"I Know What We're Going to DO Today!"

Do you ever wake up in the morning with a plan? I do. I generally wake up each morning with a very good idea of exactly what I'm supposed to do. And then I spend most of the day doing anything BUT the plan. Just kidding--it's not really that bad. This summer has been a little unique because every day I have been following plans dictated by the needs/desires of family members, church callings, etc. Until yesterday. When I woke up and declared to myself that I was going to organize the armpit of the house: our "laundry/pantry/medicine closet/cleaning supply/recycling/trash/small appliance storage/craft/garage overflow" room. It's the teeny tiny room adjacent to the kitchen and it's been our "catch-all" for years.

I felt like Phineas and Ferb yesterday when I made the announcement to the kids--and they were excited. Eva even volunteered to help all day and make it a personal progress goal.

It took us all day but we eliminated garage overflow and craft stuff from the room entirely. We installed something in the garage to hang brooms, dust pans, dusters, and fly swatters (much to Vince's chagrin, as he is not thrilled to open the garage door and reach 6" to grab the fly swatter). We installed something on the wall to store plastic garbage sacks. We rehung the ironing board and iron. We put ALL the bulk food items and mixes (chocolate milk, pancake mix, muffin mix, bisquick, cornmeal, oatmeal, etc.) in plastic canisters. We got some stacking wire baskets for fruit and potatoes and onions. We got some hanging shelf baskets and stacking shelves to help organize the bread, canned goods, medicine and laundry stuff. We got a bin for the newspapers and hauled old papers out for a fresh start. We got a second garbage can and blue sacks so we can now recycle. Eva printed nice pages to help us learn what goes in which can for the next several weeks. She also printed matching labels for all the bulk food and mixes. We have a box for lunch bags and water bottles.

It's a different room! Eva is excited to post a picture so maybe she'll get to do it today.

And I know what I'm going to do TODAY! I get to finish laundry and clean my kitchen cupboards! And yes, I'm excited--I generally get to do this at least twice a year but it's been well over a year this time because we've been too busy with other things.