Mission Organization

My pantry is scary!  It is not very big, and with 3 growing  kids, we have a lot of food.  I often do not know what is in the back of the pantry because when something is used, it just gets stuffed back in.  A lot of food gets missed because the kids do not see it. I do clean out the pantry every 6 months or so, but it quickly ends up back like this. It was time something HAD to be done.  

The dollar store had bins that were the perfect size to fit in the pantry.  Last night I bought 5, but quickly found out that was not enough.  Today after church, I went back and bought 6 more. 

I started by removing the snacks and other packaged foods  from their  boxes. Removing 30 or so  boxes, makes for a lot more room.  I put like foods together in a basket, in locations where they would mostly likely to  be seen.  I was also a bit surprised at how many jars of pickles I found.  I seriously have enough to last a least of year or more.  I ended up with so many because  there are often good Mt Olive coupons and matched with sales, I buy pickles for less than a dollar.  I just had no idea how many jars there were already in there. 

I don't know how long the pantry will stay organized.  I think I am going to have to give myself another pantry challenge in the coming weeks now that I now see food that I forgot that I had. 

My coupon binder is still a work in progress.  Until this morning, I had all  my coupons cut and ready to file.   While I was thrilled to get 8 new inserts today, (I receive 2 Sunday papers) I now have a lot more cutting and sorting to do.  Luckily my youngest likes to cut coupons for me.  Hopefully I will be posting that it is finally organized soon! 

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The Organization Project

While I still did not get to the coupons, I was able to get a little something accomplished this week. I wish it was more, but with only a few days left in the online semester, and  another one of my children sick this week, I needed to cut myself some slack. The family room tree finally came down on Tuesday. We have 3 all together. The one in the front room  can be seen in our large window and one in the bedroom.  The front room  and bedroom tree came down last weekend. 

   I did not have enough time when taking the tree down, to box up the ornaments into their individual boxes.  You see I have been collecting Hallmark ornaments for just shy of 20 years.   I have slowed down considerably in the last few years, but I still manage to have quite a collection.  I laid all of the ornaments on the table in the corner, hoping to have time to get to them this week. 

The 21 Barbies in our Barbie collection.  My daughters have always loved these ornaments.  Kara still especially loves being the one to put them on the tree. 

While boxing up the ornaments, I thought it might be interesting to see how many I actually have.  Almsot every single one of them has a special meaning. All  3 of the kids have their own first 5 years series.  Each one of them are given a special grandchild ornemant from my dad and step mom each year.   The year I had a big birthday and a Halloween costume party, just happened to have an ornment with my costume that year. ( I was Glinda from The Wizard of Oz, and Kara was Dorothy.)  We have new home ornments, favorite movie ornaments and Disney ornaments for the years we went to Disney.  Even I was a bit surprised when I counted 117 Hallmark ornaments.   I also have 20 Campbells ornaments that I have collected since 1995.  There were also 26 other ornaments on the tree.   If you are counting that means we had 146 ornaments  on our tree.  Wow!  Now I know why it takes so long to take down.    It took about two hours to get them all boxed up and put away for next year.   Just enough time to watch a movie at the same time. 

Goals for the upcoming week

Not a huge list since the semester ends on Friday and homework is a priority 

Cut the coupons that I got in the last 2 weeks. (Kara will help with this) 

Finally get all the rest of miscellaneous Christmas put away

Plan for my daugthers 15th birthday next weekend.

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52 Week Organization Update

Well it is at the end of the first week of January and I thought I would give an update of my progess.  My plan was to get my coupon binders organized.   Was I successful,  sort of.  In my defense I do have a good excuse.  I did not have a full week.  I only found out about the 52 week organzation project at Mrs Happy Homemaker  4 days ago, so technically I did not have a full week.  Add to that a sick child, a few appointments and lots of homework.  My high schooler is part of a program this semester where she goes to school half a day, and does 3 of her classes online.  I have become her home school teacher which has taken up a lot of my time especially in the last few weeks.  Her online semester ends in less than 2 weeks and we probably have 3-4 weeks of work to complete.    Her homeschool work has become my number one priority over cleaning, and organizing.  The basics like dishes and laundry are being done, but not a lot of extra projects. 

I have made some progress toward my goal though.  A few nights ago I cleaned out all the expired coupons from the binder.  Wow, there were a lot of coupons that expired in Dec.  After the purge, my binder was more empty than full.   With the help of Kara, the large stack of coupons in the back of the first picture has also diminished.  Together we have cut 2/3 of the stack.  It will definitely grow again in the morning, when I am expecting 12 new inserts.  (I get 2  Sunday papers, and we are supposed to receive 6 flyers tomorrow)

On the agenda for the organization project this week.. 
Finish the coupon binder
Finally get all Christmas decor put away

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