back to organizing some more, but I think I will start back on that tomorrow. We are cleaning the scuba gear and letting it dry, so maybe I will re-invent our scuba storage. That's all for now!

Inspiring others

Looks like I am not the only one who has caught the clutter cleanout bug! While I was on vacation, Kim did a good bit of decluttering as well! We now have a nice organized tupper-wear cupboard and the basement is completely cleared out of additional junk that was just hanging out without a purpose. I know that she is probably anticipating me moving out and getting her home back to the way it was before she was +2, but I think the reason she is decluttering is because she has watched me do a great transformation of my own stuff. I haven't looked in the attic, but I am hoping to go through my stuff up there, and hopefully it isn't buried and mixed too bad with her stuff. Who knows, maybe the attic can be out project together!