I am really attracted to and drawn to organization. I always have been, for as long as I can remember. As a kid I always kept my room neat and my closet organized. As an adult I've always kept my clothes organized, which also saves time in addition to looking nice. My pants are hung together, my long-sleeve button up shirts are hung together, my short-sleeve shirts are hung together, my pull-overs are hung together, you get the point. I always know where to look when I go to put on something specific.
Living with Spouse for the past 20+ years has presented challenges to my love of living in an organized home. He is the opposite of organized. He never knows where anything is because he never puts things away in an organized way. Its not so bad when it comes to our shared closet, which is very large. I have my organized side and he has his disorganized side.
The kitchen is a different story. We both use the kitchen and its contents so I'm often frustrated when I look in the cabinet where something is supposed to be (ie: vegetable oil in the baking cabinet) and its not there. Another frustration is the spice/herb storage. To the left of the microwave is a tall, narrow cabinet with 2 shelves. The spices and dried herbs are in 2 baskets, 1 on each shelf. Spouse will grab what he needs at the time, then just randomly toss them back into 1 of the 2 baskets. This means when we need something, we have to look through all of the items in both baskets until we find it, which wastes time, and also makes it impossible to know if you're running out of something.
Thus, every Thanksgiving Spouse doesn't know how much poultry seasoning we have at home because it would take too long to look through the disorganized bottles to find it/them, so he just buys another one at the store.
And we end up with this -->
Yes, 5 opened containers of poultry seasoning. And, poultry seasoning was not the only duplicated spice/herb, but it was most duplicated. Several others had opened duplicates as well.
So yesterday, on my day off, I added "organize spice/herb baskets" to my to-do list. 1st I lined them up in alphabetical order on the counter. Next I consolidated the duplicated seasonings to reduce the total number of containers. I was able to consolidate the 5 poultry seasonings down to 3, and did the same with others. Then I placed them back in the baskets in alphabetical order.
When Spouse got home I explained what I'd done and told him I was holding him accountable for keeping them alphabetized and organized. I threatened physical violence against his person should he revert to his old habit of randomly tossing the containers into the baskets, although we both knew that to be an empty threat. Hopefully he got the point though.
Yesterday I spent almost the entire day getting documents together for our accountant so he can prepare our returns.
I will admit that despite my love of organization, I am not the most organized when it comes to paperwork. I tend to toss papers on my desk that I know I will need later (for tax purposes or other purposes) and then when the stack begins to get unruly, I will throw them all into a big envelope.
Not exactly a scientific approach, I know.
"How hard can it be?" you may be asking. Well, keep in mind we have documents and receipts for our primary home, 3 rental properties, and my real estate business, so there's a LOT of paperwork.
So after separating, organizing, and documenting all of the paperwork for the accountant, I decided to start 2014 off right. I labeled an envelope for my business receipts, one for our home receipts, and another for the rental property receipts. So going forward, rather than tossing papers into a heap on the desk, I will slip them into the appropriate envelope. Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of time needed next year to get our tax stuff ready for the accountant.
I wasn't scheduled for office duty on Sat or Sun, so I was kind of "off" from work, except that I had to go into the office and meet a client who was signing an offer which I
had to upload to finicky website, then meet another client to let them
show their visiting parents the home they are buying. So I was working
from 1-4pm on my "off" day. Other than that Spouse & I didn't do
much on Sat, honestly. Spouse was feeling kind of lazy and didn't feel
like doing anything I suggested. We did have dinner at Dos Locos with Steven & Thad, Robin, Alisha & Jack, and 1 of the Bobs. I tried the spicy pork tomatillo burrito and loved it! Why had I never tried it before? Its my new favorite item there. I also had a jalepeno margarita which was muy sabroso. Afterward we went to Steven & Thad's house for dessert and saw that they had gotten new living room furniture! Spouse & I both really liked the colors and style.
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| Not our actual garage |
Sun Spouse & I had coffee/breakfast and then decided to be productive. I had been wanting to clean out and organize the garage for several months but it had been too cold or I'd been too busy. It was a nice day (close to 60 degrees) so we got started. I acquiesced to Spouse's insistence that I throw away the pile of odds and ends that didn't sell at my yard sale 3 years ago. I'd been saving them for the next yard sale, but decided to "just be done" with the stuff and tossed them into the trash can. There was nothing of any real value; just stuff that I thought might fetch a dollar at a yard sale. I also organized the salvaged construction materials from when the side porch was removed and the garage addition built. I have a project in mind that will utilize some of the materials and just can't bear to throw away good wood. I will offer the remnants to my neighbors and handymen I know. Now that the materials are organized and stacked, they take up less space and I know exactly what's there. I also organized the stuff so that all the Christmas stuff is together on 1 side of the garage and all the construction stuff is on the opposite side. I swept the garage and threw away the cardboard boxes that lay on the garage floor (absorbing Big Ella's drips) and replaced them with new boxes. It didn't take that long and I feel so much better about the organization of the stuff. Now I know that if I need the pruning shears or a hammer, I will be able to find them. After completing the task I learned that April is National Garage Organization Month!! Leave it to ME to be on-trend.
Sun I also received a response from a potential buyer via email, wanting to see a home on Sun afternoon, so I cleaned up and met them for a showing. They were very nice; looking for a vacation home since they are outgrowing their vacation travel trailer.
When I got home Spouse & I decided to take Marvin for a walk on the boardwalk. It was rather warm (again in the 60s) but turned out to be rather windy on the boardwalk so we still needed jackets. Marvin seemed to really enjoy the walk and the exposure to different people, dogs, and smells. We stopped at Lowes on the way home to walk through their garden center. We are planning to freshen up our yard for Spring and wanted to see if there were any unusual/interesting low-maintenance plants on sale. We left empty-handed.
That evening we went to Steven & Thad's for pizza. Our friend Michael was there, and we enjoyed teasing him about his new long-distance boyfriend's 1st visit here in a few weeks. He says he's not letting him anywhere NEAR us! For dessert we ate what was left over from the night before.
As a real estate agent, I typically work on Saturdays, and sometimes on Sundays too. Now that we have another agent on our team we are rotating so that each agent gets a weekend off each month. This means they aren't scheduled for sales duty (responding to phone and internet inquiries) but may still need to show property to visiting potential buyers.
This weekend was my weekend off, I had no visiting buyers in town, and Spouse & I had no plans that would take us out of town. So it felt almost odd that I was home with Spouse all weekend.
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| Click to enlarge |
We decided to make good use of this time off together and took down and packed up our Christmas tree and all our Christmas decorations. It was less laborious than usual since Spouse & I worked together on this. Just removing and packing up the tree ornaments is a big job since we like our tree to be heavy with ornaments. I've never counted them but I'm guessing there are 300-400 ornaments on our tree. And unlike some people who can barely wait until Christmas to take down their tree, we usually leave ours up through mid-Jan. We only did it this weekend because we both had the time. Our tree and decorations are so pretty I just don't get tired of seeing them. In fact, its always a little melancholy for the 1st few days after taking them down.
Sat night we had dinner with Steven & Thad at Miltonian Pizzeria & Wing House. Spouse & I shared our favorite: the buffalo chicken pizza. Sun night we had dinner at Steven & Thad's house, as Steven made pot roast, herb roasted potatoes and corn and we brought biscuits and a coconut cream pie for dessert. Both meals were sort of our "swan song", as all 4 of us were planning to go on diets starting today.
Spouse & I are following Weight Watchers because Spouse feels it is the best way to lose weight. He lost about 80 lbs about 2 years ago, although he has not kept all of it off. We aren't going to the meetings but will follow the point system. To make it easier to calculate the point value of most foods (rather than having to look up everything in a book) he discovered you can take the calorie count and divide it by 40 to quickly get the point value.
Also in preparation for our diets starting today, yesterday Spouse & I organized the frozen food in our chest freezer in the garage. This helped us not to buy duplicates of things we already had when we went to the grocery store yesterday. And while in the organizing mood, we bought a plastic shelving unit to put next to the freezer to store extra can foods and such. We often 'stock up' when we are able to shop at a Trader Joe's, since we love their food but don't have a store near us. The shopping bags of Trader Joe's foods were quickly organized onto the new shelving unit.
It was a fun weekend that included productivity, time with friends, good food, and preparations for a healthier new year.
The kitchen is a different story. We both use the kitchen and its contents so I'm often frustrated when I look in the cabinet where something is supposed to be (ie: vegetable oil in the baking cabinet) and its not there. Another frustration is the spice/herb storage. To the left of the microwave is a tall, narrow cabinet with 2 shelves. The spices and dried herbs are in 2 baskets, 1 on each shelf. Spouse will grab what he needs at the time, then just randomly toss them back into 1 of the 2 baskets. This means when we need something, we have to look through all of the items in both baskets until we find it, which wastes time, and also makes it impossible to know if you're running out of something. 
