purging

A while back, my friend Carol blogged about her purging challenge. One thing out the door on the first of the month, two things on the second and so on. At the end of a 30 day month, 471 (as long as my fingers worked in the calculator) items should leave the house. 

Then one of my dear sisters invited me to a challenge to do the same. 

In the middle of my busy existence, doing each day's purge was not an option so I worked with it. 

The day I found 16 books I put it on the list next to the 16th of September. 

In the end ... the stuff went and that's what counts. 

Some of these things are just whatever junk. I really can't figure out where all the containers went for these leftover lids. Serious!! I didn't cheat and take multiple photos of the same lids.

And here is where the challenge comes with my purging. Some people might just grab and throw ... I can't do that with all things.

The photo below (as well as the one above) shows cards and messages from both mine and Jari's 50th birthday parties. Yup. Sentimental me kept them. And before I could toss them out, I scanned them into the computer to make a Shutterfly book. That was Friday evenings activity last week. I live such a wildly exciting existence when I'm home alone!

The bottom right hand corner of the same group of photos includes a pile of magazines with loose pages on top. Same thing with that quick toss. Country Living  magazine is my favorite ever. It is the only one that I keep renewing for sure. So I page thru each one, tear out the pages and scan them into my computer. Tedious? It is. But it works. I get to hang on to the things I like to dream about and the newsprint leaves the house. 

And ... if I put those files like "Recipes" and "Crafting" on google drive ... I have them at my fingertips all the time. Because, realistically, my phone is never far away from me.

I'm skipping one of the 5 days of pictures here. It included boxes. From a keyboard purchase at least 10 years ago? From a printer we no longer own?! Serious issues. 

I could do another whole month of this stuff but it's too stressful. I did get rid of a few other things as well. Scrubs no longer worn to work became 1" strips for rug making. Old duvets did the same. This shower curtain was suppose to be more blue for the sake of the rug but the fabric obviously didn't react well with the navy dye and turned purple instead. I'll probably look at it for a while and then pitch that too. Because it didn't stay this nice shade of purple after it went through a cold rinse cycle in the washing machine. At least the bottle of Rit is gone!

A few corners are a little emptier and I'm working on others. 

There is hope!!
Then there are kids' baby boxes, baby books, photo boxes, home videos ....
All the stuff I cart around in life that is invaluable to me. 

polishing silver

I was browsing through Pinterest one day and, as often happens,

one pinned picture led me to a website.

All of a sudden, I was like "whoa!"

Shut down the rest of the whatever you're doin',

grab a stool, grab the oh so embarrassing tarnished

silver, start diggin' for the fixins' ....

and start polishing.

I love silver. The shiny and the tarnished.

I especially love the old pieces that have come

from such very special people and places.

I don't like when they're aren't user friendly ....

I just can't serve anything out of something that looks like this.

Not that I'm serving coffee out of these, but good gravy!

They look hideous!

I took the dish washing tub (I really can't recall any fancy name for that thing),

lined it with tin foil (shiny side up) and filled with hot water.

I don't have a scientific brain, but something about this mix must do something,

because they said it would!

Equal parts of sea salt and baking soda went into the hot water

and then got stirred around a bit.

Plunk in the silver and let it sit for 15 minutes.

I then turned over the pieces to get the other side.

Some chemical reaction inside all that makes for a stink,

but it's nothing quite like the stink of cleaning your shower with

vinegar or hitting the self clean button on the oven.

When I took them out of the water, I used a cloth to rub off the grunky black grime,

especially the most blackest of the tarnish.

Okay, so this one needs a second dipping.

Makes me wonder if I had too many pieces in the bath ...

maybe I should have just done 2 pieces a time.

This one will get redone ... later.

Look at the difference though!

More polishing required, but well on our way to looking like silver

rather than mud.

And .... well on my way to serving coffee with  sparkling creamer and sugar.

Are you wondering why I have what looks like tongs in the creamer?

Aaah. I believe they are sugar tongs ....

and I believe I am going to start using them.

Once the silver has had another go 'round,

I'm adding sugar cubes to my kitchen.

I just might start using a saucer for my coffee as well ...

and pour my coffee on it to cool it off a bit before

I sip it down.

Oh. I almost forgot!

I do have a large silver platter that I am going to be needing

in the next several months, and it probably doesn't look so pretty either.

Being as fitting it into the kitchen sink will prove challenging,

I'm going to move my silver process to the laundry tub in the garage

where the sink is much deeper and might work a wee bit better.

Happy polishing!

organizing spaces

Do you ever get spring fever when it really isn't the appropriate season for such a thing?

I'm not talking about the urge to be outside smelling dandelions,

rather the urge to tackle your kitchen cupboards, closets and every surface that is cluttered.

I remember my mom appreciating when I was sick with a bug of some kind.

As soon as I was feeling better .... I had at the kitchen cupboards ... organization central hit hard.

Maybe it is the fact that my present class ended Sunday and I was done with nearly everything Friday morning.

Maybe it is the fact that I don't have school work this week ... I actually have a week off between classes.

Maybe it is the fact that next week I am on vacation from work.

Maybe it is all of it put together.

Friday ... I started weeding through stuff and organizing.

Somewhere once upon a time I saw an idea for organizing kitchen cupboards using little bin things

purchased at the dollar store.

She used black baskets for hers ... unfortunately I didn't have the option.

Tia & I ran to the dollar store on Friday and picked up these ....

It didn't take too many minutes to realize that this was not going to be enough for what I wanted. It is also difficult to judge what fits best in each space and best holds the items you want to store in them until you start to play with them.

Jari & Tia were gone Friday evening and I opted to stay home. As soon as they left, I was back at the dollar store buying more of these little treasures.

A good Sidney Sheldon book playing in my ears and a rag in my hands ... that is either a definite sign of age or a working mom when I choose to clean cupboards on a Friday nite. 

The baskets are a little on the cheap outside. Like, duh, they cost 99cents. They were cheap!
Canning Jar Lids? Right up there with Cake Decorating supplies. We really use the pressure cooker around here and those lids (the screw on part) end up everywhere! They sort of drive me crazy. I'm hoping to contain them a little with this basket. I'm not a cake decorator, but we do enjoy cookie decorating and those things were rolling lose all over the place as well.

Now this piece might prove challenging. I have no clue if it will work or not, but I left out the few things that I use all the time. The rest I placed in baskets. Seasonings in one ....

and baking things in another. Like, seriously. How often do you use your molasses?!

To be fair, I should have taken a before picture but I didn't. 

I didn't even think about it let alone consciously push the thought away.

I was having so much fun that I moved to my bedroom next. For a few years we managed to have a bedroom that wasn't a combination of sleeping quarters and office. For a few years. That time will come again, but it isn't here yet. My hubby makes serious piles of papers and all kinds of officey stuff. Clothing ... he puts where it belongs. I hit part of it and ignored part. The part I ignored is akin to cleaning out his tools in the garage. Ain't going to touch those with a ten foot pole. Not posting pictures of the part I did take care of, but suffice it to say that more of these bins made it onto a shelf in there and organization like activity happened. Enough so that the girls walked in and were impressed ... without my pointing it out to them!! 

My labels on the bins are a little hokey. My idea was to attach them with velcro stickies so I could change them as needed. I didn't want to put them on permanently. Problemo Uno: the velcro stickies I bought at the dollar store don't stick very well to the container. I might redo them and hang with a ribbon or just take a glue gun to them. It probably won't take long to get to that point either if they keep falling off just sitting there!

That would be my organization ideas for this week. In the next few weeks ... hopefully more cupboards and closets will be left with only what I use and need. The rest ... outta here!!

salt and vinegar

Sounds like I'm having a potato chip party over here.
I'm really not.

It has been a busy week around here.
The online school year is coming to an end and finals are around the corner.
That means that we are doing some serious finishing up around here.
And I do mean we.
We accomplish much more as team most times.
One part of the team is usually wrapped up in a blanket on the couch.
Crazy, hey?
The air conditioning vent is right across the room from the couch ...
it gets cold sitting there!

Tia and I also did some artwork today.
Taking an idea off of Pinterest, we started playing with salt dough.
I'll be curious to see if these little projects turn out or not.
Either way, we had fun working on them.

As if the sunshine outside wasn't warm enough earlier, our projects needed a little more drying time.
Will share when they're done. Can't wait!

We ran out for a burger this evening at Five Guys.
Have you ever eaten there?
The bag of french fries was disgustingly huge!!
The waste not want not part of me was nearly having a stroke at the ridiculous waste.

Then on to Target to finally get myself a squirt bottle along with a few other things.
Another Pinterest find that has been nagging me was Scum Buster ... or something like that.
Supposedly takes shower scum right off for not much more than mere pennies.
The recipe calls for 1 part of vinegar to 1 part of Dawn dishsoap.
Pour dishsoap into the spray bottle first.
Heat the vinegar and then add it in.
Spray like crazy. Sit. Rinse.

 And smile when it works.

I did have to wipe it down. Some spots needed a little more than wiping once.
A few spots I missed and will have to get next time.
Over all .... I'm thrilled.
In reading the blog that I found this on, she mentioned that she would change the
ingredient mix as the 1:1 ratio was verrrry sudsy.
I took her advice and did mine 1 part Dawn to 2 parts vinegar.
And I'm still thrilled!
Oh yeah. If you don't like the smell of vinegar, I don't know what to tell you.
It dissipates? How is that for advice?

Happy spraying!