I Think I'll Just Get Another Root Canal, Thanks

(image source)

I suppose it's a testament to how much fun I had at Christmas that I didn't take one single picture. It was crazy busy, since I hadn't been home (Bay Area) for two years, and I had lots of catching up to do. It was great to be back home in the IE, too, as the boys have been on a continual high for most of the past couple of weeks: No school AND we get presents? Awesome!

It would have been great to capture on camera their faces (and screaming and jumping around) when when they opened their presents; I guess I was just enjoying the moment too much. Is that possible?

And now I've got the after-holiday blues. Not because I feel let down or that I have to get back to the everyday drudgery. The main source of my bout of the doldrums (peppered with stress and a double shot of anxiety) is the fact that January is approaching.

It seems like everyone is excited to gear up for the new year by getting organized and clearing out clutter. They are energized to get a fresh start. Me? I'm not energized. In fact, I'm the opposite.

All I want to do is pull the covers over my head until February. You see, the act of organizing gives me hives. I would love to have someone come do it all for me, and then maintain it for me as well. But seeing as how I don't have a personal assistant, maid, or magic genie, the awful task is left up to me. I think I'm actually getting hives just writing about it.

The biggest problem right now is that I don't know where to put stuff. I don't really have a space of my own, so all my crafting materials, office supplies, books, etc., are scattered throughout the house. Along with my own detritus, there are the boys' clothes, toys, games, you-name-it lying around, too. Don't think I don't get after them, but I can only fight so many battles in a day.

My workspace (which is typically the dining room table) usually looks like this:


You can see the computer desk in the back, but I hardly use it since the boys are on the computer a lot; anything left on the desk has the potential to get broken, misplaced, or seriously filthy.

We obviously don't eat dinner here.


Problem is, even when it's cleaned off, it's not really a place I can use as a desk, as it just looks so messy if anything's on it.

Ah, if only it were this easy:

(image source)

I suppose technically it's that easy, but I might be worse off afterward.

Pretty much anything I organize just ends up back on a table or counter or on the floor waiting to be put away. Of course, you professional organizers out there are saying, "a place for everything and everything in it's place." Yeah, okay, but when there is no "place" that is not trampled on, rifled through, or touched by BOYS on a daily basis, it's a bit easier said than done.

With that, trying to organize seems like it's not even worth the trouble, since everything would still have to be scattered around in different cupboards, under tables, and crammed in nooks. This pretty much goes for all rooms in the house. It seems like everything is out of place and it's just so...overwhelming!

(Of course, looking at the big picture, I should be grateful to have things I want to hold on to, and the necessary cupboards to house them.)

I wish I had the organization gene, but let me tell you, it does NOT run in my family. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't run in Ralph's family, either. (Let's just say I don't envy the boys' future wives....)

Yeah, I suppose I'm just using all this as an excuse to not even start organizing. It's just hard to build up any enthusiasm about it like the rest of the world right now.

Maybe I'll try again in February. Or not.

Thinking of Christmas Already?

It's funny that I've already started looking for ideas for Christmas decorations, especially since I have a $0 budget this year. I'm determined to only spend money on a Christmas tree, and make do with what I already have.

However, I love looking on the web to get ideas for decorating, as I might happen upon an idea I like using stuff I already have.

I was looking on Rhoda's blog, Southern Hospitality, and she had photographed decorations at a Holiday House she had helped decorate. There are some great ideas I may be able to incorporate with my decorations that are sitting up in the attic collecting dust.

All the following photos are from her blog.

I LOVE the combination of the soft browns and greens:





The green/gold and green/silver combos are pretty too:





Monochromatic is always a nice way to go:


While I often think the green/red combo is too cheesy, these are the perfect soft colors so nothing looks garish or overdone:



While I'm not looking forward to crawling into the attic to unearth my decorations, I am looking forward to the possibilities of what I can create this year.

Organizing for Lazy uh... Busy People

When I first read that Kristen was having an organizing-tips WFMW, I thought, "Well, I can't contribute a #@$!%& thing. I am organizationally challenged, to say the least. But looking around the house, I noticed that there were a few things that I've implemented that have managed to save me time and effort.

The best rule for me to remember is to KNOW THYSELF. I know that I am super lazy and disorganized, so I will never be able to implement an intricate, multi-step process. I need to KISS anything like that goodbye.

Keep It Simple Stupid.

This is best demonstrated in my filing system. I HATE to file. I mean, I have a physical aversion to it. I would rather lick the kitchen floor than have to organize and file all the paperwork that piles up on a daily basis. That said, I take the easy way out: I only use one file a month.

Yup, I throw everything into one file. Actually, I'm even too lazy to have that file in a filing cabinet where I would actually have to spend the time looking for it. I've had to place an expanding file above my computer that I can literally throw papers in:

sorry for the poor quality pics; I was too lazy to get better ones...

In here, I throw everything from bills, to receipts, to instruction manuals, to financial papers. At the end of the month, I put the papers in a file with the month name on it and put it in a filing cabinet. That's it.

Now for those of you who are obsessive about filing, I'm sure your eyes are bleeding right now from reading this. But you know what? Somehow it works! I've learned that, since I'm horrible with paperwork, I really shouldn't keep too much of it around. Receipts? Only for big stuff. Coupons for a certain restaurant? Yeah, with a family of five, we don't eat out much. Fliers for fun-sounding events that we might go to? If it's that important, we'll put it on the calendar. Otherwise, toss.

You might be screaming at your screen, "But what about the Important Info?" I only have to look through a few files to find it. "What about Taxes??" In the April folder, where else? I've actually been able to put my hands on pretty much any important paperwork I need, since I try not to keep too much crap in the first place.

As for keeping up with paperwork in other ways, another thing I know about myself is "Out of sight, out of mind." Literally. Hence, my bills:

I literally have them staring me in my face every time I look at my desk. It's my way of nagging reminding myself that this needs to get done. If I didn't have them hanging there, I'd put them in some pile somewhere and promptly forget about them until it's too late to save myself a late fee.

Another area I keep things in sight and in mind is in the pantry:


I'm pretty short, so this is my view of the upper shelves. I keep everything right on the edge of the shelf, so I can see exactly what I have without having to move stuff out of the way or getting a stool to get a better view. Yes, there is stuff behind this, but it's stuff I hardly ever use; I think of it as extra storage. Definitely nothing that's used on a regular basis.

Also in the kitchen are the inevitable junk drawers. I actually have four of them. Terrible I know. In order to keep some semblance of order, I cut food boxes and place them inside to corral some of the junk:


Yes, they're still messy, but at least I can find the pens without having to dump out the whole drawer.

Another thing I'm trying to implement is labels. It's a very slow process, labeling, but hopefully it will save time eventually. The boys empty the dishwasher as part of their chores, which means that kitchen items can end up anywhere. So I'm trying to be very specific with what should go on each shelf:



Again, this does take a while, but I only do a few shelves at a time. Plus, the boys for some reason LOVE to make labels with the label maker. (This sounds like it would make my life easier, but I have to write everything down for them so they know how to spell it. Oh well.)

Speaking of boys, I know that they are all about easy access as well. They leave boxes of food all in a jumble if they can't put it away easily. Therefore, I've eliminated that step for them whenever I can by simply ripping off the top of the box. Notice the popcorn box:


Also, whenever I can, I put non-sealed stuff in tupperware (like the lovely mismatched one next to the popcorn) so they can just reach their hand in, grab, and go. I also take fruit out of the plastic produce bags and throw it all into one drawer in the fridge, as it's apparently too much effort for the the boys to take it out of the plastic bag. Otherwise, they'll let it sit in the bags and rot.

Also in the kitchen, I try to corral things in baskets whenever I can, such all the condiments the boys like:


Still looks messy, but better than just having them all over the counter.

I also use baskets for all my little crafty bits:


Again, it still looks pretty cluttered, but definitely better than if I tried to keep them organized any other way. Putting them neatly in a box or drawer? Fuggedabout it. I need to just toss and go.


I do try to show the boys some type of organization when it comes to school stuff. Since we do homework at the dining room table, I set up this pegboard on one of the dining room walls:

I try to have everything they need on it, so they don't have to go searching, and it's easy to put everything away. For myself, I try to keep all their school paperwork in one spot so I don't randomly assign it a pile and then forget about it.



Other little things:

• Towels are easy to organize because I'm a towel Nazi. I give the boys only two towels each in the linen closet. Why? Because otherwise they'd use a towel once, leave it on their bedroom floor, and get another one. Lots of towels, lots of laundry. The boys have their initials on their own towel so I know who's left theirs on the bathroom floor. The other towels I keep hidden in my closet. That keeps the linen closet available for other storage.

• I have a box on the stairs to put stuff that goes upstairs. I'm too lazy to walk up and down all the time.

• I have a large bucket in the laundry room as a dumping bin for cleaning rags, napkins, etc. that need to be washed. At least all that stuff isn't thrown on the floor like it used to be.

• I delegate. The boys are old enough to do just about any type of cleaning/organizing. Even though they don't do it all that well (purposely or not), stuff still gets done. A sloppily-organized dresser is better than a never-organized one.

• I purposely have spots to hide stuff. In the living room, I have a small side table with a drawer underneath. In it are tons of photos that need to be put in albums. At least they're all in the same place. I have my toiletries in small plastic buckets under my vanity; the buckets get messy a lot. I have a small tension rod hung with dishtowel "drapes" underneath the vanity to cover the unsightly mess. My craft cabinets are a disaster, but I always make sure they're not so full that I can't close the doors to hide it all.

• I put my make-up brushes, Q-tips, and other things I use each day in drinking glasses on my vanity. (I have really shallow drawers underneath so I can't put much in them.) The glasses at least keep like things with like, and keep things from just piling up.

• I hang my necklaces on nails on my wall. I could never take the time to put them away in their separate little pouches and they'd always get tangled up.

• Lastly, when I need some motivation to get organized, I get one small space done so I can see how great it looks. Often, the "organizing" is done by me putting everything cluttering up that spot into a large bag out of sight. I know it's prolonging the inevitable, but sometimes you just need to see a clean desk in order to know that it can be done. By any means necessary.

So yes, I'm lazy and always want to take the easy way out. But I'm also really busy and know that in order to make it work for me, organization has to be simple and quick. As much as I would love to be that person who has all matching pretty containers perfectly lined up on the shelves without even a paper clip out of place, I know this is not my reality.

Hopefully I've helped some of you other disorganized super-duper-crazy-busy ladies. I can't wait to read the rest of the entries for this WFMW. Who knows? Maybe I'll find something that even I can implement! Head over to We Are That Family for this much-needed Works For Me Wednesday edition.

Finally....

I finally finished painting the boyz room. I finished the main walls pretty early on, but I put off the additional lettering on the wall for a while. Not that it was hard, I was just worried about messing it up.

Remember when I asked them what color they wanted and they came up with this (after I told them they couldn't use 4 retina-scarring colors in a tiny room)?


God, that is so ugly. It looks like asphalt, which I think is what appealed to those little skate rats. Ralph finally convinced them to go with Dodger blue:


Still not what I would use, but at least I could live with it. It actually came out pretty cool, if somewhat dark. Ralph printed out a huge LA Dodger symbol and I used it as a stencil:


Hey, it's better than the "before" picture of that wall:


Notice all those little pieces of paper on the wall? Those are all from a Warcraft calendar. World of Warcraft is the obsession of the household. Luckily, the boys got tired of putting those pages up the first time around, so I don't think I'll have to worry about them cluttering up the walls with them again. I only put up a few wall decorations other than the LA since it's such a small room and looks pretty cluttered already. I framed some pictures of them skateboarding, after I fiddled around with them in Photoshop. (I couldn't get a good picture of them once they were up on the wall.)






I think they were happy with the compromise, especially when I put up their skater pictures. To show their appreciation, they promptly trashed the place and it was right back to looking like a frat house.

A frat house with cool walls.

I Have So Much To Learn

So I made the mistake of telling my pre-/teen stepsons that they could pick the paint color for their bedroom. Yeah, ha ha. Stop laughing.

First, they wanted red, green, blue, and purple, one color on each wall.



Umm... how 'bout no, Scott. (Guess that movie!)

Then they pleaded for just green and purple. (Florescent lime green and bright purple, mind you. Apparently, they're skater colors.)

I called Ralph on the phone and he thankfully nixed that right away. (He also reminded me that he wouldn't have consulted them on the colors, but rather just gone and done it. Now he tells me.)

I tried to steer them towards an acceptable blue or something like that. Instead, they decided on this:

It's called North Sea, but it looks like dark asphalt to me. I got a quart of it and took it home and painted some on the wall. It looks just as hideous as you might imagine, although all the other (male) members of the family thought it looked fine.

I tried to compromise. Could we do Raiders' colors? Black on the bottom half of the room, gray on the top? Kind of like the colors of their site background behind the logo?


"No, 'cause you'd want to use a light gray."

Well, yeah....

"We would do it if we could have the black on the bottom and the gray we picked on top."

Black and dark, institutional, soul-sucking gray. Sounds lovely.

Ralph sensed that I wasn't exactly in love with the color. (Huh, wonder how, since it's not like I complained the entire time I was painting the sample or anything.) He finally convinced the boys to go with Dodger Blue.



Ralph's even going to stencil the LA on the wall for them in white.

While it's still not the color I personally would pick, I can live with it. And I know the boys will like it, which is what's important.

Next time, though, I'm just going to buy the paint myself and not consult anybody. Especially thirteen year old skate rats.

Inherited Distress

image source

I love reading decorating blogs and getting ideas from all the creative ladies in blog land. Of course, it makes me think they secretly have an extra 10 hours in their day that none of the rest of us have.

Seriously, how can these women do all the stuff they do with just the same 24 hours I was given? "Oh, I just whipped up these toile curtains while the baby was napping, then I organized my pantry and repainted the kitchen during playtime, then I re-grouted the tub and created an Easter garland while the kids were having lunch..." Oh, I kid. Kind of.

image source (she really does make cool garlands)

Anyway, "distressing" is really 'in' right now. And not the dire straights kind of distressing. I mean making things look old and worn. Here I've got a serious advantage. Everything in my house looks old and worn. Not only does the furniture look distressed, but so do the walls, floors, carpets, and kitchen appliances.

One particular post on distressing struck me today because a woman on a blog was talking about how she inherited her mom's china hutch and distressed the edges. This was after she talked about repainting the dining room, creating a new look for sun room, and building a miniature kitchen for her daughter's playroom all in the same day. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating a tiny bit.)

image source (seriously, this woman is amazing)

I knew right then that even though this woman is superhuman, I still have a leg up on the competition.

You see, my mom has a china hutch as well. I will probably inherit it someday.

I will never have to take time distress the edges.
Their dog has already done that for me.

I guess this kind of decorating genius runs in the family.

Daily Kitties and Christmas Decor

Pixie was feeling festive, so she modeled with some Christmas throw pillows.



She then decided she's a diva and pretended to abhor the camera.



She gave me the idea to show some other pictures of decorations, though, so I thought I'd throw some on this post, since I missed all the holiday home tour carnivals and the like. (The carnivals are cool to look at though; I got some great ideas. Click on the links above or in the sidebar for views of other people's decorations.)

I also wanted to put pictures up so my aunt can see them, as she is unable to come down and visit for Christmas as she had originally intended. Get well soon, Ginny! We love you!

Here's the tree, which, after the Christmas-tree farm debacle, turned out really nice. We ended up getting it at Home Depot instead of the farm, and I actually like it a lot better than the types of trees the other place had.


The picture of it with its lights on is blurry, but trust me, it's soooo pretty when it's all lit up.




I also put a garland with lights on the banister, with a Merry Christmas sign and a Noel sign above the landing.


We don't have lights outside, but we do have a wreath. I just used a fake wreath I found at Joanne's Fabrics and added some cloth ornaments. I like the Welcome sign because, even though it's green and red, since it has hearts on it, I can leave it up until Valentine's Day. (Did you know they already have Valentines decorations in the stores???)

(Yup, that's a security door, 'cause we live in the 'hood. Okay, not really. But I think it's funny that all the other pictures in the tours show delicate front doors with small panes of glass or just one lock, not even a security bolt. They probably even leave them unlocked.)

Moving on...

The family room doesn't have too much decoration, just stockings hung by the chimney with care. The boys decorated their own this year. I'm thinking of putting my old ornaments from when I was a kid on the mantle to add a little more festive feel. (Not that the sets of swords don't add that warm, fuzzy feeling already...)



In the kitchen, we have some kitchen towels with Santa and a floor mat with Christmas trees (it's already filthy, thank you very much.) I put up a place mat above a shelf in the kitchen to add a little more decoration, and put a poinsettia and a wooden sculpture of Mary, Jesus and an angel below.


Then, I tried to get crafty. This is never a good thing. I was looking on the Nester's site and saw all these cool window-dressing creations, which she calls "window mistreatments." I got an idea to use some kitchen towels I had seen at the Dollar Tree that would I thought would make nice café curtains for the kitchen. The finished product doesn't look too bad, but I'm still not really happy with it. And, as always, it took me a lot longer to do than I thought, causing much frustration in the process.

I figure I can leave the blue and white towels up year round, and switch out the Peace towels with different ones for each season. BTW, Ralph voluntarily helped me with this when he saw my frustration. He's got a great eye for design, seeing as how that's what he does for a living (on a computer). It's thanks only to him that these things are even hanging relatively straight...


Back in the living room. I just have a couple of Santas gracing the table, since the tree is the main focal point.



On the top of the TV cabinet, I put a wooden sign that I found randomly when I was at Goodwill one day. It was half off, so it only cost me a dollar.


That's Mary and Joseph next to the sign. I have another Mary with the baby Jesus in her arms, but she's hiding until Christmas Day. I've been trying to learn more about the Christmas story and incorporate it into the rest of our celebration, since I know that it's really important to Ralph that the boys stay focused on the reason for the season. I've done a lot of reading on the origins of different Christmas traditions, including the Advent wreath. I made one with traditional purple, pink, and white candles, below.


The purple signifies expectation, penitence and fasting, as well as the color of royalty for the King. It is also the color of suffering, to show the connection between Jesus' birth and his death. These candles are traditionally lit on the first, second, and fourth Sundays of Advent. The pink candle symbolizes the hope and joy people felt that the waiting was almost over and the King would arrive soon. This candle is traditionally lit on the third Sunday of Advent. The center candle is lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, the white signifying the purity of Christ. The light of the candles symbolizes Jesus as the light of the world.

The wreath itself also has significance. It is circular, with no beginning or end, symbolizing God's endless mercy. It is an evergreen, symbolizing eternal life. Holly berries are sometimes included in the wreath to symbolize Christ's blood that was spilled for us.

I also read up on the history of Santa Claus, as I was curious how a fat man in a red suit was connected to the birth of Jesus. Like most people, I knew he was based on St. Nicholas, but I didn't know anything other than that. I didn't even know who St. Nicholas was. Neither did the boys.

In order to make learning about him more fun, I created a scavenger hunt with clues about St. Nicholas and hid the clues around the house. The boys had to find the clues, and with each clue they also got a treat.




The boys also got to read about how St. Nicholas used all the money his parents left him to buy things for people who needed them. He bought wooden toys for children who didn't have any (I gave the boys wooden ornaments) and threw gold coins down the chimney to help a man whose daughters had no money for dowries. (Here I put gold-wrapped chocolate coins in a stocking since the story says the gold fell in a stocking that was hung by the fire to dry.)

It's been fun learning about different traditions this season. And as much as I want to decorate the house some more, I also want to just relax and enjoy the time I have with the family. So I've simply been adding Christmas cards as I get them to some funky yarn I strung up, and that's it for the rest of the time.



Merry Christmas everyone!