Hi, My Name is Trudy and I'm an Addict!

Addicted to plastics evidently. This is my attempt to clean out a very large cupboard full of Tupperware, Gladware and Rubbermaid. It took me two days and I have 2 large kitchen garbage bags ready for the thrift store tomorrow. I really need to stop watching Enough Already with Peter Walsh on OWN.

Every time I'm watching one of his episodes, my mind is churning to what my next declutter project will be.

When you see yellow Tupperware, you know it's old. That square angel food cake pan was a great find recently at a thrift store. I guess what goes around comes around as they say. I kept it.

Lids, everywhere. How do you keep your containers and lids matched up and stored? There must be some secret to it. I kept some in the drawer, the ones I use frequently and the other lids are stored in the cupboard in a plastic shoe bin (that I actually discovered in the cupboard).

Old yellow again, and to tell you the truth - I kept both of them.

I kept enough, I have space for it. And everything I kept has a lid. There were some items I had planned to keep but after I washed them and then realized I hadn't used them in years - they're going.

Today my project was handbags and belts. I didn't have too many handbags and I'm only getting rid of one of them. I'm not a big fan of purses, so I seldom buy them and I reuse them till they wear out.

A bad habit I have is to change purses and not fully clean out the old purse. So today I was thrilled to find a great purse in my closet and had fun looking through the "memory" papers from 2001 that were in the bag.

On to belts. For some reason in the 70s and 80s I wore belts with everything. Back then almost every single pair of pants you bought came with it's own belt. All these years I thought I had great treasures of cool, old belts in my closet.

Well today I discovered I had simply, old worn out belts, that do not fit and even if they did I would never wear them! So there is another bag for the thrift store.

Confession - I kept three of the old belts. The ones that are very wide and mostly elastic, they'll be back in style some day.

Morale of the story: simplify, live with less, it feels so good.

Sweet Rewards

Before

After

One small step for Trudy, one giant step for the kitchen drawers.

Saturday Satisfaction

I'm reporting back to let you know my Saturday has been going really good.

Here's my list I put together on Friday night. It's not in any particular order (except for the first item)

• Sleep in - spent one week on vacation waking up at 9 a.m. then back to getting up at 5:45 a.m., on Saturday I'll find a compromise. - woke at 8:00 a.m.
• Deep clean the bathroom - need I repeat that I've been gone the last two weekends? - it's sparkly and smells good
• Vacuum - ditto the above
• Sew - working on a lap quilt, table runner and some other items, plus a backlog of quilt tops that need finished, not to mention just yesterday I ordered some Christmas fabric. - still have the rest of the weekend
• Saturday market - this one is dependant on somewhat decent weather, looking to see what local produce is out there. - so much fun, glad to see so many people there. Saw a black poodle in a dress and a 12 year old boy playing his clarinet with a basket for money! And the funniest thing happened. I was sitting on a bench munching on peas. Wally was waiting for the bathroom. On the side of the building was two garden hoses. Well Wally perfectly stepped on one of them that was laying on the handle and a big shot of water sprayed straight up in the air, we think it missed the guy sitting on the other bench.

My 5.00 flowers

• Maybe Carpinito Brothers, depends on what I find at Saturday market. - Washington berries from Carpinitos!

• Petco for a new dog bed. Did you know they make orthopedic beds for older dogs? - 10.00 less at Wal-mart and she approves.

This is Missy, she is 11 years old.

• Walk James Hill, it's been a very long time. - the hill is still there and if you don't do it very often the uphill climb totally kills your calves, 45 min round trip.
• Buy a few See's Chocolates and savor them (have a gift card from Mother's Day that isn't used up yet). - yuummm! (still have 2.00 left on my gift card)

Post # 100

Just thought that was cool to find out this is my 100th post.

Anyway just wanted to check in with the New Year.

On Friday we picked up our grand-daughter Gisele for an overnighter. After burgers for dinner, we came home and played Life. Been a long time since I played that game.

Then Saturday morning it was waffles and scrambled eggs for breakfast. We haven't had a real Saturday morning breakfast for a long time, so it was a lot of fun. That would be waffles with blueberries or mini choco chips plus sliced bananas, strawberries and cool whip on top.

At the breakfast table I reminded Wally that every single thing he said would be repeated when Gisele got home. So later while we were driving in the car she mentioned the number of times he swore that day!

There was a Full House marathon on TV in the morning. Gotta love the hair back then and John Stamos when he was young, crazy!

We went bowling, Wayne came with and Wally watched. I didn't do all that great, bowled a 114 and an 82. Wayne beat me both games, but it was a lot of fun.

Mexican food for lunch, came home. Then ran some errands around SouthCenter, the traffic was a mess around there on a Saturday afternoon. Then we met up with Melissa and Tim to drop Gisele off. While standing in the parking lot Gisele runs down a quick list of everything we did and every thing she ate, it was funny!

Then home for dinner.

Today after church I baked some cracked wheat bread, it turned out really good. You can read an earlier post which references the bread books I've been enjoying.

Today after church I went in the backyard with the dog and peeked at the garden that has mostly been emptied out and has some pots of dirt dumped into it, and I picked two carrots, what a nice surprise!

I decided at the last minute this evening to get my home office cleaned up. I did pretty good in a few short hours. There are three stacks of magazines and papers on the kitchen table for sorting later. Not too mention a box and stack of fabric that got moved into the garage so we could use the futon for company.

I need to organize my sewing projects so I can get some more sewing done.

Happy New Year to you all!

Here's wishing this brings us all good health, love and happiness in the New Year.

Just Do It!

Don't judge me, it happens to the best of us!

So tonight I tackled a project that has been driving me crazy for months - the big mess under the kitchen sink. I took everything out, sorted what stays and what goes. Washed the plastic holders and took the liner outside to hose it off. The liner is in the garage drying overnight since it's trying to rain outside.

I didn't really find anything too interesting except new scrubber things. It feels nice to finally cross an item off my procrastination list. Oh, do you have one of those lists too?

Coming soon: organized-under-the-sink-photos. For now it's still a work in progress. Oh, I guess I better go pick it all up off the floor so people can walk around in the kitchen.

Your challenge now for the upcoming month of September is to find that household chore that you have been putting off doing. The one that drives you crazy everytime you open that drawer, cupboard, door, etc.

Just do it, you'll be glad you did.

A Very Productive Friday

This is how my Friday went:

Woke up at 4:00 a.m., puzzled as to what day of the week it was. Figured out it was Friday and that I would have to get up for work, went back to sleep until 6:00 a.m.

Out of bed, showered and out the door by 6:30. Quick stop at McD's (breakfast burritos are 1.00 and they have the best chocolate milk). Arrived at office did some work till meeting started at 8:00 a.m. From 8:00 to 1:30 p.m. I was in day three of a meeting. It was a requirements gathering workshop for a new computer system. It was fun, but it's what we call a brain drain.

A little more work at the office then home by 3:15 to get my computer up and running in time for a 3:30 meeting which ended up taking place at 5:00 p.m.

Then it was open three days worth of mail, make dinner, a trip to Walgreen's and Top Foods, do the dishes, mop the kitchen floor, clean the bathroom.

Ahhhh, all done now. Time to go to bed so I'll be refreshed in the morning for the Kent Cornucopia Days 5K. Then in the afternoon it's off to the carnival and street fair with our 8 year old grand-daughter.

I love summertime!

The Band Aid Box Story

When I was a young girl living in Boise, Idaho in the late 1960's, my family lived in the country. We had a two story five bedroom house and we had a pasture with a small barn. Sometimes we had animals in the pasture, my sister had a horse and later my other sister had a calf, but that's another story.

The cool thing about the pasture was the ditch along the back that bordered the fence and a little gate back in the corner that connected us to our neighbors. Without the gate we would have to go to the end of our street, out to the main road and down a few houses.

We would have to walk past the scary house on the corner with the German shepherds that followed you from their side of the fence barking and growling at you all the way.

I was the youngest of five and my friend that lived through the gate was one year older than me and she was the oldest of five children. We spent many hours playing together with her younger brothers and her sister.

I'm guessing the band aid box came into use in the summertime. I don't know if we thought it up or our Moms did. For those of you much younger than me, you may not know that band aids actually used to come in a metal box with a hinged lid. When it was emptied of band aids it was useful for many things.

Well my friend and I took small pieces of paper and wrote various things to do on them. These pieces of paper were then folded up and placed in the band aid box. Whenever we couldn't decide what to do or we were bored (I would love to know what that feels like now), we would pull out a piece of paper and do whatever it said.

Some of the things on the papers were: ride bikes, play barbies, swim in the ditch, play board games, play outside, stuff like that. I don't know how often we used the box, but to this day I remember having it.

The reason I thought of this lately is that many times when I'm driving in the car, taking a shower, doing dishes, my mind wanders to all the things that I need to get done at home. But when I'm home and I have some time (not cause I'm bored) I never seem to have the motivation to accomplish those tasks.

So here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to get a small tin (since band aid boxes don't exist anymore) and I'm going to list small chores that can be done in 30 minutes or less in my box. I'm going to turn my laziness into achievements, one small scrap of paper at a time.

Here's just a start of what my papers will say: clean shelves in bedroom closet, clean printer desk drawers, clean kitchen pantry shelves, clean and organize hall closet - one shelf at a time, clean under the bathroom sink (where does all that hair product, shower gel and lotion come from anyway?). I might find something fun in the closet to sell on eBay, who knows.

And then when that list is finished there's the laundry room with full cupboards and shelves of who knows what, not to mention the sewing room.