Repurposing for Reorganizing

I've been doing some reorganizing lately.

I've been kind of a crazy person going through my house room by room to empty, clean, toss, donate, and organize.

I should be done in roughly 12 years.

When I was working in the kitchen, I looked with new eyes at my old Hoosier cabinet. It had become a catch-all for everything that didn't have a proper home. It stored the pens, pencils, scrap paper, receipts, phone numbers, files, phone books, dog medicine, tooth fairy bags, you name it.

What would Martha say???

I decided it should be used for what is was designed for: a piece of kitchen furniture. So I took everything off the surface and out of its cabinets and drawers. I cleaned it. Then, instead of putting back the flotsam it had previously housed, I placed canisters of sugar and flour in the flour mill. In the upper cabinets I put all my spices.




Yes, Hershey's cocoa powder is a spice in my book.

It was a great place to put my cook books, so in they went, as well as table cloths in the drawers and oversized kitchen implements like grill forks and tongs.




I stood back, wiped my hands on my proverbial apron, and smiled. I was pleased.

But then I turned around and saw all the junk I had removed. Insert curse word of choice here.

I wanted a way to keep it all handy, and yet look nice. I started looking around. I found the old tool box I had picked up for about ten bucks to corral the charger cords by the sofa. It hadn't worked out as I had hoped, and it was sitting empty and forlorn, looking for a new job.

And I had one for it.

I went to the store and bought some larger mason jars. We have plenty of the smaller kind for drinking and other purposes, but I needed the next size up.

I arranged the jars in the toolbox and started filling them up.

Colored pencils, Sharpies, chalk, rulers and magnifying glasses, scissors, highlighters, pens and pencils. I even have a separate jar for unsharpened pencils in the back, so if someone picks up a pencil with no point, they can at least put it in that jar instead of back in with the good ones. The pencil sharpener is tucked in there, as well.




Along with the toolbox, there is also a phone charger caddy and the homework basket.  On the wall above is a year calendar and a dry erase/bulletin board for messages and to-do lists.  




In the cabinets below, I have a drawer organizer with paper clips, tape, glue, etc. There is space for the phone books, the receipts, loose pictures, photo albums, yearbooks, and lots of etc.






Happy sigh. I feel fresher. I feel lighter. I feel better.

And all I paid was a few dollars for the mason jars. Everything else was already on hand.

Sometimes you've just got to look around and think.








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Farm Friday. In a Wordless Wednesday Kind of Way.

One of my iddy bitty widdle biddle ducklings.





















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Weight Loss Wednesday

I went to my Weight Watcher's meeting last night.

I wasn't sure what to expect because, although I had been extremely active with cleaning/reorganizing/purging around the house, I had also eaten more than my fair share.

I hadn't gone crazy, but just off enough to start trembling as I stepped towards the scaly monster.

I held my breath....

Wait for it....

There is a God.

I lost 2 1/2 pounds this past week! That brings my total to 24 pounds, which is exactly where I wanted to be (I had set a goal for myself for 25 pounds off by the end of August, and I should be able to get another pound off by the time I flip the page on the proverbial calendar).

I know sometimes I fret over the amount lost each week. It's easy to get excited over 2 1/2 pounds, not so much for a 1/2 pound. 

But when I was waiting in line for my weigh-in, I glanced down at the log of my meetings. There's a column for the date, a column for the weight either lost or gained, and a column to put a plus or minus, for gain or loss. Since everything is arranged in the columns, it made it easy for me to see that each and every week, without fail, I had lost weight. Sometimes only a couple tenths of a pound, sometimes something more significant. But every week has been a loss, and I'm going to make it my business to let that be what I focus on.

Focus on a week, a day, on taking more steps and making healthy choices about what to eat.

One foot in front of the other....



Image source



For any of you also on the weight loss path, hope you're doing well. Let me know how things are going for you!

For anyone just joining in, you can read what I've written on this subject previously right here:


Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5



Till next week, happy weight loss!!


*************

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Miley, Miley, Miley....

Turned on the computer earlier today to see everyone all in an uproar over Miley Cyrus' performance at the VMA awards last night.

I watched the video, I read some blogs and comments and tweets, I laughed at the Smith family's reactions.



Image source

And then I sat back and thought about it, and asked myself how I felt about the whole thing.

Being the Mom of three teenaged girls (girls who grew up on Hanna Montana), I found that, oddly enough, I wasn't all that bothered.

See, when my kids were three and four years old, they went through a potty stage. I'm not talking about potty training. I'm talking about anything that remotely relates to the potty is disproportionately funny and intriguing. And although I witnessed this firsthand in my own kids, this applies to every kid of that age group pretty much across the board. You Moms know what I'm talking about. For a good two or three years, everything relating to poop or pee or potties is just hilarious. If they see a pine cone? Poop. Apple juice? Pee. You get the picture.

I think young adults go through a similar phase, only sex (and being uninhibited in general) replaces poop and pee. Normally, these kids cut loose at college. I have a friend whose daughter, who was Catholic school educated K - 12 and a wonderful girl, broke both arms as a freshman while dancing on a table at a pub.

The pub was her stage. Her place to cut loose and go a little wild with no parent/teacher/priest watching over her shoulder.


For Miley? The world is her stage.




Image source

And for years, she has had no one watching over her shoulder, no one whispering a little guidance in her ear.

Even her song lyrics sound like a little child, don't they? "It's my party I can do what I want." With as many sexual (poop and pee) references as she can put in, because that's what is looming so large in her mind right now.

When my kids were going through the potty thing, I basically ignored them, knowing it was a phase that would pass.

So with Miley,  I say everyone just back off.  Don't give her the attention she is so desperately seeking.  She'll work through her phase and move on to more adult behavior soon enough.  I think she'll be with us for a while.  She's actually quite talented (in my opinion anyway).

And believe it or not, I kind of like her song.  I just put my fingers in my ears and go lalala for the drug references, and I burned my eyes out with a hot poker after watching the video. 

But you've gotta admit, it's a catchy little tune.


*********************


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Farm Friday on a Sunday: Chicken Surgery

I was doing some barn chores yesterday.

In the course of events, I saw one of our little hens settin' off by herself, real quiet like.

So I picked her up, and noticed something looked off with her foot.

At first glance, I thought she had a bit of a manure ball stuck to her claw (it happens).

But, horror of horrors, I realized it was not a manure ball, but rather some baling twine that had gotten wrapped around her feet. And the baling twine had gotten all frayed and tight and tangled, and

HER TALON OR CLAW OR TOE OR WHATEVER WAS NEARLY AMPUTATED!!

I brought her in the house and called Daniel over. Nugget is, after all, his chicken.

I sent one of the kids to the pantry to get the surgery bin.

Doesn't everyone have a surgery bin in their closet?

I put a surgical drape in Daniel's lap and set Nugget down on it.

I cut the twine off from around her feet with some bandage scissors and reassessed her talon. It was dead, but still attached to her foot by a bit of live flesh.
I don't know, is that what you're supposed to call it, or did I just coin a new phrase?

So I got a scalpel out of a wrapper, had Daniel hold on to her pretty tight, and cut the talon off.

I. Cut. The. Talon. Off.

Where else can you read stuff like this?











Look at all that stinkin' blood. Is that not disgusting?







That is a TALON.

In my HAND.





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A Bright Light Has Gone Out

When I was about 12 years old, we moved into a house in Surf City on Long Beach Island. While I lived there, I met a boy a few houses down from me by the name of Matt Bradley.

Matt and I were in Miss McNeil's class in 6th grade. When I walked in with my treasure map project, thinking I was the bomb, I soon had the wind taken out of my sails when I saw Matt's map. He could outdraw me without even trying.

I lived in that house for a couple of years, and Matt and I had lots of fun together. In the winters, we'd go ice skating on the Manahawkin Lake and sledding down the dunes.

By freshman year in high school, we moved to the next town over, and I didn't see Matt as much. But out of the blue a couple years later, he called me up to ask me to the junior prom.

He drove up in his crappy orange Gremlin, and we had our pictures taken out on my deck; him in his rented tux and me in my Gunne Sax knock-off. I felt like I was on the arm of a celebrity that night. I was with the coolest guy there.




Years passed. We hadn't been in touch since high school, when lo and behold, the dawn of Facebook was upon us, and old friends began to reconnect.

I learned that Matt was living in California. He had married, and was the proud father of three beautiful children. He was also a talented guitar player and gymnast, and his passions were as much a part of his life as were food, water, shelter. He lived life to the fullest, in every way possible.










Unbelievably, Matt died about a week ago.





Last night I attended a memorial service on the beach in Surf City where Matt and I used to swim and body surf. A group of his old friends stood in a circle, flowers and candles in our hands, bare feet in the sand. We shared remembrances, we cried, we hugged, we prayed.


We walked down into the ocean, and set our roses into the sea.









Goodbye, Matt. You will be loved and missed by many, many people.

God bless you and your family....

Weight Loss Wednesday

Unbelievable.

Just when you think customer service and business integrity are dead, the good people over at Fitbit go and do something like this.

I had been wearing my Fitbit faithfully, 24/7, since I had first taken it out of the package.

Loved. It.

It tracked my steps, my calories burned, my miles walked, my "very active" minutes and even my sleep patterns. It pitted me against a few other gals I had friended through the Fitbit community in a friendly competition which I found very motivating. It was the most useful weight loss tool I had ever encountered.

And then something terrible happened.

I was wearing it in the ocean, because I knew it to be waterproof and I wanted to track my activity while swimming and boogie boarding, and I hadn't seen any cautions against it. Two days in the ocean went fine. Third day was NOT the charm. I got hit hard with a big wave, and off it came. The surf was rougher that day, the water not so clear, and it was gone. My girls and I walked along trying to feel for it with our toes. I searched the beach thinking perhaps it would get washed ashore, but it was gone for good.

When I got back to the house we were staying at, I emailed Fitbit's customer service and explained what happened. I honestly didn't expect to get anywhere.

Much to my surprise, they emailed back the same day. Asked me for some particulars, and by the next day they were informing me they were replacing it for me. I should be receiving it any day now.

Fitbit ROCKS!



Anyway, back to the weight loss portion of this post, I didn't do quite so well at last night's meeting. Still a loss, but only a small one (0.6 pounds). Still, I guess even a small loss when on vacation is good, right? So now it's time to get back on track for a more sizable weight loss next week.

And if my Fitbit comes in soon? It'll be that much easier.





For any of you also on the weight loss path, hope you're doing well. Let me know how things are going for you!

For anyone just joining in, you can read what I've written on this subject previously right here:


Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4



Till next week, happy weight loss!!







*************

Vote for me on Top Mommy Blogs? Pretty please? You know the drill by now. Just click the juggling chick and you've voted. You can vote every day till like, forever.



Thanks!