Unsinkable

Day 14 of the 21 day challenge at www.abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com was under the rest of your sinks!  Luckily (?) I had to attack that area along with my linen closet because I wanted to do some re-arrangin' under there.  So, here's dem before pictures:

BEFORE--Under the Bathroom Sinks.

BEFORE--Under the Bathroom Sinks.

BEFORE--Under the Bathroom Sinks.

It was really ugly and dark down there.  So pulled everything out and wiped it all down, wiped down all the junk inside of there and started filling in and organizing items from the linen closet that I wanted to get in here.
I also took a picture of my husbands drawer in the bathroom.

BEFORE--Husbands junk drawer.  This is actually during, I guess I didn't get a true before picture because I started pulling out all of his flossers.... (?)

DURING--Husbands junk

There were 4 combs, 5 tubes of toothpaste (apparently he can't throw them away, because 4 were practically empty.)  Our work is never done, is it ladies?  Ugh.  Now it looks like this:

AFTER--Husbands Bathroom Junk.

I also picked up some masculine contact paper to tackle this drawer, to be revealed at my Groundhog Day Check-up!  Oh, the anticipation, I know you can hardly stand it!
I also took a picture of the downstairs bathroom sink, or maybe not.  Here is how it looks now, after tackling it with the laundry room.  I'm proud of myself for actually doing these things and getting them done, instead of just doing the minimum or copping out or "cheating."  Not that I normally do that, but I have seen a few areas now that I feel good about myself for doing the work.  I'll say it again, it is so nice to be doing these chores and for people to notice!  Instead of just doing these mundane tasks, completely thankless.  The challenge aspect is fun and interesting and I enjoy the camaraderie.  So thanks, ladies, for all you have done and all you are doing.  You are all awesome!

Here are my after pics:

AFTER--Under the Bathroom Sinks

AFTER--Under the Bathroom Sinks

AFTER---Under the Bathroom Sinks

BEFORE--Under the Basement/Laundry Room Bathroom Sink

AFTER--Under the Basement/Laundry Room Bathroom Sink

I did go ahead and contact paper down there.  I had a little mishap yesterday in the laundry room.  I guess when I moved the washing machine as close to the corner as I could get it in order to build my leaning tower of laundry....the drain hose got messed up and ended up coming out and draining all the water on the floor in the laundry room.  Luckily, my husband caught it early.  He also dropped a whole load of his clothes on the floor there, so they absorbed some water, which was good and bad.  We found the problem and ran 2 test loads now with no water on the floor.  Mopped it all up and ran 3 fans through the night to dry it out and hopefully not breed any mold.  Little bit of a bummer, but nothing really ruined and we worked together (me during the Bachelor commercial breaks!) to get it cleaned up.  The floor needed a good moppin' anyway, right!?!  Now it is shiny clean and only 21 loads of laundry to go...

3rd Target was the charm, people!

The search is over! : ) I'm ecstatic!  Wait until you see where I stick it!

Warning: this post probably sounds like I need tranquilizers. And maybe I do, maybe I do

I'm caught up, people!  I've just been running around this weekend and neglecting my Blog.  Actually, I've been to every store (Except Bed Bath and Beyond and I am looking there today....) trying to find that dang green contact paper with the white swirly design on it like what Toni got at Target.  I'm to the point I'm coveting AND stalking it, I dreamed about it last night, too.  I am enjoying that rush, you know, you go to the store, you rush inside, you find someone as soon as you can and blurt, "do you have any shelf paper or contact paper and where is it?"  (Because I am shopping in totally unfamiliar stores--like K-mart, I just never go there, their stuff seems expensive to me, and I am branching out to other Targets, dollar stores, Home Depots etc. LOOKING FOR THIS STUFF!!)  You follow the directions they gave you, or, if they are a good employee they say, "right over here," and they LEAD you right to it, and your heart is pounding and your eyes are scanning, where is it, where is it, looking for that pop of green, searching, searching, anticipating....oh, they only have boring contact paper and the puffy shelf liner in 40 styles/colors.  DANG!   Disappointment, now where am I going to go???  On to the next store....It's a sickness.
Is there anyone willing to pick some up for me and ship it to Kansas?  I'll pay $5 more than what it costs to buy and ship it, seriously, I HAVE to have it at this point! 

So, back to Target...my Target has the WORST stockers/product orderers/buyers on the planet.  I live a couple blocks from a shoppers paradise and Target is super-close and closer than Wal-mart, where I prefer to shop over Target, so I'll run in Target for things that I consider staples, like a lemon or even lemon juice in the little plastic lemon, you know, the stuff that never goes bad?  The stuff they COULD stock hundreds of in the event they run out of fresh lemons...  What store doesn't have a single lemon?  They don't have either.  Or I run in for a bag salad, not a Ceaser to be had.  I don't know why I expected any different with the contact paper.  They had ONE roll of ONE design left, the blue and pink circles on a white background.  Ugh! 
I am also still mad at Target for their return policy.  I received a paper lantern with a Christmas motif (I think it was a Christmas tree) in a work gift exchange a few years ago.  Not something I thought I needed or liked and the box clearly said TARGET on it, so I stood in line to return it after the holidays and was told that they could not look it up and they could not return it for even 1 penny since it wasn't in their stupid computer.  I asked, what am I supposed to do, this is CLEARLY your product, and you aren't willing to accept it back?  Totally unopened and everything.  Manager couldn't even do anything.  WASTE OF TIME.  They also stock mostly crap from China AND I can get a little out of control in the dollar spot, too, (I know, you can hardly believe it!) so I avoid Target as much as I can. 
So back to the medicine cabinet.  Sorry, I thought this one was going to be short and sweet!  HA!  Luckily, I had already organized my "medicine cabinet" because we don't have a medicine cabinet, we have a box of medicine in the linen closet.  That was the first area I used some new containers when we did the linen closet challenge.  Love what I found at Deals or Dollar Tree, blue stacking, my favorite blue color and I see a lot of you have the same thing--love them!  I bought some more for my spice cabinet and I still have two left.  Wonder where I will use them???

Medicines were organized in the box before, just doesn't look like it.  We had the stuff more frequently used out on a shelf in our huge linen closet.  So, here is the before:

BEFORE--BEFORE, ugh, there's that dang laundry rearing its ugly head!

 

BEFORE--AFTER--Put the frequently used medicines in the top blue basket.

BEFORE--AFTER  Tooth whitening stuff in the bottom.  I have a box of the rest of the medicine cabinet stuff to the right.

AFTER--AFTER

AFTER--AFTER, this is how that medicine box looked after I took out the medicines and put them in the blue basket....then I organized this box some more for the medicine cabinet challenge....

AFTER--AFTER--Now the less frequently used stuff is in here to the side on a shelf in the linen closet. 

There are like-items containerized within the box, you can't really tell, though. 
So, that's my "Medicine Cabinet"  Thanks for letting me rant!  Ha!  Now we probably both have a headache!  Take two of these and then contact me to arrange the "deal."  You know the "drug" that I want!!!
 

From Allspice to Zest

BEFORE--Spice Cabinet

 Yes, I am an alphabetizer when it comes to my spices.  That way I know exactly where to look and can find it quickly or figure out if it is something I need to go buy.  I LOVE my lazy susan for this purpose.  I knew I needed to give it a good cleaning out, so this was a great opportunity to do that.  This house was really filthy when we bought it....I didn't realize how filthy until we were moved in...but at one point I noticed THIS:

BEFORE--Way before me, does that make it better or grosser that it is someone else's grossness?!?  Regardless, Ewww!

Looks pretty noticeable, but when you spin it, you go by this part so quickly, unless you are looking for it, it really is hard to see.  Plus it is usually so dark down there, the camera flash really highlights it.  Anyway, I have been wanting to clean this up since I noticed it, but needed everything out of the cabinet to really accomplish it.  So, perfect challenge!  Now it is fresh and clean.  I took a lot of pictures of the process, so bear with me. 

BEFORE--Top shelf of Spice Cabinet

Day 10, Day 11, What day is it???

Freezer Day!  I can't believe it is 6:11 pm and there are only 3 people who have posted their freezer Challenge.  Are people dropping out?  Dying of de-clutter exhaustion or over-exposure to toxic cleaners?  What is the deal?  I hope more people post soon.  I'm dying to know what's in your freezer!  Maybe curiosity killed some of the past participants?   Most of the challenges have over 50 posters....
I knew my freezer was dirty and there would be a few freezer-burned items to deal with, what I was not expecting was a decomposing fudge bar.  I didn't even open it.  I could tell it was bad just from the feeling and the way it flopped around in the white wrapper.  Aren't those full of preservatives?  It's a puzzle.  I also threw out a whole bag of whiting fillets and 1/2 a pack of pre-made hamburgers from my husbands 30th birthday cookout, um he's 34 now.  Wait a minute, he just said they are from 2008, MUCH better!  Ha!  Guess I'll start the Sharpie tip I saw yesterday, marking everything with the date you open it.
Here is the BEFORE grossness.

BEFORE--Freezer

BEFORE--Freezer Door

OMG! I do not need One.More.Thing!

Day 10 of the 21 Day Challenge. Almost half-way through!  LAUNDRY Room.  Are you kidding me? YUCK!  I got some laundry started this morning (1/12/11) and assessed my terrible situation.  I waited a little bit before really starting because I wanted to read everyone's post and see their laundry rooms, hoping for some great ideas and/or inspiration.  Finding none, after reading all 20 of the entries at that point, I jumped in and got started.  (It's LAUNDRY!  Who was I kidding trying to find "inspiration?")  If you haven't figured it out yet, laundry is my least favorite thing to do.  I loathe laundry.  Here are my most embarrassing BEFORE pictures.

BEFORE--Laundry Room, these get progressively worse, trust me!

BEFORE--Laundry Room

BEFORE--Laundry Room/Basement Bathroom.  This sink is usually clean, but I had leftover doggie spa items that were drying off on the counter.

BEFORE--Basement Shower/Laundry Hiding Place...Oh, it gets even worse....

BEFORE--Laundry Room, see I told you, this is BAD!  Gee, do you think some missing socks are in here?

So, I started cleaning and found this trial Downy, which I don't have the little ball for and trying to read the directions I wound up with blue fingers, so into the trash it went.  GASP!

In case you missed how bad it was.... BEFORE--Laundry Room--Ugh!  So, I started moving the washer and dryer as close to the wall as possible and I thought I was going to put some plastic shelving up in the corner under the window, but then I went upstairs and started gathering laundry baskets.  Then I took them downstairs and started sorting laundry into the baskets.  This is what I built: 

AFTER--Laundry Room, Doh!
A Leaning Tower of Laundry!

Oh yeah, and it is two-deep.  I tried to stack the baskets back and forth, but I have about 10 different kinds of baskets, so that didn't work, so this is what I ended up with.  It is SORTED and OFF the FLOOR, though!  Needless to say, I have my work all cut out for me for the rest of January (Winter!)

AFTER--Laundry Room/Basement Bathroom

I have most of my Wizard of Oz stuff in this Laundry Room, but it had been temporarily re-located upstairs for my "Ruby Red Christmas."  Glad to have it back in the laundry room, making it really feel ...like home.  I can't believe I didn't find any flying monkeys in this scary laundry room!

AFTER--Laundry Room.  I put my dry cleaning in that cute Orange Margarita bag instead of being bombarded by the plastic sacks as you try to enter the laundry room.  I also got my purse collection to fit into one clear tub.  Still need to purge the purses.  I'm a bag lady in the early stages.  Yikes!

Day 9 of the 21 Day Organization Challenge--Toys!

We don't have any real kids, so I considered several options to clean today. I do have MY toys...a craft basement, but I'm betting that one of the challenges is going to be a craft or hobby space (and I'm hoping it's on a weekend, because I am not going to be able to really organize it in one day...) I also thought about cleaning out the pets crate of toys and outfits, but that seemed kind of like a cheat, not a lot to do there, so I combined a couple of small jobs. Our dogs live in the garage (which is climate controlled) and I can't believe I am going to show this before picture, but everybody is sharing their messes, so I'm keeping it real, too.

BEFORE--"Kids" playroom

Pepper, our black lab has been chewing everything up, so this mess has needed cleaned up anyway.  So now it looks like this:

AFTER--"Kids" playroom

Then I cleaned out their toybox.  There are a few outfits that Skarlit had as a puppy that I haven't wanted to get rid of, but she is too big.  She LOVES to dress up.  Pepper does not, Pepper only likes to wear scarves, so really this is Skarlit's toybox.

BEFORE--"Kids" Toybox

 

AFTER--"Kids" Toybox

I organized the hair bows and put them together in Skarlit's Coach Collar box.  She is too big for her jean jacket and her Hawaiian print shirt, so those went in the donate box.

Skarlit's denim jacket--too small : (

This one is too small as well, REALLY bummed about that because it has rhinestones on the belt.  I am going to see if it will fit my friend's Scottie--Patsy.  Won't that be cute on a black dog?!?!?

BEFORE--Game Area

I decided to also do this toy area.  I still had up my funky blue tree (that my husband hates, he's so traditional) and my little pink sparkly tree.  This is downstairs in my craft basement, so I decided to put them away.  The inside of the cabinet is already totally organized, so didn't need to do anything there.  I didn't even take an after picture, I hope that's ok with you!
In reading other people's blogs, I kept seeing something about Flylady, so today I found her and I joined that, too.  So, here is my shiny sink! 

It does make me smile when I see it!  Hope you had a great Tuesday and I'll see you later on Wednesday when I tackle the Laundry Room for Day 10!  (Does that mean I have to do laundry tomorrow?)  Yuck!
--Kristal