make my home beautiful

Paco and I did a massive cleanup in the garage. Took a truck load of stuff to Goodwill including a huge old tv (still works). Took a truck load off stuff to the dump including an the old, old fridge. Got three new metal storage shelves and Paco organized his mountain of car-stuff (spark plugs, bottles of oil, tools etc). One shelf is still almost empty so this week I’m getting more plastic storage boxes and can un-clutter the house more!

to the donation drop-off in Factoria; the books are sold at fairs and the money raised goes to local schools and Children’s Hospital. Took this great picture Max made last year of an octopus underwater to the framer! It should be done in 2 weeks! The bookshelves in the living room are less cluttered but still a ways to go…

Took two big boxes of stuff to Goodwill a few weeks back. Planted some clumping bamboo (fargesia rufa) to create a screen that hides the garbage and recycle bins at the side of the house. The bamboo is about 3-1/2’ high right now but might grow another foot or two this year!

My fabulously talented cousin came yesterday and installed our new door! Paco stained it a dark, warm cherrywood color. I got a nice handle set in a dark, rubbed bronze finish. It is so gorgeous!

I assembled the kitchen shelving unit today! There is a big drawer on casters that rolls under a bench. On top of the bench are bolted two shelves. The sack of potatoes, the mesh bag of onions, the burlap bag of rice—all the pantry stuff that’s been laying higgledy-piggledy in the kitchen hall is now in the drawer! Woot! The telephone stuff is organized on the top shelf with a new basket for notepads etc and a pretty glass pencil/pen container I’d forgotten I had. It is such a huge improvement! And I even finished it early in the day so we ended up taking a spontaneous trip out to Denny Creek for the rest of the day!

Went last week and bought three bookshelves and this kitchen organizer combination. Got two bookcases assembled: one for Max’s room (with 4 bins that fit on the shelves) and one for by the computer desk. Gave a bunch of rarely-used puzzles, books etc. to Max’s teacher (she was thrilled) and got the toys Max plays with into containers so he can get them out and put them away again easily. The computer desk had been bugging me for ages. It’s one of those clutter magnets: mail, magazines, shopping bags, ugh! Last year Paco bought a rubber-maid type shelving thing which helped briefly. Then that got filled up with junk (old bills, warranties, adding machine paper etc). I cleaned the rubbermaid thing out; I put up the bookshelf and got two bins that fit perfectly on the shelves: one for hats, gloves etc. and the other for bills, mail etc. It’s a huge improvement!

Our front door leaks cold air underneath, the locking mechanism works about half the time (the other half the door just drifts open somehow!) and it looks like someone nailed a 1/4” piece of plywood over the original door face God knows why. I picked out a new door, it’s been pre-hung and it’s now in our garage waiting to be stained! Once we get it stained my wonderful, courageous cousin (who is a contractor) will help us install it. Yay!

The bottom two shelves were the most intimidating. After my second cup of tea Sunday morning I asked myself “What are you afraid of? Why do you keep putting this off?” Ugh, I’ll probably find more empty sketchbooks and journals! If I keep to my original resolution to throw or give away whatever books don’t fit in one layer on the shelf I’ll end up getting rid of a lot!—okay, so what? So I just did it. The bottom bookshelf had books three layers deep. The books in the back were thick with dust. I found four books on raising puppies that had missing covers and/or big chunks chewed out. My dog (now fourteen) did that as a puppy. I recycled those. I found my college Astronomy textbook which is now 20 years old. I sat daydreaming about “what if there were an electromagnetic pulse and access to the Internet was wiped out? Won’t I wish I still had this astronomy book in case I have a question about stellar evolution?” I recycled that one too. I did find two never-written-in journals both in excellent shape; I donated those to Max’s art-room at school. So two hours later the shelves were all back together and I had one box of books worth donating which I dropped off the next morning. Slightly painful but done!!

I almost elevated myself to “crazyinagoodway” to-do status yesterday!
*went to my mom’s and moved some furniture and rugs around for her.
*went to the grocery store and bought supplies for dinner and next week’s school lunches.
*did three loads of laundry plus towels + bedding.
*deep cleaned the part of the bedroom where the ‘ladder’ style shelf is, the window and my husband’s dresser.
*put up a wall-mounted-shelf above husband’s dresser so he has more (much needed) space for baseball caps, colognes etc.
*cooked dinner
*worked on my note-card project
It was raining almost all afternoon – so Max and I bundled up and played outside for awhile in-between most of these activities – to break up the day!

with the first big, cluttered bookcase. All the shelves are two or three layers deep with books. I cleared everything off the top shelf, dusted and washed it. I put back the favorite, most important books (both mine and my husband’s) and when the shelf was full everything leftover went in a box to take to the bookseller. I don’t fully understand why I buy books instead of checking them out from the library. Or once I’ve bought them why I’m so attached to keeping them even if I never read them again? While cleaning off that first shelf I found an old sketchbook with just a few drawings in it. So my “fill every journal and sketch book that I own” goal just expanded a bit!