Day 4 of Bedroom make over - 30 minutes a day

I've finished the room :) I can't be happier! It's amazing how big, free and airy the room feels. I spent a little longer then 30 minutes in here today, but once I saw the end was near I couldn't stop :)

Here's the end result:

I absolutely love it :)

The first post on the challenge with the before pics can be found here

I'd like to say a BIG thankyou to Sam at I love organising for starting this challenge and keeping me motivated :)

What I've learnt along the way:

•  Only buy things you absolutely need to avoid ending up with overwhelming clutter.
• Do a regular clean to stay on top of things.
• Don't leave things for tomorrow.
• Don't let it get to that point, where you'll need to endure this pain again lol.
• Allowing things to get that messy isn't setting a good example for my kids.
• How happy I am with the room once it's clean :)
 

Half way there and in need of a routine.

I'm 20 weeks pregnant today, and if the next 20 weeks go as fast as the last 20 weeks, then I really need to get my butt into gear and get myself and family into a routine before the baby arrives.

The scary thing is, the hospital are expecting an earlier and quicker birth then my previous which arrived a month early after a 2.5 hr labour. He was so tiny and definitely not ready to come out, and as a result had heart issues, so I'm hoping the hospital are wrong. But better to be prepared I guess.

I'm a night owl and have serious issues with going to bed early, as much as I'd love to I just can't seem to, and as a result I sleep in. Hubby's a gem he does afternoon shift and is a morning person so he does the brekky run in the morning and lets me sleep in... For some weird reason I can't focus unless I've had 10 hrs sleep...

I would love to be able to get up at 7am (or even earlier) to prepare myself for the day and have some quiet me time before the kids wake up. Our days at the moment are very rushed and stressful... For eg.
We get up do the whole brekky, teeth, dressed etc, then its dishes, bed making, washing, tidy up, lunch, Hubby off to work, I'm buggered and longing for bed but its only 1pm. Hubby never gets a break or time to himself, there's always something else that needs doing...

I've got my daily 'must do's' which are quick little jobs which help keep some things in order, but I need to get into a routine and stop this morning madness.

Please help me lol... I've never been good at sticking to routines/schedules, but it's time I learnt. I have to change...

What are your day to day routines like?

Day 3 of Bedroom make over - 30 minutes a day

Today would probably have to be the day where I have made the most progress. I think I'll leave the pics til the end where we can see the end result :)

Today I have accomplished:

• Threw out more rubbish
• boxed up more things for garage sale and op shop
• Removed all garage sale and op shop items from the room (will be going in garage)
• sorted though the majorly over flowing box of cards that was stashed under the bed, into boxes for each child, hubby and I will share.
• sorted through another box of 'stuff' and put in rightful home
• stripped bed and changed sheets
• found more of my friends baby shower pressies and placed with the rest (3 of my friends are preggers :))
• rounded up linen and put back in linen closet
• found more of bubs clothes and put away
• recycled more paper
• sorted out box which should be holding books, but instead had baby stuff like silver photo frames and the like. But now has books (We have no book case lol)
• General tidy
• Put clothes away

Apart from a few things I'm yet to find homes for, I'm almost done with this room. The main problem is all those silver baby things... I really need to get some shelves...

Once the room is nice and tidy, I want to give it a good wash over with sugar soap (walls, fans etc) as this is on my list of things to do before baby arrives, which you can view here

I hope everyone else is doing well with their organising :)

21 Day Challenge - Day 8, Coat Closet

Another one I couldn't wait to get started on :)

It was jam packed with clothes, shoes and other junk. I didn't touch hubbys section, even though I could go crazy purging his clothes (he's worse then a girl when it comes to his clothes lol) He would not be impressed, so I'm leaving that up to him.

I pulled out all my jackets and was met with this...

I pulled everything out, gave it a vac and placed my shoes back in... Ummm I have a lot of my thongs missing... I'm slowly finding them as I'm cleaning my room lol (Hubbys shoes are in another section and that'll be posted in the main closet challenge)

Much better :)

Day 2 of Bedroom make over - 30 minutes a day

I'm making slow progress in my room. I'm finding I'm going through more and more boxes that I dig out along the way. Normally I'd get overwhelmed and just want to get the room clean and ignore all the boxes full of stuff... But one thing I've learnt along the way, I can't just sweep it all under a rug.

So I've been sorting out these boxes and putting the 'stuff' in it's rightful home. I'm amazed at how much space I've freed up...and hopefully not to be filled with other 'stuff'

Things I've accomplished today:

• gathered up a friends baby shower gifts and put them in gift bag ready for her party.
• found some craft stuff and ended up cleaning out the craft cupboard (not in bedroom lol).
• boxed up garage sale items.
• Put pack of newborn nappies in hospital bag, ready to go
• sorted through paper
• shredded unwanted paper (i bought a shredder today FINALLY :) I've been wanting one for ages and I absolutely love it )
• rounded up recipes and placed in recipe folder
• placed all Dr referrals and prescriptions in a zip lock bag on our cork board

I really need to find a place to put all the garage sale stuff...we usually put it in the garage but it tends to get forgotten about...

There's still so much to do, but I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel :)

Bedroom make over - 30 minutes a day

Sam over at My endless to do's and Sherrie at Simple Living are doing a daily 30 minute cleaning/organising task in a room or area of their choice. Sam has chosen to do a different area each day, and spend 30 minutes getting it organised. Sherrie has chosen an area to focus on for the week.

I love both these ideas, but will also stick to one room for the week, as I've started so many things without finishing and would LOVE to actually get something completely finished.

So the area I have chosen for this task is the main bedroom. Why? It's an abdolute pigsty! There's garage sale stuff, stuff to be donated, baby stuff, boxes to be sorted through, things to be put away, things to be thrown away, things to be filed and a whole lot of other junk which needs to be organised!

When we bought this house, my mum and my sister did a wonderful job in decorating the room for us as a house warming/christmas gift, so when I look around and see this mess, I feel absolutely terrible in more ways then one.

Here's what seems to be the 'storage area' in our house.

I feel so ashamed about these photo's but I guess it's gonna keep me motivated to get rid of it all :)

Here's some more pics of the rest of the room.
Please note, the first pics were taken on Saturday and I have spent some time since then organising and cleaning it up.

Things I have done already are;

• boxed up gifts
• sorted all bubs clothes into plastic tub ready for soaking once it's time
• boxed up easter eggs
• bagged up stuff for Op Shop
• boxed up all loose coat hangers
• thrown out rubbish

I will do more posts as I go along.
I can't wait til this room is finally organised and (relatively) clutter free :)

I'm changing my outlook on life...

...because of this...

...which led to this...

I'll explain what happened in a moment.

As you know, since I've become a SAHM, we've been finding it a little tough financially, and selling the second car was an option we had been considering. After our visit to the Dr last week, our decision was made for us - we had to sell the car. Our 2.5 yr old son may require surgery. We both decided we were not going to go public, even though we don't have health cover. We want to know and trust the person who will be performing the surgery (if he does require it, which hopefully he doesn't) and we will find the money to pay for it somehow. We have found a brilliant and highly recommended Pd Surgeon, and we're looking forward to meeting with him.

 

Which leads me to the sale of the car.

 

My husband listed the car on E-Bay and we both had a price in mind in which we would not go under. Little did we know, the head gasket was blown...or I should say will go at any time.

The man that came to look at the car brought his mechanic who told us how much it'll cost to get fixed, so we contacted our mechanic who is a good mate and he second that the head gasket was on its way out and it would be costly to fix.

When hubby came in and told me what was wrong, I got so upset and emotional and felt like a tonne of bricks was coming down on me... this was just our luck... every time we want to do something, it either goes wrong or we have to go through the worst to get there. Then I stopped and thought... wait a minute... what if I was driving down the freeway doing 110km's with my children in the car and it blew??? The car was broken. We don't need the extra stress of keeping it and getting it fixed. What if something else went on it, after we got it fixed?

My husband didn't want to sell it for $4500, which is what they'd offered to pay for the car as is. We did not want to go under $6500.... I said sell it. It's broken, I don't want it, we need the money, get rid of it. I was happy... why I don't know. I was laughing and I was happy... I was not dwelling on it and thinking why this why me...??? Something made me stop and think of the positives rather then the negatives.

I loved that car it was good looking and I fell in love with it the second I saw it... but it was time to let it go... and I'm happy :) It was the right decision...

And then this...


My 2.5 yr old son has had high temps which have been yo-yoing since Thursday. The first pic was how I found him when his temperature rose for the first time (within this cold/flu) on Thursday. I took his temp and it was 39.5. I managed to get it down and he seemed fine, he was back to his normal loud, crazy, lovable self. It was up and down on Friday, but yesterday, he was really lethargic and I could not get it under 38.1. His eyes were rolling back in his head and he passed out. I rang mum who told me to wake him up and take him to the after hours GP or the hospital. I woke him up and his eyes rolled back in his head again and he started having a seizure. I didn't know what it was at that point in time, I thought he was having a shaky wake up moment... I took him to the lounge room, put him on the lounge, went and got changed ( I was rushing so wouldn't have been more then 2 minutes) came back out and he'd passed out again. I woke him up and he had yet another fit. I had never experienced that with my children before. We went to emergency and his temp was at 39.5 again, and we found out he had Febrile Convulsions/seizures brought on by the fever. I was in shock as I'd never heard of this before, and seeing my child hooked up to machines absolutely killed me. He is at risk of having more seizures if he gets another temperature/fever and have been advised to go straight to ER if he has another episode.

This didn't break me either. It was like a test or something. Even though as stressful, scary and upsetting as it was, I was and still am happy he is OK. He is such a strong willed boy and I'm so thankful to be his mum :)

So, I've decided not to let negative things in my life bother me, and to focus on the positives. Yes my son was in hospital last night, but he is happy and well :) Yes we lost money on the car, but we still sold it and made some money which we didn't have to begin with :)

So far this change had been working and it's a change I'm welcoming :)