Life Is But A Drink

I’ve mentioned before that my husband and I are pretty neat people.  We like our house to be clean and organized.  And then sometimes life gets a bit more complicated than usual and we find ourselves having less and less time to mop the floors or pick up the clutter.

This has happened over the last couple of months.

And then we find ourselves getting frustrated.  We complain that things are messy and disorganized.  A lot.

And then something snaps because WE JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE and we get back on the path to keeping up our house.

And, so, this happened last week.

I was FED UP with things not finding their way back to their rightful place.  I was so OVER the piles of random papers on the kitchen counter.  And I was OMG-I-AM-GOING-TO-SCREAM ticked off at the state of our cabinets which looked like a hot mess.  And so I took matters into my own hands and decided to get crackin’.

I started with one messy cabinet and moved on to the next.  I took everything out, threw out what could be thrown out, and put everything back in an organized and rational way.   Ah, organization and rationality.  Totally dig those guys.

I started with the cabinet where we keep some of our kid-friendly plates and bowls.  This thing was all sorts of disorganized and had shelves of stuff that we didn’t use anymore (bottles?!?!  breast pump accessories?!?!  little forks and spoons that the kids stopped using months and months ago?!?!?  sippy cups?!?!).  I tossed all of that stuff and moved things around and now it makes me happy.

 Then, I moved on to the fridge.  There was all sorts of nastiness up in there, stuff that had expired so long ago that I am actually humiliated to admit it.  And there was no rhyme or reason to where things were placed.  Which made finding things in there a challenge.  So, again, I took everything out.  I tossed the stuff that could be tossed and put everything that was still good back in in a sensical fashion.  Again, I am happy.   Happy because I was actually able to find things in there while I was making dinner last night.  Gone were the days of me standing there with the fridge door open, staring into it blankly and wondering where the heck the heavy cream was.  Because it was there, in plain sight.  Hello, heavy cream.  How you doin’?

Next, I tackled the pantry.  Again, stuff was shoved everywhere and we honestly couldn’t tell what we had or didn’t have or where anything was.  Once again, I pulled everything out and then organized it and put it back in.

It’s times like these when you discover that you have four containers of chicken stock.  Ugh.  Chicken stock a-plenty up in my crib, y’all.

And, finally, I cleaned out the cabinet above our kitchen desk.  It’s where we keep a lot of our pet stuff and other random stuff.  As I cleaned out this cabinet, I discovered about 10 empty dog treat bags.  I also re-discovered our KEEPING ME SAFE FROM EVIL MEN AND WILD ANIMALS kit (see here), which had unexpectedly gone missing weeks ago.  Phew.  I think the evil men and wild animals were starting to get ideas.

And I’m just getting started.  There’s a coat closet  and a linen closet I plan to tackle next.  I’m like a crazy woman on an organization mission now, people.  Watch yourselves.

 

You may have heard…  there was a hurricane along the East Coast this week. We spent much of the weekend preparing for Sandy.  In the past, we’ve been notoriously bad planners and we’ve always regretted it when the power has gone out and our cupboards have been bare and our flashlights dead.  So, we hit the grocery store and stalked up on nonperishables.  We made sure we had plenty of water and batteries.  All of our flashlights were not dead.  We made sure all of our devices (iPads, cell phones, blackberries, Kindles, portable DVD players, etc.) were fully charged.

And then we waited.

It rained all day Monday.  The winds really started picking up on Monday afternoon and then got pretty intense on Monday evening.  We kept ourselves busy with board games and coloring and playing the piano and cleaning out and reorganizing our storage room (because we’re cool like that and a hurricane is a completely acceptable time to clean out and reorganize your storage room – I mean, when else are you going to do it?).  Our power stayed on which is really quite miraculous considering that, in the past, the power went out any time the wind gusted above about 10 miles per hour.

As the sun started to go down and the winds started to howl, the mailman came.  Really?!?!  Yes, really.  Delivering the mail in a hurricane.  I appreciate the effort but, as soon as he drove away, our mailbox door flew open and mail started flying around the street.  Because there was a hurricane.

So, I threw on my raincoat and boots and headed out into the hurricane to collect our wayward mail.  I ran back up the walkway and flung the door open.  Which, by the way, I’ve done a million times before and which is perfectly necessary when making a dramatic re-entry after having braved a hurricane to save your runaway (junk) mail.

Except, this time, my daughter was standing right on the other side of the door.  Probably to congratulate me for my amazing and impressive courage.  Or just waiting for me, which is I suppose more plausible.

And you want to know what I discovered?  When standing, she’s just at face level with the door knob.

Seriously?!?!?  Does this kind of stuff happen to anyone but me?

I blame the hurricane.  That, or else I’d feel like one heck of a jerk.

Honestly, I’m fully expecting a visit from child protective services by the end of the week.  Someone at her preschool is going to report the strange injury on her face.  I just know it.

An ice pack later and I was ready for a glass of wine.  Or two.

Right as we were ready to go to bed, right as the weathermen were reporting that the “worst of the storm was over” (liar, liar, pants on fire!), Sandy really made her presence known.  The wind was blowing like C.R.A.Z.Y. and I was convinced that any number of large trees around the perimeter of our house were going to come tumbling down onto our roof.  My son was understandably scared and asked to sleep with us.  And then I felt bad that our daughter was all by herself down the hall and that, if something bad happened, she’d be by herself.  So, I ended up making my way to her room and sleeping with her until the worst of the storm had passed.  Which it eventually did.

And our power never even went out.  It flickered a few times, but on it stayed.  All that preparation for naught.  Of course.

It was a wild night but, fortunately, we came out OK here.  Well, unless you count my daughter’s face.

We have a rather small half-bath downstairs off of our family room.  A pedestal sink and a toilet.  And that’s it.

I’ve been keeping my eye out for some sort of something that I could put in there to hold some extra rolls of toilet paper and various other items.  I thought about getting something like this from Pottery Barn, but I wasn’t convinced that there was enough floor space to accommodate it and I didn’t want the bathroom feeling crowded.

I also liked the idea of this tiered basket from Pottery Barn, but wished that it was taller than 14″ so it could sit on the floor.  And, well, then I’d still have the whole concern about there being enough floor space for it.

Then, I ran across this photo on the Internet and really liked the idea of using a wire basket on the wall to store a few things.

So, I started looking out for a fun wire basket we could attach to the wall.  And that’s when I came across these hanging wire baskets at Land of Nod.

I thought it looked like the perfect solution.  I ordered one in gray and, over the weekend, got my husband to hang it up on the wall in the bathroom.

I’m pretty pleased with it!  Now I’m on the look out for some cute printed washcloths (or maybe some fun tea towels?) to add to the basket since, right now, there is only a single hand towel in there for our guests to use.  I think it could be a fun – and functional – addition.  I am also going to try to replace the room spray with something a bit more sophisticated and with a bit more character, preferably in a pretty glass bottle.

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