Clearing out the clutter

A recent post on one of the blogs that I read on a regular basis(http://www.raisinghomemakers.com/) talked about cleaning out the clutter. Darlene from http://www.time-warp-wife.blogspot.com (thanks Aunty M for this blog) is a contributing writer on that blog and she suggests seeing how much you can clear out in ten minutes. I like that idea but thought I would tell ya'll about something we have done in the past. I challenged everyone in our family to get rid of 10 things. At that time there were 10 people in our family so that would add up to a whopping 100 items leaving our house. I "helped" the little ones who were too little to know any difference, oh and DH too. Amazingly we did manage to do it but there still seemed to be too much stuff in our house. But I didn't just throw out the challenge and expect them to all willingly comply so we threw out that if we all got rid of 10 things each we would go for ice cream at our local ice cream shop. That helped:)



I think it is amazing how much stuff we all have and what a pack-rat mentality creeps in. I personally keep a brown paper bag in my laundry room and regulary add stuff for my next Goodwill donation.



Give it a try in your family and see how many things you can declutter from your life.

Kitchen Day

Today was kitchen day at our house. What in the world does that mean? Well what that meant for us was that it was a day to concentrate on the kitchen. We took everything off the counter tops and wiped them down, wiped down the tile backsplash, cleaned the windows , washed the curtains and did a mid-week mopping. We made wheat-free cupcakes for B#1, brownie bites for the rest of us and made a small batch of a new granola recipe. I don't like to make a big batch of things until we make sure we are going to like it to cut down on waste. I also did a quick refrigerator purge to get ready for "town day" tomorrow which is when we do our big grocery shopping trip. I am exhausted tonight but it feels good to have gotten to some things that hadn't been cleaned in awhile. Next week we will focus on something else on Kitchen day like clean out cupboards and wipe down cabinets and drawers.

Two new favorite books

Within the past few days days I have gotten two new books, well, one is borrowed from a friend but is certainly on my wishlist. The one on the top is a cookbook called "Healthy Choices". We try to eat healthy but we certainly love our sweets. Recently our oldest has been advised to avoid wheat for three weeks to see if he is allergic which has caused us to examine everything we eat. We haven't made cake mix cookies or brownies in almost two weeks. This cookbook has lots of healthy alternatives and lots of wheat free options. I loved that is also has some recipes in it for some homemade products like "aluminum free baking powder". We always buy the aluminum free kind but it is expensive for a little can and we do use it quite a bit so I am excited to give this recipe a try. I actually found this cookbook at the checkout stand at the grocery store. It was completely an impulse buy but I think it will definitely be worth it.

The second book, "Large Family Logistics" has lots of tips for being more organized at home. One of the suggestions is to order your week like the ladies of old did...Monday is laundry day, Tuesday is kitchen day, Wednesday is town day, Thursday is Office day, Friday is Cleaning Day, Saturday is Gardening Day and Sunday is the Lord's day. I really like that, I love orgaization and knowing what to expect. Of course, my week won't always work out so smoothly like that but it is something to shoot for anyway. Today was laundry day for us, which just means we keep the laundry going all day and make it our goal to actually get it put away instead of it going onto our "floordrobes". Laundry day doesn't mean we won't have more laundry to do throughout the week but the bulk of it will be done which will free up some time and some washer space for doing bedding and other things. This is such a practical book in lots of ways and I love practical things. I know the "Large Family Logistics" book can be found at www.visionforum.com but the cookbook might take some hunting online for. It is published by Keepers at Home magazine.