So many things!

After sneaking to Colorado and successfully surprising my sister for her 30th birthday, my mom and I are almost back home. A real post is coming soon, but I took advantage of the free wifi on the bus back from Logan to post these pictures.

Tuesday Trifecta

Roger's Colorado cousin. Brass Armadillo: Fiesta Heaven. My mile-high city favorite.

Inspired by the blog Orange Pattern

Tuesday Trifecta

Important things! Potent potable. Lovely day for a snow-shod stroll.

Inspired by the blog Orange Pattern

Tuesday Trifecta

The birthday girl. Ice cream from snow. Celebration!

Inspired by the blog Orange Pattern

Tuesday Trifecta

Love working at New Moon. Love free stuff. Love pretty versions of normally boring things.

Inspired by the blog Orange Pattern

10-Things Progress: Lofty Goals

There's not a ton of storage space in my condo, but I've done a decent job of making the most of what I've got. Except one notable exception - over my stacked washer/dryer there is an open shelf, which has a few miscellaneous kitchen things on it, and above that, an 11" space that has sat empty. It's not all that easy to get to - there's a step stool involved, and sometimes I even have to monkey up onto the washer, depending on how far back the item is.

Enter: canvas storage bins. I've already got a whole family of them in my bedroom closet holding sheets, towels, ski clothes, and plenty more. Those are relatively easy to pull down whenever I need anything from them. For the space above the dryer, I decided it would have to be things I don't need all that often.


The brown/blue one has my air mattress (not much call for that these days, now that I own a pull-out sofa) and canvas drop-cloths for painting projects. The oatmeal/brown one has my box collection. Yeah that's right, I save boxes. Up until now, the collection had resided under my kitchen table. I pared it down enough to fit in the bin, and I'm very pleased with the space it has opened up!

The great thing about these (in addition to hiding my silly collections) is when I need something it's easy enough to just pull the whole bin down and rummage around. (Plus it made me limit the amount of boxes saved...always a good thing) When I first put them up there, it was a glaring intrusion in the once-empty space, but after only a couple days I was used to seeing them.

I might replace the brown one in the future with a matching oatmeal-colored one (Lowe's, $9.61), or a light blue bin I already own. There is still more space to the right of these. I may add a third bin, if I can figure out what to put in it!

Tuesday Trifecta

From the Easter bunny. Lovely happy parents. Freelance snuggler.

Inspired by the blog Orange Pattern

The Ten Things Spring Cleaning Challenge

I have a lot of stuff in my house. I use it, I swap it, give it away; I do my best to get rid of it. I've even written about these efforts before. But there's still a lot.

Now I'm cracking down.

For the month of April, I will be adhering to the Ten Things Spring Cleaning Challenge. I made it up myself, and as such, I get to make all the rules.

• - Every day, I need to put away/get rid of ten things in my house. This includes putting things in seasonal storage, packing up a craft project I'm done with, recycling the boxes I've been saving just in case.

On about Day 4, this project got harder. I had picked off all the low-hanging fruit. So I realized I needed to modify the rules a bit. (Again - my challenge, my rules.)

• -Daily chores can count - emptying the dish rack, etc (easy point each day)
• -Bigger projects have a sliding scale: sorting through magazines to recycle: 1 point. Hanging pictures: 3 points. Cleaning out the cupboard under the sink: 5 points.
• -Each week, I get one day off.
  

My goals are pretty simple: get rid of stuff I really don't need/use/want. Have more free space in my house. Have fewer things to clean around. Not end up on an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. (That show is upsetting)

You're welcome to play along, and even make up your own rules if you want. See? I can play nice.

I'll keep you posted.