The Urge

This week I got the urge...to clean, clean out, get rid of, and organize...
First the fridge, which took a beating over the holidays. I finally had time to 'gitter done'...

As I was putting everything away I thought, I should share my tips:

**A place for everything and everything in it's place.  Especially true for the door!  We have a sandwich shelf, a sauce shelf, a dressing shelf, a toppings shelf, and then the butter.  The bottom holds garlic, lemon and lime juices, and parmesan. 

Inside we have a milk shelf, cheese shelf (**use plastic bins if you don't have a cheese drawer!), and seldom used things in the back.  As for the **beef and chicken base, it takes the place of boullion and is much more delicious!

I attacked my closet next.  I got rid of 4 garbage bags of clothes.  I hold on to things to long and I am a sucker for a deal, resulting in a lot of mistakes.  I need to be sure when I get a deal that I actually like what I am buying.  I hope to be much smarter in the future!  {Andrea help me!}

But I still had to organize what I did have.  John had recently built the boys this book shelf giving them some much needed shelving.  It's probably too big design wise but who cares!

So I took their old bookcase and turned it into my shoe holder.  It's much better than what I had before. 

I have shelves instead of drawers for my t-shirts and pajama pants.  I saw some pricey shelf dividers on RealSimple.com, but decided to use some magazine holders instead.  Then because I am a nerd I filled those with holiday socks :). 

That bottom right corner picture shows empty shelves!  I saw an Oprah episode years ago about a family (mom, dad, baby) living in like 500 square feet in NYC and they had an empty drawer.  They said they liked the idea that they actually still had space to spare, and I have found that to be a good feeling as well.

One thing I finally gave away happened to be my mission coat.  I had it for my second winter and loved it!  I liked feeling like I had a quilt wrapped around me as I traipsed through the snow covered windy streets of Stanton, Michigan and the surrounding lake towns.  But... it's not a real practical coat for real life and I haven't worn it since.  I hope someone else can use it (not so stylish but warm and heavy!) and I'm actually sorry for hanging on to it so long...perhaps someone could have been using it all these years! Farewell, friend! 

So, if you get the urge...take pictures of your final efforts!  You'll at least have proof that you did it at some point!