I'm still here, I promise!

It's been awhile but I promise I didn't leave for good. I just have a hard time keeping up with the blog. Something I'm hoping to change this year, but we'll see. It's been a busy week--I've had four sub jobs, which is awesome.

And I haven't given up on the organizing challenge either. Several of the latest challenges weren't super relevant for me--mostly because those areas were already organized enough for us. If it's functional and pretty well organized, I'm not messing with it. Sometimes organizing just for the sake of organizing isn't a good thing. So here's where I'm at:

Day One: Done
Day Two: Done
Day Three: Organize the tupperware cabinet. This is one where our cabinet didn't need it. My sister bought me my tupperware a couple years ago and it came on an organizer. All the other pieces nest neatly together and, most importantly, we can always find what we need and we can always find the lid.
Day Four: The linen closet. Again, ours is pretty much set. We have two cupboards that were probably meant to be linen cabinets. We use the bottom one to store all our board/card games and Legos. So the top one is for towels. Since it is just two of us we don't have a ton of towels so they fit pretty neatly and then we have rags and pillow covers on the top. All of our sheets are stored in drawers or nightstands in the room with the bed to which they belong. This is a great help since we have different size beds and it keeps the sheets out of the linen cabinet--more room for games!
Day Five: Under the kitchen sink. This one I did.

It's not actually too bad. At least I could mostly see everything and almost never had to move something in order to get what I needed.

I took everything out and wiped it clean. See that gray bottle next to the fire extinguisher? Totally empty. No idea why it was under there. See the green bottles on the other side? Carpet cleaner. We just ripped out all the carpet in our house. Probably don't need to keep those bottles super handy (we will still use them to clean area rugs and the couch and whatnot, but they can live in the garage for now.)

After getting rid of what didn't need to be there anymore I put it all back nice and neat.

It might not look like all that big a difference, but there is actually quite a bit of unused space. And I got in the extra dishwasher detergent we bought without realizing we already had some! My Shaklee window cleaner was MIA but is now back under sink as well.

Day Six: Dresser drawers. Mine are pretty well organized since they aren't really all that big. Didn't need to do this one.
Day Seven: The pantry. I had actually recently cleaned ours out a bit so I didn't tackle this one either. And just tonight some little girls came by collecting food for the Red Cross so our cupboards are now even more clean!
Day Eight: Coat Closet. This one was a big one for me. When we bought the house I loved the idea of having a coat closet. We put all our coats in it no matter what the season. And then we put in our vacuum too. And a bunch of other stuff.

So I emptied it all out.

It's really not all that big. Hmmmm.

But at least the floor is pretty!

My goal was to make a space for a few coats but I really wanted to get rid of this mess in my kitchen:

The broom and mop and Swiffer were not exactly enjoying life. The dog food had been pushed out of its home to make room for the white organizer that used to live in my office for no real good reason. I wanted the brooms and organizer in the closet. But first I thought I should find out what was in the organizer.

Hmm. Random office supplies. And floral tape. 

Batteries. Lots of batteries. 

Light bulbs and a mysterious box from IKEA. 

More light bulbs. And I think that's a bike tube. And tape.

So I took everything out and cleaned the whole thing. Then I moved the empty organizer and mops and brooms to the closet. But it didn't all fit. Grumble grumble. In the end I decided to nix the idea of the organizer in the closet. In went the brooms and the vacuum and a few coats. On the upper shelf I put the Swiffer duster thingys. My plan is to get a couple bins at Target this weekend for the top shelf. I'll put in the batteries (now removed from the bulky packaging and in old lunch meat containers) and Seann's bike stuff and other odds and ends I want close at hand. Everything else is finding a new home in my office or the garage. And the white organizer just might find a new home in the sewing room.

Day Nine: Toy organization. Don't have a lot of toys and like I said before, all our games are neatly in the bottom linen cabinet.
Day Ten: Laundry Room. Ours is already neat and tidy with the soap and rags and such in one cupboard and vases and candles/candleholders in the others. No need to organize.
Day Eleven: The Freezer. I took a before picture but haven't actually gotten to it yet.

It looks like it mostly just needs some moving and stacking. Should be pretty easy.

Day Twelve: Spices. This one is a problem for us. No pictures yet but we have spices everywhere. The ones in the pantry, mostly for baking or more obscure ones for cooking, are actually in pretty good order. Then we have our most used for cooking in three spice racks on the wall near the microwave. Fairly neat and tidy and alphabetical. Then, on top of the microwave, is the problem. An overflowing basket of refill bags (we get a lot of our spices from Penzey's so we just refill the jars instead of buying new ones) and then a collection of also frequently used spices that just don't fit on the racks. So, again, I will be buying a couple new bins at Target to help corral those spices on the microwave. I'll post pics next week. Probably.

And now we're caught up. Phew.