Before and After- Getting Organized

Craft cupboard BEFORE-notice everything
shoved everywhere.  Yeah.  Classy.

Cupboard AFTER- all labeled and purdy.  

 In which I come clean (groan) about tackling some of my biggest messes...

Pantry BEFORE-an
overflowing mess

I've been sick these last few days with Strep Throat.  Big Yuck.  Before that, though, I was a lean (well, not quite), mean (not usually, but sometimes) organizing machine.  I've cleaned out and organized three bathrooms, three bedroom closets, a file cabinet and a whole kitchen full of cabinets and drawers (including the mother-of-all-junk-drawers). There's more still to do, but I'm making progress!!

Pantry AFTER- notice the labels

What brought all of this on?  Well, I've been temporarily unemployed, and found myself a SAHM with kids at school all day for the first time in well, ever.  So, my "someday" has come.  Organize I must.

Pantry door AFTER

Here are some things I've been learning as I organize:

*Bite off a small piece at a time.  You probably WON'T get your whole pantry cleaned out in one shot, and that's okay. Set yourself a time limit and see how much you can get done.

Love this labeler

*Start with easy projects.  You will feel a satisfaction from completing them that will help you keep going through the bigger ones.

My "junk" drawer.  This,
my friends, is a miracle.
Wish I had a before shot.

Just picture everything 

here, plus more, all

stirred up together

*Labels are your best friends when it comes to organizing.  I got a labeler for about $15 at Walmart and it has served me well.  It helps me, and especially the rest of the crew here at home, put things back where they go past the original organizing. It also makes you feel good about yourself to see everything nicely labeled, lets be honest.

*I sort things into four categories :  keep, throw away, give away, and put away somewhere else in the house.  Organizing experts seem to say that if you haven't used an item in the last year you should get rid of it. Some people say six months is a good enough time frame, but that seems a little extreme to me.

Clear plastic shoe organizer works
great for gloves and hats

*Watch organizing videos on YouTube for motivation as you work.  Peter Walsh has some good tips, as well as a very motivating Facebook page .  There are also MANY blogs, magazines and books devoted to the subject of getting organized, but sometimes I feel like many of them are just trying to sell me things. I mean, the Container Store is great and all, but as much as I might like to I just don't have the money to fill my house with their stuff.

*Be patient with yourself.  I've had time lately to do this that I have never had before.  You may not have this time, and that's okay.  You know what your values and priorities are, live them.  If you do have time, though, fit in a little organizing.  It feels good and helps you not only feel better about things, but also helps you save money because you don't re-buy things you already have just because you can't find them (not that I have EVER done that...).

Re-purposed Ikea shelf

Honestly, that's about it.  My organizing is certainly not "pristine" or "perfect", but its getting better.  And, I have to tell you, it feels pretty awesome to actually be tackling these things.  

Now if only the rest of my house hadn't been totally trashed since I've been sick..... 
Ah reality....


How about you?  What works for you when it comes to organizing?  Any tips I've forgotten?

Jobs- A Short History and a New Adventure

I got my first official job when I was 15 and we lived in Hawaii.  We were poor enough that I qualified for a special summer work program. I ended up being assigned to "Waimanu Home for the Mentally Retarded".  Not PC to call it that today, but that was what it was called then.  I had the coolest boss.   His name was Clyde.  We would pile all of these intellectually handicapped adults into a van and take them on adventures.  They would take their clothes off any time, any place.  They must have gotten bulk parmesan cheese at their cafeteria, because the smell of Parmesan will always remind me of that place.  I was the only haole (white) girl who worked there.  One of my best friends worked there too- her name was Toakase Fakava.  She had a huge Afro with a comb stuck in it and was one of 16 children.  Her home had no furniture, just woven mats on the floor.  They were from Tonga, and they were awesome.  That job taught me that I never wanted to work with mentally handicapped people, that it just wasn't "me", that being around "those kind of people" was something I just "wasn't cut out for".  Hmmm.  Maybe Heavenly Father knew differently.....

That job was followed by LOTS of waitressing jobs.  North's Chuckwagon where a pot full of hot coffee exploded all over me, Mr. Steak,  two summers waitressing in what felt like a postcard in Grand Teton National Park at Signal Mountain Lodge , the graveyard shifts in Grand Junction where the yucky old Greek man stuck his tongue in my ear and all the drunks thought they were hilarious, one night as an accidental cocktail waitress (now THAT was a mistake), Utah Seafood Company where I was fired for leaving an odd spoon on the table, but really for not being a part of the hot tub/partying crowd, the Claimjumper up Provo Canyon where I spent a memorable stroke of 12:00am on New Years Eve in my car with a breast pump. The things we do to pay the bills.  I respect waiters/waitresses.  In a busy restaurant they must be incredible multi-taskers and deal with LOTS of stress.  Stress that used to make me have crazy waitressing dreams, where I was "sat" six huge tables at the same time and we were out of everything.  That's stress.

While I was a student at BYU I had a couple of very glamorous jobs.  I worked custodial from 10:00pm-2:00am Monday- Thursday nights.  I got to do exciting things like cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming.  Lots of vacuuming.  I was a favorite target of some of the guys I worked with- always good for a big old jump when they snuck up behind me when I was vacuuming all alone in the middle of the night.  I actually didn't mind that job much.  Made some good friends, and it was better than the Morris Center cafeteria where I wore the ugly nurses uniform and scraped food off lunch trays.

Since graduating I've taught just about every Social Studies subject there is to students in grades 7-12.  I've taught US History, Geography, American Government, Sociology, History of the American West, Careers, Health, Service Learning and World History.  I've also been the Social Studies specialist for my school district.  I love to teach.  The time flies for me, I get to be creative, I am my own boss, I love getting to know my students- I am a teaching nerd.  Its stressful, though, no doubt.  When I first started teaching my waitressing dreams were substituted with teaching dreams.  I've had many.  This is the typical scenario:

"Its the first day of school at an inner city school.  I am completely unprepared to teach my class full of gang members who look up at me menacingly from their chairs. I search for an exit but there isn't one."

Yeah, that one is a classic.

Tomorrow I am starting a new adventure.  I am going to be a teacher-mentor for JHAT, the Jordan History Academy for Teachers.  Its a joint project of Provo, Wasatch, Jordan and Murray districts.   Its part-time, and I basically get to set my own hours, so it should be perfect for my life and my family right now.  Its exciting, and a little scary.  Mostly its scary because for now I will also be continuing to do what I've been doing for the last 12 years (along with some time in the classroom)- teaching online for Utah's Electronic High School, and I'm hoping that I can handle it all.  My duties for EHS are changing, though, and EHS will be dead and gone (courtesy of the Utah Legislature) by the end of this summer, so I just need to last that long.

And, oh yeah, still be a good mom to my kids, and pull off a wedding in three months.

I can do this.  Breathe, Jan.  Breathe.  

But for  now, back to the sewing machine.  Bridesmaids dress number one, here we come!