jschmale

I went through all of our bills, paperwork and junk mail from at least the last year. I started going through papers at 10am on Sat and didn’t finish until 1:30 AM! I ended up shredding 4 brown paper bags worth of old bills and receipts and recycling 2 more bags worth of paper. Filing has now been moved to my “office” (in our dining room) so I don’t have a massive project to complete again! It felt good to purge, but my goodness! What a project! What a waste of trees!
I spent 3 days attacking the rest of hubby’s office & closet, while he was out of town leaving only various piles labeled with a post-it. I was careful NOT to throw out anything that looked un-important to me and instead left in a pile for him to sort at his own pace. Example: “To Do: Go through pile of to do lists!” He was happy about what I did in his “space” and has actually been able to find things. He was even more excited about what I found (his favorite watch, pictures from parties at our first apartment 7 years ago) and I made spaces in the closet to things that are most important to him (fishing gear, camera stuff, & biking accessories).
I pushed myself to finish cleaning (floors & such) the entire apartment from top to bottom in the following two days. Our apartment was well prepared to begin our final school year! Hopefully I am as well!

Today is 71 days smoke free! It was hard to do, but I feel so much better. I really am beginning to feel like a non-smoker! Ha!
For all you out there, the younger you are, the easier it will be to quit. The sooner you quit, the longer you will live. Don’t put it off! Find a system to help you quit & stick with it. If you slip, try again, but still stick with it! Slipping isn’t an opportunity to become a smoker again. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and support. Good luck to you all!

I have slowly been going through my apartment room by room and closet by closet trying to make sense of my mess. I have made so much progress these past two weeks & I feel really good about it.
I have completely finished my bedroom, the closet & the extra deep closet in that room. I am donating 4 garbage bags of my personal clothes, some knickknacks, junk jewelry and a foot spa. The dressers are cleared of clutter, which makes me feel better. My bedroom is now a retreat. I have been enjoying relaxing, reading and listening to music in bed. I still want my husband to go through all of his clothes and do a clean out too, but at least now everything has a place that it will fit. I actually have 4 cubic feet of empty storage space in my closet. I love that things are not busting from the seams.
I have completely finished the hall closet and the bathroom. The bathroom was easy, since it only has a small medicine cabinet. It now only has the essentials that need to used in the bathroom all the extras were moved to the hall closet. Its a tiny closet but it has so much stuff in it. I cleaned out the first aid kit. 90% of the pills and ointments in there were expired as far back as 1999. Geeze. I spent about $20 and restocked the whole thing this week. Now that I know what is in there – and can find things I am actually using things in there on a regular basis. I took all of my hair & skin products off my dresser and put them in the hall closet also. Shelf for me, shelf for my hubby, first aid, extra toiletries, bathroom cleaning supplies, & toilet paper. All non-related junk was removed from that closet. Organization never felt so good!