5 x 5 Update #3

Lets put week 3 in the books, what do you say ladies and gentlemen?!?  How did you do?  How are you feeling and how is your space looking?  Big props to my friend Natalie, who is blogging her progress along with us here.  As always, I love hearing from you all and hope you are sticking with it, too.

I am thrilled at the progress I made this week, BUT I have a confession-- I did most of my challenge this week on Saturday.  I had a weird week and just couldn't get to much.  (Can I mention that I went back to the therapist?  She is wonderful.  I think one more session and I'll call it good for awhile.  So glad I went!  If you have ever considered seeing a counselor, I hope you will call someone.  I have referrals.  Let's get rid of #stigma and just take care of ourselves!) Plus, the projects I had slated for this week were more "all at once" projects that I thought were harder to break up into smaller ones.  I wasn't too keen on having the coat closet torn apart for three days, if you get my drift.

But, I do want to work on this, because often I don't clean and organize because it feels like "too big a project." I could have easily done the top of the coat closet one day, the organizer inside the door one day, and the coats one day-- but I kept putting it off until I had time to do it all.  And that, I think, has the potential to NEVER get done if I don't change my mindset.

To begin, please know that I FINALLY mailed that package on Wednesday.  Praise the Lord, I hope she hasn't already had that baby and it is off my kitchen counter.

Moving on... Dekker and I started out getting wonderful haircuts Saturday morning (he looks so BIG), went through Starbucks, then to the grocery store.  As I was unloading the groceries that freezer was KILLING me, so I just bit the bullet.  I took everything out, tossed what needed tossed, moved the breast milk to the deep freeze, and reorganized.  I found so much food I didn't know I had and I'm looking forward to working it into our menu over the next months and cleaning it out (and saving some $$) even more.  Then, I decided this was the time to clean the fridge.  Not a deep clean-- just a throw out all the expired stuff in the door and toss the moldy food-- clean.  I wiped the shelves down with a little Clorox Anywhere.  I felt amazed by the extra space that was freed up by getting rid of the expired condiments-- some seriously expired in 2005, and a lot expired in 2010.  I found some pickles from Dekker's FIRST birthday party.  So toss that out, move some stuff in it's place, and yahoo-- it looks and feels so much better.  The baby was happy and the toddler was occupied so I went ahead and cleaned out the pantry, too.  Organized, tossed, condensed-- and again I found food I forgot I had.

If you care enough to scrutinize what we have in the pantry...
just don't judge me.

THEN, just as Dave was about to kill me, I announced that it was time to clean the hall closet.  Our coats are forever thrown over our couch because hanging anything up in that closet is like a search and retrieve mission.  I could barely close the door, barely find a hanger-- and when I did I had to shove everything over and hope I found the rod.  I held up each coat and asked Dave, "Would you like to keep this coat you never wear-- or donate it to a man or woman who can't afford one, would otherwise be cold, and will wear it everyday?"  We each kept one dressy coat, one "snow" coat, and donated the other NINE in there.  One of my goals over the next two weeks will be to take a load to the Open Door Mission (remember the sock drawer?).  We also went through the hats and gloves and found several to donate, and condensed all the dog's stuff into one box in the top of the closet.  It looks and feels so much better, too.

This week I am hoping to get the HSA paperwork from the bank in the mail, so I can finalize that and the Flex Spending Account at work.  My other main goal this week is to sort the mail basket-- and actually file, shred, and pay up as I come across things.  These goals will easily fill my 5x5 time this week-- and it is going to be an extra busy week for me for reasons I will disclose next Sunday-- so stay tuned.

I'm already thinking ahead to week 5, and I really want to get our long-term savings organized and re-set up.  I need to call my "guy" this week and set something up so I can get that done.  Week Five is also week 12 (ish) of my sweet baby's life, which means the return of exercise-- so I hope to get my Nike+, iPod, and treadmill set up.  But that is getting ahead of myself.

Speaking of the sweet baby, here is an adorable picture...

Hello Friends!  I have been SPOILING my Mom
and Dad and sleeping very well the last two nights!!

On the journey,
Stef