Did you know that I’m a professional organizer?  I find myself saying that lately.  It seems like so long since I’ve worked, or even blogged.  After a few months into 2012, I decided to take the rest of the year off to really focus on my family, health, and home.  I had found myself having to reschedule a few appointments because of my daily chronic migraines, and that really bothered me.  While my clients have mostly been very understanding when that has happened, it made me feel like maybe I was cut out for this job.  I’ve had to reassure myself over and over again.

I worked with a few of my “regulars”, but once school started this year, I have barely even thought about organizing….until just recently.  Before I even knew what hit me, between my two girls, they were signed up for year-round swim team, swim lessons, ballet, tap, student council, and then I also volunteered to be room mom for both of their classrooms!  Phew!  It truly is a hectic schedule, but everyone is thriving and happy.

Since we’re now officially in the holiday season, I know that the New Year is just around the corner.  That always brings clients, new and old, wanting to get their homes in shape.  I do love that!  I always look forward to January, when I go into my favorite stores and see the Christmas decor gone, and the organizational supplies out and on sale!  Yay!!

So I notice that as I’m meeting new acquaintances, and making new friends recently, that I often hear myself saying “Did you know that I’m a professional organizer?”.  If I’m being honest, sometimes it’s not that obvious if you’re looking at my own home!  Lately, it looks very lived in…because it is!  I’m a stay-at-home-mom.  I have two kids.  We’re a very busy family.  Honestly, my definition of being organized is being able to find what you need when you need it.  It’s not perfection.  It’s not having cute chalkboard labels on every surface (although that would be cute, right?!).  Different people have different priorities.  For us, it’s time management.  With my unpredictable migraines, I also always need a backup plan since I can’t possible know when a bad one will be knocking me off my feet.  So my advice for you this month is to make a list and check it twice.  Don’t be too hard on yourself, and don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.  

I love Rubbermaid.  I really do!  It’s the one brand I recommend more than all others because of it’s durability and price.  I was giddy when I found out they were giving me this cool LunchBlox sandwich kit to try and review!  Of course, it lived up to expectations, and I even went out and bought another set since I have TWO kids in school this year!  Yay!!  Little P started Kindergarten

photo: Rubbermaid.com

What is most important to me about any type of lunch box kit, is that it MUST be able to go in the dishwasher!  Not only can these handle that, but they snap together like blocks (the kids LOVED that), AND it came with a blue ice pack to keep things cool until lunch time!  They’re also BPA free!  I can tell that my girls are really into these because they’ve been back to school for 3 weeks now and neither have lost a piece, lol!

photo: Rubbermaid.com

Now, the organizer in me immediately started thinking of other things I could use these Blox for.  My oldest daughter (10) thought they’d be perfect for all her itty bitty legos!  YES!!!

If you go to the Rubbermaid website, there’s a coupon for $1.5o off the LunchBlox kit.  Fabulous!

That’s the French Wire Convertible Basket from Willow House.  It’s SO versatile!  It also comes with a center divider, which is removable, so you can use the basket with either one section, or two!

Organizing isn’t about perfection.  It’s about knowing where everything is, and being able to find an item when you need it most!  You don’t need every organizing system offered in the aisles in order to be orderly.  You just need to do what works for you.  Sometimes it won’t make sense to other people, and it doesn’t have to!  So that is why I keep our BEACH TOWELS in the dining room.  Yep.  You heard me.  Not antique lace table clothes, or polished silverware, no no no.  Beach towels.  It just works for us.  The kids grab them and are on their way to the pool.

Of course, it’s also right around where they dump them on the floor when they come back in from the pool!

Just so you know, this is how my dining room looked this morning before I started.  Just keeping it real!  I’m showing the good, the bad, and the dog hair on the floor!!

Once again I’ve been a little quiet lately.  First of all, my office was stripped of all furniture.  I went on a major “big stuff” purge last month and all the office furniture went off to be recycled or reused by someone else.  It wasn’t working in our oddly-shaped room.  Secondly, as always, my migraines interfere with my life.  Honestly, I could JUST blog about migraines.  Le sigh!  I try not to mention them too much, but since it’s a daily, and chronic, issue…it does come up from time to time!  Just a few dayss ago I had my first Botox treatment.

It was 31 injections in my forehead, around the ears, back of the head, neck, and shoulders.  It HURT.  I’m very hopeful that I will have fabulous results.  So far so good.  I mean…no good results yet, but no bad side effects or anything, so that’s a big relief!  As you can see, I can still move my forehead.  It wasn’t used cosmetically.  I can honestly say after feeling how painful those *&%$ing shots are, there is no way I would choose to get those just for vanity sake anyway!  Oh my gosh!  Ouch!  I took that picture the day after.  The day of…was rough (but I also had a migraine and LOTS of pain killers)!

Our office started with me pulling pictures, from everywhere I could find, of anything I would/will need for the space: desk(s), chairs, lamp, boxes, file storage, etc.  I was able to keep all my office ideas neatly organized on Pinterest.  Because of the oddly-shaped ceilings that we have in our office (much like the first picture in this post), I decided it would be better to have one joint desk instead of two.  It would save space, and it would also save us from bonking our heads on the low ceilings at least once a week, and we could spend a little more quality time together even when we’re working since we won’t be in separate corners anymore.

 My future lamp from Target.  There’s a very similar one at Ikea for almost the same price.

Love this carousel caddy for holding pens and pencils and such!

I love the colors of this memo board.

We did choose a giant desk for the both of us to use, and it was delivered last week.  We LOVE it.  We haven’t chosen chairs/stools yet, but we’ll take our time since the ones we’re borrowing from our kitchen are working just fine for now!  Why are stools so expensive anyway?  Good grief!  Right now I have my eyes on these cuties from PB…

Once the desk was set up and some things were put away, I began to see more of what we would need as far as organization goes.  The first priority was to find a place for our printer.  I wanted a piece of furniture that was cute and multifunctional.  That’s a major rule of mine.  I think I found the perfect filing cabinet to use as a table for my printer!  Since I’ve condensed my files down, I will probably only need one drawer for actual files.  The other I will be using to store printer paper, ink, etc.  I ordered it this past weekend, so it hasn’t come in just yet!  Best part-it was on sale AND free shipping!  YAY!!

I also would love to have these little doo dads to keep my cords in place:

Hi, My name is Julie, and I’m a Souther Living-a-holic. I have been one for years now. Specifically, Southern Living at Home, which is now known as Willow House!

I’m posting this on day 25, but it’s better late than never, right?!  As to not bore you with all the details of my grand plan to declutter AND give during this Lenten season, here’s a link to the original post here.

My goal for day 1 was to purge through our dvds and vhs tapes, which my youngest refers to as “rectangle movies”.  She’s 4…she has rarely seen the things!  I was surprised at how many DVDs I was able to part with – 20!  I had multiple, as in THREE, copies of certain Harry Potter movies for goodness sakes!  I was also able to purge 39+ VHS tapes!  Woohoooo!  Out of our collection, there were only kept 3 that I deemed worthy of staying.  While some of my childhood favorites are in the pile, I knew that I could always rent them from netflix, as I haven’t watched my own copy in YEARS.  They were taking up space that I would much rather use for something else…tbd

This time I donated them to Goodwill.  I’m wondering, now, if I could have donated them to a children’s hospital or maybe even to the library.  Either way, I think Day 1 was a success!

This is what I’m giving up for Lent this year.   I want to give 40 bags of “stuff” in the next 40 days (actually it started this past Wednesday, February 22).  I got the idea from a link I saw on Pinterest that originally came from WhiteHouseBlackShutters.  She has an awesome print out to use to plan out your 40 day “game plan” as well!  I used it myself.  I love a good list.

Here’s the thing with Lent.  I typically don’t “give up” something for the 40 days.  To me, Lent is about strengthening your relationship with God and trying to live a life more like His.  I usually choose to actively do something rather than trying to avoid something like chocolate for several weeks and then RUN right back to it on Holy Thursday  I would be running for those Cadburry Mini Eggs, TRUST me.

This year, the 40 bags in 40 days challenge is something I’m not just doing to further declutter my home.  Obviously, as a professional organizer, I’m all about that.  My grand plan is to donate as much as I can to other people.  For example, one of the days I am planning on going through my pantry and filling up a bag (or more) for the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry at our church.  I also want to show my girls how to give more.  We have a lot more than we need, that’s for sure.  I want to teach them that they do not need 3 baby doll strollers when one is just fine.  Also, our outgrown children’s clothing will be going to a local charity that helps new parents who are in need of different kinds of support.

While this challenge is going to benefit myself and my family, I’m going into this with the hope that I will be able to help others at least as much.