Organising myself

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed recently as I'm forcing myself to do too much. I'm trying to organise every aspect of my life all at once, except probably one of the most important things - myself.

As a result, I personally feel more unorganised. These are some things I've been trying to tackle all at once

• 21 Day Challenge
• Get my family and myself into a routine
• 30 minute a day challenge (I would like this to be a regular thing)
• Study and put into practice, Time Management
• Declutter and organise the house
• Get out of debt
• Get a set budget in place
• Spend more time with the kids
• Finish unfinished jobs
• Completing my daily ''must do's''
• Getting things done asap - dishes, hang washing instead of dryer etc
• Cutting costs - water/electricity bills, groceries etc

Last night got me thinking about all of the above and how I've been madly trying to get control of it all and in turn have lost site of what's really important, my kids. One of the reasons I quit work was to be with them, and I want to commit to that (as well as everything else lol)..

Which brings me to my decision.

I've decided the month of May is about me. I'm going to use this time to better myself and work out what's most important and to focus on that.

Family is most important to me, but seeing as though one must continue to do the housework/budgeting etc, I've decided Time Management is a priority to successfully get through the above list.

So the month of May I will be learning all about Time Management and hopefully by the end of the month I'll be able to prioritise a lot better and spend quality time with my children.

I can't wait and I'm so excited. I've found a great site full of great information, which I'll be printing out and reading through.

If anyone is interested in joining me you're more then welcome. You can check out the Time Management site here

Quick Tidy - On top of Kitchen cupboards

Above the kitchen cupboards has always been a hot spot for clutter in our family. Anything which needed to be put out of reach of little hands, seemed to go up there.

It was about time it had a good tidy, so I got stuck in and did just that.

Here's the pics. For sum reason I didn't grab a before pic of the pantry side. It's a shame as that was even worse. It had a stool, a rolled up plastic party table cloth, a bubble blower, a lite and easy box and who knows what else stored up there.

This pic shows the sort of stuff that was stored in the baskets. Most of this stuff has been in there since we've bought the place.

Everything was emptied out and found new homes. Some things such as the many bags of shells I've bought over the years, are still in the baskets until I find the time to use them for craft.

It's amazing what you can done in a few minutes if you put your mind to it. I came into the kitchen to get a drink, and ended up with nice clean cupboard tops.

21 Day Challenge - Day 9, Toy Organisation

Ok.... This one I did not want to do... The thought of organising ALL their toys freaked me out.

When I did make a start on it, I'd only have so long before Mr 1 would come along and undo literally everything I'd done, some one would come over unannounced, the dog would get into the laundry and attack its food bag... There was always something stopping me from finishing. So I decided to tweak it a bit to make it a tad easier in accomplishing this task. I decided I would focus on Miss 4's toys only for now, as sorting through the boys wardrobes has been an ongoing process anyway (I'm almost done yay :))...

At first I felt like I hadn't completed the task as I hadn't organised every single toy, but isn't this whole journey about finding your own way on the road to organisation and simplicity? So if that means I have to tweak the challenge a bit in order to have some organisation then bring it on :) lol

As I finish the boys room and the toys in the lounge room I'll update this post :)

I did a post a few weeks back about tidying up my daughters room, which you can find here
I knew this room wouldn't stay tidy for long, esp. without a system in place for the toys. So that's exactly what we did today.

Before:

Why she has Mr 2.5's baby toy is beyond me...

Absolute chaos... I honestly can't remember the last time I went through this side of the cupboard. I feel so ashamed saying that, but it's the truth...and it's kinda obvious anyway lol

I've got to grab some labels next time I'm out, but I've showed and told Miss 4 what's where, and I made her tell me where things were so I knew she understood.

Bottom shelf is her Dress up shelf... Dress up shoes are at the back in their little box and costumes are in the little pig bag. I couldn't part with it so I put it to use lol.

Middle shelf is all things Barbie

and

Top shelf is all things doll related

Right up the top I've stolen and that's where I store baby things for the time being, like the nappy bag, bassinette mattress etc etc

This one isn't the neatest but I asked Miss 4 what she would like in there and she told me her big doll set (too big to fit in with the others) and her two fluffy white dogs. I asked her later on what was in the main part and she remembered :)

Ohh and the little child is Mr 1 :) He's walking now and so much happier :) :)

Here we have:

• Dora the explorer things.
• Kitchen stuff minus food that's kept in their trolley.
• Her ball
• Horses/unicorns
• Leap Frog thing
• Medical Kit
• Skipping Rope
• That one I think will be reserved for stray stuff
• Same as this one where ever it is

I have a pic from a couple of weeks back at an attempt to organise the lounge room toys, we did separate and put away a few things but the next day it looked as though we didn't touch it

Watching My Kitchen Rules Grand Final lol

Sorting through the mess.. Most of that was returned to their rightful home... A lot has been brought back... some how...by some one... I wonder who??? lol

Kreativ Blogger award

Thanks to the lovely Sam at I Love Organising for making me a recipient of such a lovely award.

 I'm truly honoured :)

As per the conditions of the award, I will now tell you 10 things about myself.

1. I would love to go to Tahiti. We really wanted to go for our Honey Moon, but couldn't afford it.
2. We are aiming to pay off our home loan by the time our daughter is 14, so 9.5 years.
3. I cannot sew to save my life and would love to learn
4. I can play drums
5. My first car was a Ford Laser
6. I miss my Commodore
7. It took over a year to fall pregnant with our first.
8. I love spinach and want to grow some in my vege patch
9. I had a Bunnings (hardware store) sausage sizzle for lunch :)
10. We are, as off last night, 100% credit card debt free (will post about later on) YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE :)
 

 

The Blogs in which I am passing the lovely award onto are as follows:

Great Googa Moogas

Happy Family, Healthy Family

CrankyMum

First Day of my New Life

Full of Great Ideas

Mum in Search

The radical Homemaker

The Road Named Me

A place for everything and everything in its place

Aspiring Millionaire

These are all great Blogs and definitely worth following. :)



3D Ultrasound - 20 weeks

On the weekend, I had a 3D ultrasound done to confirm baby's gender and to get a look at the bub. Baby is definitely a boy, he was showing the goods as soon as the probe thing was put on my belly lol...typical male :)

We got some really cute pics, but unfortunately he constantly had his arm up covering the right side of his face...every ultrasound I've had he's had that arm up...must get that from me lol...

Anyways here's some pics of our little feller for your viewing pleasure :)

I love the last one, looks like he's doing some model pose showing his "guns" lol

:) :) We can see Mr 2.5 in him, especially around the nose area.

We can't decide on a name. We've gone through so many but nothing seems right... Hopefully it'll come to us soon :)

HAPPY EASTER

Happy Easter everyone, I hope you're all enjoying your day, and I hope the Easter Bunny left you all some yummy treats :)

Todays routine 21/04/11

I'll be doing a few posts on routines while I'm on my journey to get up earlier, learning about, and putting into practice, time management.

8am: Out of bed, got kids up, got their brekky, started a load of washing, got them dressed, did their teeth and hair. I got dressed, teeth and hair done.

9am: Miss 4 and Mr 2 off to school.

9.15: Back home, hung 1st load, started another.

9.30: Had brekky, chatted with hubby and fed bub his 2nd and 3rd brekky (being mine and my husbands lol)

10am: Made beds, swish and swiped the bathroom, general tidy, re-organised boys drawers thanks to Mr 2 pulling everything out to play 'dress ups'. Fed animals.

11.15: Dropped Hubby down my parents as he is borrowing my dad's car for work. Chatted to Mum, Dad, Nan and Pop for a bit.

11.50: Returned home and put bubs to bed.

12pm: Hung next load out.

12:15: Had lunch and chilled for half an hr

12.45: Made a start on the room (everything was put in it's rightful home, wiped over, vac'd every nook and cranny)

2.30: Bubs woke up, he had lunch and I had another lunch lol. We played for a bit.

3.15: Got washing off the line.

3.30: Got ready to pick up the kiddies.

3.50: Got to mums (Miss 4 is having a sleep over) Chatted with the family for a bit, kids ate chocolate, played, rode bikes/scooters/go carts.

4.30: The boys started getting grumpy as they were both very tired so started getting ready to come home.

5pm: Back home, started dinner and refilled our drink bottles and put in freezer ready for our trip to the Easter show tomorrow (which reminds me I'm meant to be baking snacks to take...ooops lol)

5.50: Ate dinner, Bub watched telly for a bit, while Mr 2 and Mummy picked clothes for tomorrow.

6.30: Cut both the boys hair (Bubs first hair cut :) ).

6.55: Boys in the tub.

7.10: Boys off to bed. Mummy watched TV and ate Bread and Butter Pudding :)

7.30: Blog time :)

8.18: Still Blog time lol :)

Tomorrow we'll be up at 6am and at 7.15 meeting at my parents, ready for everyone to head of to the show by 7.30... Everyone meaning, Me and my family, so Me, DH, Miss 4, Mr 2 and Mr 1, My mum and my nephew (5y/o), My Brother and his Fiance. We'll be having lunch with my sister, My nephews mummy, as she's working at the show. Should be a fun day and I can't wait to see the kids faces light up :)

We're taking our own food and drinks (I might be naughty and buy hot chips cause I LOVE hot chips lol)...

Hubby and I have agreed $20 each for the kids for showbags, except for the little feller, he's happy with food so we'll get him a couple of the choccie bags, so a lolly/chocolate one plus a character one, or how ever they want it as long as its within the amount allocated. I personally would rather them stick to food bags that way we don't have all that uneeded cr*p coming back into the house. Me, I'll get chocolate heheheh :)

I hope everyone's doing well with their journeys :)