organized

3/26/2011 Update

March 27, 2011 by Dana

Life has been keeping me busy. The kids and I have been cleaning out the girls room. They have bagged up a TON of stuff for me to sort through. We are on a mission to clean and reorganize the whole house, to make it work better for us.

The dishwasher is still working well. We’ve had a set back or two with the plumbing under the sink but I think we finally have it straightened out. It’s such a wonderful thing to be able to go into the kitchen and cook without having to worry with dishes everyday. Thanks to the help of the dishwasher I’ve been able to begin meal planning again.

I’m finding my iPad to be more of a blessing every day too. I’m able to put my list into my Cozi app on my iPad, take it with me to the store and check off the list as I gather my purchases. It’s a really great organizational tool, though I’m still learning to use it.

The kids are enjoying playing on the iPad too. Emmalee loves the Barbie apps available and Winston enjoys the Lego apps. Even Laycie enjoys “pretending” to play and watching YouTube and Netflix videos of her favorite Pre-k “friends”.

I have our new curriculum planned and ready to start on Monday. The kids are excited and so am I. I know they are going to enjoy it all too and I can hardly wait! Such a wonderful thing to share knowledge and God’s Word with my children every day.

So that’s what we are up to these days. I’m hoping to shoot some new photos of the kids and hopefully manage to get a new header for our blog. This week will be busy with school, nature walks and lots of housekeeping. Hopefully, it won’t keep us too busy to enjoy Luv’N Lambert Life!

The House That Cleans Itself {Book Review}

October 26, 2010 by Dana

The House That Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark

Paperback from Harvest House Publishers

$12.99 at local bookstores

Online at Amazon.com

Website: The House That Cleans Itself

This book was written with the unorganized home-keeper in mind. Mindy Starns Clark discusses her battle with disorganization and her way of overcoming it, through creating a house that cleans itself. The book creates a unique way to look at your home and keep it organized and clean, all of the time. If you can successfully follow the plans detailed in the book, the result should be a well-organized and fairly clean home. Mrs. Clark’s methods could be very helpful to many disorganized families in need of guidance in an efficient way to keep their home clean and straight.

For me, this book was yet another housekeeping book full of good ideas that I will never utilize. Most of the ideas are common sense and a great many I already knew. There were a few new surprises that I may utilize but overall it was just a refresher of ideas I’ve already heard of elsewhere. It took me a few days to read this book because I was honestly bored by it. I think this was because it was not a book of “fresh” ideas for me. For someone who has not thoroughly researched home-keeping, this book would be a great asset but for those of us who have read almost everything possible on the subject of keeping a home and learning to organize and clean a home, it comes as a repetitive territory. So I will be placing this book into my box of things that can be sent on to someone else to enjoy and I will continue on my search of the perfect housekeeping method for myself and my home.

Boys Room Done {July 28, 2010}

July 28, 2010 by Dana

I’m happy to announce that my boy’s room is now finished. I do have a few things to do in there, like reduce the amount of cars they own and rid of half-bodied Transformers that have slipped through my trash radar but overall it is done.

It took three days of work but it was well worth it all. I still have to find their mattress pads for each of their beds and wash their comforters to finish making up their beds but all the rest is finished.

Toy bins

These Pennants were passed down from my Mom.

Winston’s bunk with his animal collection and purple sheet (fav color).

The TV zone

These three cubbies were passed down from Grami to the boys. They were used with baskets for storage by her but now are sitting on top of the dresser to hold the boy’s personal items/collections.

A shot of the stuff inside the cubbies.

I’ve had this picture forever but it never really went with Winston’s old bedroom theme (Cowboys). It fits perfectly with the new sports theme.

This is a before… note the ruffled edge.

Without ruffles. A less feminine curtain for the boys.

The curtains hanging above the play table. Win’s X-men collection is hanging on both sides of the windows and more stuffed things top the windows. A baseball rug brings the sports theme down to the floor.

The kids love the new made-over room. It only took a few minutes for the girls to tear it out for Win.

Next I’m going to work on the classroom/dining room and get things set up for us to begin school work again. I think the rest of the house has become a huge disaster but they always say things look worse before they look better. We are hoping to be able to purchase a storage building to place on our property within the next month since there is not nearly enough space for things in the house. I look forward to that purchase but for now I’m managing to declutter and put things in their place slowly. It’s a never-ending process but I’m finding it fun to work through.

Til next time…