On week four of my 20 Week Organization Challenge, I have a confession to make. I am having a really hard time sticking to one item per week. One reason for that is because many of the items I had on my original list seem to run together. For example, I realized that I had inadvertently done #11 on my list when I reorganized the boys closet shelf. Now I’m going to have to think about a new area to clean up in place of that. Not that it will be a problem… there’s plenty to do around this place!
But another example came this week when I went to clean off my desktop, which originally (and embarrassingly) looked like this:
Um, yeah. So I started cleaning. And I realized that to put all that stuff away, I may as well clean out the drawers and do it right. And if I took all the drawers out, I might as well move the desk into the living room as planned. And, well, it was a Tuesday and H was at preschool and E was asleep and Rick was out of town overnight… so I did all three.
I know this breaks the spirit of the baby steps approach and doing one item per week, but I couldn’t help myself with this one. Here are the drawers before (except the center drawer, a.k.a. one of my junk drawers – it’s day is coming).
And the drawers after:
Do you see that there are TWO empty drawers!?!?!? TWO, PEOPLE! Yeah – a lot of junk was in those things. Now there is an office supply drawer, a paper drawer, an envelope and stationary drawer, and a computer software/spare hardware drawer. I did find something for one of the empty drawers – large envelopes and packing tape. I still have one more empty drawer. This went a long way in me figuring out what to do with much of my office stuff since it’ll be in the living room now. The after pics of the desktop -in the living room:
Since there was a bit of “cheating” (in a good way, right?) on this one, here’s what the updated list looks like:
- Bathroom cabinet
- Boys closet shelf and clothing
- Boys toys and bedding storage
- Desktop/drawers and move desk out of office
- Office corners
- Office closet upper shelf
- Junk drawers
- Buffet
- Our bedroom closet
- Kitchen desk area
- – TBA
- – TBA
- Make a place for table linens
- Canned goods/canning and food storage supplies
- Find a place for Rick’s work clothes and my business supplies
- Kitchen glasses cupboard
- Bathroom linens/storage
- Scrapbooking table
- My sewing items
- Lower kitchen appliance cabinet
I will come up with two more items. And I will try to keep it to one item per week from now on. And really, half that junk that was in the desk is now sitting on my office floor (in piles, of course) waiting to find a new home…wish me luck!
What about you? Have you been cleaning up/cleaning out your spaces?
To see what I’ve done in the last four weeks, check out my other 20 Weeks posts!
The Lazy Homesteader 
I wouldn’t beat yourself up over working ahead…maybe it’s your body’s way of saying the baby may come a little early…or that you may not feel like some of these things really late in the pregnancy…
Thanks Citysister – I actually have been preoccupied with outside projects lately, so I think I’ll be back on track for the inside ones now – at least for a while! 😉
Good work! I love to organize I feel so much better when I am clean and everything has a place.
Thanks Robyn – I get excited to do stuff like this – but follow through is tough for me!
Wow, you’ve been busy! Your desk looks great. Let’s see… I’ve uh… made a list of things to organize. When you run out, you can have some of mine. =)
Annie!! – I’ve missed you! Thanks for saying hi. I can’t wait until Lent is over and you’re back!! 🙂 I hope you are enjoying this time with your family and a bit less technology, but I don’t think I’ve ever disliked someone’s sacrifice for Lent more. Not the idea, which I think is great, just missing your blog posts and comments. Haha! Hugs til Easter!
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