Hi everyone, I know Christy appreciates your comments on the recovery of her bag! A big relief for sure; we’re now returning to our regularly scheduled programming and jumping into those things top of everyone’s mind at the beginning of a new year, like organization, decluttering and getting healthy.
I actually was planning to write up a big health post that’s been floating around my head for the last several weeks but I am going to save it for later this week. I have an appointment with my pricey, but brilliant Integrative Health doctor this week and I think that may change or augment what I’ll include the post, so stay tuned for that. If you are already into a get-healthy-mode, more power to you! You can read the posts I wrote last year about Whole 30/AIP protocol here and here if you are interested but more to come on some new things I am trying this year soon.
My kids are still on break, we have had the best vacation but since we opted not to travel we have had PLENTY of downtime at home these last two weeks. I have already de-Christmasified the house, and gotten all our decor organized and stored away (though I am pretty sure I’ll be vacuuming up glitter until Easter!). I did spend some time going through what was left in the bins before I started putting things away so I could see what I could donate this year. It is easy for unused Christmas decorations to sit in storage, this year I was pretty ruthless about sending things we hadn’t used in a few years to Goodwill. Each year I try to buy a few more quality bins to organize all our decor. I found Target had the best selection of organizers for a great price, the ones I used are below. The stacking ornament bins are so helpful, I use one for each tree for special ornaments and then separate the colored balls into smaller bins.
I also went through most of our closets last week. When you move things get dropped into closets and tend to stay there indefinitely, out of sight out of mind, right? I tried to work on one closet each day and really purge each one. Some of our spaces (like my teenage son’s closet) still had unpacked boxes so it felt great to go through everything and get things squared away once and for all. Needless to say, we’ll be making a big haul to Goodwill later this week. Don’t forget you can download and use our Donation Planner to keep a record of what you drop off, you’ll be glad you did come tax time.
If you follow us on Instagram, you also saw that last week I worked on organizing the upstairs closet off our loft. We are so spoiled to have an extra walk-in closet upstairs. When I first walked the house I thought it would be a great space to store luggage, it seems that is one of those things that I always have a hard time finding a good place for. After living here for a few months I realized what I needed instead was a space to store decor and entertaining supplies, so I moved our luggage to the bottom of my kids’ large linen closet and gained a ton of space. I’ll be back with a full post about the whole closet soon. I ordered one shelf (this one here) but quickly realized I need another one (because throw pillows apparently multiply overnight!) but so far, huge improvement, I can actually open the door now without encountering a mountain of throw pillows.
I also ordered this two-tiered shelf for under my bathroom sink and seriously, this was such an inexpensive way to gain so much space. The best part is that it keeps all my blowdryer and curling irons from being in a jumbled mess and they are so much easier to reach now and to put away. The drawers also slide out, which makes it even easier to reach what I need.
I also will write up another post, but over the last few months, I feel like I have finally gotten a grip on meal planning and shopping for food. Since I feel a busy family of five, including two teenage boys, dinner especially can be overwhelming night after night. I created a recipe binder (more on this soon) with the list of recipes I make the most often right up front. Then, on Sunday I take time to plan our meals and all I have to do is glance through the list for meal ideas. The recipes are right in the same book so I can quickly look for ingredients and make a shopping list. You can read more about my Sunday Routine in this post here, setting aside time to plan each week has worked so well for me over the last year.
Each new year I buy a new pretty blank page notebook to use as a bullet journal, so when I was in HomeGoods one day over vacation I made a stop at the planner/notebook section. Even though my journal from last year still had a few blank pages, it’s fun to start the year fresh with a new one. You can read about bullet journaling here. I use one to keep lists of literally everything from blog posts to home projects to trip planning, it gets it all out of my head and on to paper which helps me be more productive and feel less stress.
Finally, next up on my list is to get all the papers under control. I use plain, white 9×12 envelopes like these, and each January I go through and file away all the bills, receipts, medical papers from the year before etc. into a separate envelope and mark the outside. We keep all those things for tax purposes, you may not need to retain as much if you aren’t self-employed. Then I stack all the envelopes into a bankers box marked with the year in our storage room just in case we ever need to pull information, it is easy to find.
{This photo is from the archives–apparently the last time I blogged about this system was in 2009! No, I don’t keep papers that long 🙂 }
I still have a few projects left on my list, like tackling the closet inside our back door that I call our cleaning closet (though it is far from clean) and finishing up my daughter’s closet, I’ll show you her whole room soon. I ordered her this set of organizing cubes for her closet shelf, but I still need to make tags for them. We separated out all the things that she didn’t hang or keep in drawers like bathing suits, dance clothes, all her crazy pajama onesies, accessories–etc. and each has its own bin she can just toss them into, so far it’s been an easy system she can maintain.
If you are looking for a new system to help stay organized in 2019, you can read about The Calendar Pad here and organizing printables are available here.
I’ll be back with a health post soon, hope your January is off to a great start!
XO,






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