Cleaning for Dummies (aka me)

The older I get, the more I find cleaning to be rather therapeutic at times (key: at times).  Folding some laundry and watching a show on netflix is a great way to unwind after work.  I get to be productive (laundry) and lazy (watching TV) all at the same time.  However, I do not find it therapeutic to clean when we are having people over in 20 minutes, I got home from work 5 minutes ago, I need to start dinner, the bathroom is a mess, the kitchen floor needs to be swept, and the tablecloth is beyond wrinkled because I let it sit in the laundry basket for almost a week.  The Fly Lady calls that living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  Funny but also true!

My goal via

My reality via

It's a little different for everybody, but for me the two biggest contributors to a messy place are:

1) We have way too much stuff (we're working on this, I'll continue to post our progress on this blog).

2) We don't have a good maintenance schedule for what needs to be done and when.

Now there are some obvious ones: dishes need to be done everyday, laundry needs to be done before you run out of socks and underwear, etc.  But what about all the other little things that add up to a clean home?  For example, how often should I launder our bath mat?  Or what about our kitchen floor -- how often to I really need to bucket-and-mop clean it?

I came across these handy-dandy checklists from Martha Stewart: daily, weekly and monthly tasks to keep your home clean and in good working order.  Perfect.

Again, do what works best for you -- for me, I slipped each checklist in a page protector and put them in the front of my "home book" (my collection of recipes, crafts, paint chips, fabric swatches, etc.) with a dry erase marker.  Reusable lists and a daily reminder of what needs to be done -- perfect for a visual learner who needs a check mark in order to feel productive. :)

P.S. My all time favorite, use-it-on-everything, cleaning product is Mrs. Meyers Lemon Verbana Countertop Spray.  This thing is a miracle worker and you really can use it just about anywhere.  A little goes a long way, I got a bottle of it from my sister-in-law for our wedding over a year ago and I just recently had to replace it!

Decluttering Update

Maybe I should change the name of the blog to Coupons. Crafts. Cleaning.  Just kidding!  But it does feel like I'm doing more cleaning (well, organizing and decluttering but neither of those start with "C") than just about anything else lately.  Before we pack a single box I want to ensure that the only items in our apartment are those which we actually want to take with us to Fort Wayne.

Via

We're doing pretty well on the decluttering front so far:

• 1 small shopping bag a clothes to Plato's Closet (made $17)
• 1 large shopping bag of clothes to Threads (made $30)
• 5 items sold on Ebay (made $90...crazy!)
• 1 1/2 trash bags of clothes and misc items to Salvation Army
• lots of stuff has gone into the trash (haven't really kept track), but I'm trying to sell or give away as much as possible

All the money that we've made from selling our "clutter" we're saving to put towards a new couch.  The current couch in our apartment isn't technically ours.  Plus, it's a hide-a-bed couch (meaning it weights about 5 million pounds), so we weren't exactly wanting to move it anyway. :)

Shoe Redo

I have had this very yellow pair of peep toe shoes since high school.  However, I have only worn them twice.  Mostly because the peep toe area rubs against my toe and makes it super painful to walk in about 5 minutes.  Also because they are very yellow.  As in so yellow they can be hard to wear with just about everything.  Yet I kept them (seeing a theme yet?).

So I bet you're thinking I gave away, sold, or tossed 'em, right?  Guess again!  I almost did give them away -- as I was adding them to the Salvation Army bag, I noticed a little scrap of fabric that was on my dresser that I thought would be perfect with the yellow.  I also hoped that if I tied the scrap around the peep toe area that the fabric would stop or soften the painful rubbing.

Not only are they now entirely pain free, but also (in my opinion) much more wearable.  The original yellow shoes were hard to wear with a lot of colors, but with the addition of the colorful fabric they now seem to go with just about everything (crazy as it sounds).

So do they pass the useful and/or beautiful test?  I certainly think so -- these shoes will definitely be traveling to Fort Wayne with us.

To try something like this on a pair of your shoes, just find a cute scrap of fabric and fashion it into a bow or knot (I tried both but the knot was better for this pair).  Attach wherever needed with craft glue.  I knotted the fabric around the peep toe then glued the fabric to the sides of the shoe so they just meet the sole.  Helps the whole thing to stay in place and makes it look more like it came that way and less like a craft project.

Summer Food

Here are a couple recipes that we have tried lately and loved:

1) Chicken Satay.  Perfect on the grill and a nice change from BBQ.  We made this when we had some friends over last week for a cookout -- it was a hit!  I did simplify it a little -- just oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic for the marinade since I had all of it on hand already.  Made it again tonight for a quick weeknight dinner.

Via

2) Lemon Garlic Pasta.  Really tasty!  Very fresh and and light, perfect for summer.  Great with a glass of white wine.  Bonus: dinner in under 20 minutes.

Via

3) Grilled Corn.  I absolutely love sweet corn in the summer -- try it on the grill for a lovely smokey flavor.  You can shuck the corn completely and wrap in foil, but my new favorite way is to only pull the husk away enough to remove the silk and then recovering and grilling the corn in the husk.  See the link for full directions.

Via

Enjoy!

Reupholstering 101: Vanity Stool

I love reading this delightful blog about making old, unwanted items new and fresh.  Paint goes a long way but it's always the upholstery jobs that really catch my eye.  I knew I wanted to try something with fabric but I know nothing (besides the pictures and explanations that I've seen on blogs) about reupholstering so I wanted to start with something simple.  I found this vanity stool at the consignment shop as part of a set, but, since I didn't need the actual vanity (our new apartment has a built in vanity), the lady offered to sell me just the stool for $10.

The stool is well constructed and very sturdy, but I wasn't a huge fan of the embroidered fabric and light wood.  Isaac thought it looked fine as it was, which it did, but I wanted something a bit more contemporary and fresh.

First I removed the seat from the frame with a screwdriver and painted the frame white.  While the paint was drying, I recovered the seat with some heavy weight upholstery fabric that I got in the clearance section of Jo Ann Fabrics for $4 (50% off plus a coupon for an additional 20% off).  That's it.  Actual time working: about 20 minutes (plus a little longer for the paint to dry).  Easy peasy.

First Anniversary

Disclaimer: this post has absolutely nothing to do with coupons, crafts, or cooking.  Just a couple pictures from our anniversary weekend.

For our anniversary we went up to the cottage in Pentwater, MI.  It's where Isaac proposed and also where we spent our honeymoon -- lots of special memories.  Here are a couple highlights...




We got ice cream at House of Flavors



Isaac got us a great bottle of wine from a little wine shop in Pentwater



Yummy bread and cheese to go with the wine :)



We had a little picnic on the beach where Isaac proposed



Pouring the bubbly

A very cute AND useful wedding gift from M & J who have their own wedding coming up! :)

We're Moving!

Guess what...we're moving to Fort Wayne, IN in August!  We've been waiting for the last few pieces to fall into place before we made a big announcement but we've been thinking and talking about it for a little while now. 

Fort Wayne Skyline via

We are in the process of getting an apartment and I have a job interview on Saturday -- whew, life changes fast!  We are so excited about this new chapter in our life and to see what God has in store for us in Fort Wayne.

As we prepare to move in just a few short months I am on a quest to rid our current apartment of clutter and junk.  Maybe you have seen this quote by William Morris:  “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.  This is my new mantra (ok, first mantra, I don't think I've ever had one before).  We have way more stuff then we need, especially in the clothing category, so that's where I'm starting first.

First up: jeans and bras.  I wear two pairs of jeans on a regular basis.  Two.  They are the best fitting, most comfortable pairs that I own.  In fact, I can't even remember the last time I wore any of the other pairs that I have.  Coupled with the fact that I'm not in college anymore and I only wear jeans about 5% of the time,  I really don't need more then two, or at the most three, pairs anyways (I would like to get a classy grown up pair of dark wash skinny jeans at some point).  Now comes the embarrassing part, would you like to know how many pairs of jeans I am not wearing yet keeping in my dresser?  Eight.  All are either a little too big, too small, too long, etc. Yet I kept them all just in case I...lose weight/gain weight/magically wake up 3 inches taller tomorrow morning.  So today six pairs of jeans went on Ebay.  If any of them don't sell I'll take them to Salvation Army.  Either way they will be out of our apartment.


My stack of Ebay/Salvation Army jeans

Bras: same song, second verse.  I have way too many bras that I never wear because either the band is too loose, they pinch, don't fit right, or all of the above.  Gone.  Salvation Army, you are getting a big bag of stuff from me in the near future.

Also, Isaac deserves big props -- last night he went through all his clothes and pulled out all the old/hole ridden/doesn't fit anymore/never fit in the first place/gross items from his dresser and got them all bagged up for either the trash or Salvation Army. 

We are now almost two whole boxes of clothes lighter for our move!

Stay tuned to see what we sell/give away/throw away next.