Welcome to November - 30 days of cleaning, organizing, and thankfulness

So it's November!  YAY!  I love this season from now until about the end of January.  At that point I'm about ready for spring but these next three months are so full of wonderful that I can't help but fully embrace them.

So first an update about my frumps to pumps journey.  I've done ok.  There was still a day or two in the past week that I didn't get fully dressed and just tossed on lounge clothes but I have been showering daily again which is great.  It makes me feel good (and smell better lol).  In fact I should be showering right now before princess girl gets up but alas it's also a peaceful time to write this blog post so I chose this.  Sarah Mae's motivotionals on her blog here have been wonderful.  Such a blessing to me.  Here's a link to the latest motivotional and at the bottom of the post are links to the others: http://www.likeawarmcupofcoffee.com

Speaking of Sarah Mae I'm going to be tackling her 31 days to clean e-book again.  I'm very excited about it.  It is a deep cleaning book and starting it now means I will complete it right in time for the holidays.  Won't that be nice?  You can find the book and more info here: http://31daystoclean.com/

I also found a blog last night about organization.  Now I've been working diligently and I feel that our house is probably 60% organized which is great because in my past it's only been about 10 or 20% organized.  So 60% is a huge improvement for us.  There isn't as much hunting for things.  But the clutter drives me mad and whether I like it or not there seems to always be clutter here in a home with a family of 6 people.  So I'm going to be reading through her 31 days of organizing and hoping I can glean even more organization prowess.  I'd also love to get rid of some of this clutter BEFORE the holidays hit.  Check it out here: organizing made fun


In other news I'm going to do a project with the kids to learn about thankfulness this month.  Starting today I will have them eat think of one thing they are thankful for.  I need to search around pinterest for a way to put them together as a keepsake/reminder for the future.  I hope that this exercise will help my children to remember to be thankful more often.  I know they are children and even as an adult I still have my issues with discontentment but I think it might benefit them to learn how to avoid so much discontent at younger ages. 

I should also mention my progress or lack there of with the detail projects.  I don't think I even did one this last week.  On Thursday I somehow decided that I needed to re-arrange all of our bedrooms because of bedtime issues with one of the monkeys.  So I began that.  KOJ and I finished it on Friday although our new room is a mess.  I'll share pics and post about the changes soon because it has affected our schooling and play areas since we no longer have a playroom.  So far it's been nice.  Fewer toys end up on my living floor and that's a bonus.

So join me for some of these adventures and see how things turn out in the next weeks here!

Detail Cleaning challenge

So I challenged myself to try to do one detail cleaning task each day.  I promised to post about it.  I don't think I've done very well.  I definitely haven't done every day but I did do a few things and it's nice to feel like I've done something that has been waiting for a long time.

This was our entry way.  I got the cabinets and shelf units at a yard sale.  I got a great deal on them.  They replaced the futon that we had no better home for and created a great storage area for our shoes, socks, and in the winter hats and mittens.  I had attempted to sort out our socks and what not but I have a daughter who is in a "destroy" phase.  So this is what it generally looked like on a regular basis.  Also the door had fallen off the cabinet on the left and it looked silly with only one door.

So I spent 15 min and ended with this:

See, Princess is already hard at work.  I had originally tried giving everyone their own shelf for their shoes, socks, and hat/mittens.  But it wasn't working.  So I moved all the shoes to the open shelves, removed sandals because it's too cold for them now, labeled our sock bins.  And simply stuck the hat/mitten bins for the boys on the shelf all the way to the right.  I will label them when I pull out the hats and mittens in another couple of weeks.  Overall this has been easier to keep tidy.  I can install child locks on the sock cabinet if I need to and we all know where our shoes and socks are to get ready to leave the house easily.

I did another project that I didn't take pictures of but there was a pile of random socks/mittens etc. in a bin and another bin sitting against a wall in the living room.  I took about an hour and a half and sorted through, threw out socks that weren't any good/no longer used, matched up the kids socks and sorted them into the right bins and the ones I won't use I put in the donation bag for our crisis pregnancy center.  It made the living room look much nicer not having that eye sore pile there anymore.

And yesterday I tackled a quick project I had on my list: the bathroom window sill.

It tends to become a catch all for little things that belong in the bathroom.  I just tidied it right up.  Took me less than ten minutes.  And it looks so much nicer.

I plan to continue this challenge and will post again next week!  Check back tomorrow to see how I did with the Frump to pumps!