Organize Now! Book Review.

Hello everyone,

Long time, no post. Been busy with internship, family and reorganizing my home.



A few weeks ago I got in the mail a book called Organize Now!: A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life by Jennifer Ford Berry. It´s a colorful modern looking book that looks like a little organizer on the cover and is much like the size of the average organizer except for the fast amount of pages that are full of information on how to tackle your home and your life and organize it so that you can be proud to have people over and in your closets.

This book is split into 56 weeks of organization where each week you do something new and keep up with what you have already done. The first 4 weeks are about Organizing Yourself, The next 8 weeks are spent organizing your papers, the 7 weeks after that are organizing your things, the 11 weeks after that are spent organizing your High-Traffic Areas such as your living room, the entryway and so fourth, the next 7 weeks are spent on Personal Spaces like closets and jewelery boxes, the next 6 weeks are spent organizing your Storage Areas like your garage and your basement, the next 9 are for special events such as birthdays and the families safety plan, and then the last 4 are your routines such as your meal planing and grocery shopping. Note that some of these won't apply to you like organizing your pet if you don't have any but then you can just jump on over to the next week of organizing.

Jennifer is big on the fact that less is more. She is not going to tell you to just throw everything away but if you don't love it and use it then it is time to part with it in one way or another like selling it on eBay or craigs list. She also talks about how going green can lower you electric bill and has lot of tips on how to go about this.

I love how this book is put into weekly projects and how she tells you how to stay decluttered. The book is beautiful and the great part is when you finish all the weeks then you can restart the book and keep up with it all. There is no guilt trip given just because you have been messy and unorganized up until now, there is just positive regard and even the goals have little places where you can check off what you have accomplished that week.

The only down side to this book is that it is spiral bound. I have had bad results on this type of binding on books I use much. Usually the cover at some point just comes off because the spiral rips out of the cover. Also sometimes the once a year and once every 3-4 months things on the check list don't fit into what you are doing that week but that might just be the way I see these things. Other than that I recommend this book to anybody that is trying to take control of the modern home that is filled with things we believe that we have to have. Join me in my effort of owning less junk and more money because when you are organized then you don't have to buy double of something because you can't find it and you buy less stuff that you don't love or need because when you do go shopping you will ask yourself those hard questions before spending your precious hard earned money.

Taking a short brake

I had foot surgery on Thursday and I will be taking a brake for a few weeks since I will not be able to exercise or clean much with my foot like this. As soon as I am good to go I will be back full steam ahead. The only good thing about the surgery is that the pain meds suppress my appetite. Looking forward to starting my runs again. How is everybody else doing?

Week 2 Weigh In

This week I was a good girl most of the time. It was my husbands birthday this week so there was some cake involved and one night at school I bought a package of life savers gummies. But other than that I have been eating healthy. I got on the treadmill four times this week for 45 min at a time at a incline of 1-2 at 3 miles and hour. I also took M out in the stroller one evening.  I was stepping on the scale and had started loosing weight. Monday I had lost a little over a pound but then when I stepped on the scale this morning I was a pound heavier than last week. So weight this week was 219.6. I can feel that I retaining water and I´m sure that if I drank  whole bunch of green tea today that the scales will say something quite different tomorrow but this blog is where I am going to be honest and post the real weight every week. Can´t say that I wasn´t disappointed when I saw that number after working hard this week but I am not giving up.
Last week, a lady came to present to us in class about hypnotherapy and gave us a small demonstration and put us all into a trans. I was so relaxed  after that I felt so great! One of her specialties is something she calls SlenderSize. It is to help you form a more healthy relationship with food and exercise. I made my first appointment for next Friday. She told me that people that had been fat their whole lives have lost weight and kept it off for years. I´m looking forward to seeing what happens for me. Meanwhile  I will keep up with my exercises and my healthy eating.
To keep me going on the treadmill I set up my iPad and go to my Netflix app and I have been totally hooked on Army Wives lately. So I caught up on the first 4 seasons on Netflix an now I just keep up with them on the Lifetime.com website.  But I walk on the treadmill the whole time I'm watching and time flies and I'm watching my favorite stories. How do you keep yourself going during your workouts?
This week I am going to add some muscle toning into my weight loss routine. I'm thinking some Pilates and Yoga. Hopefully the Pilates will bring in my belly a little.

Week 1 Weigh In (Friday the 18th)

(Sorry we had to leave town and visit the in-laws on Friday night and I wasn't able to update on time but the photos are taken and post is written on Friday. I just couldn't get them together before I left)

OK, I'm doing it. Posting a photo of myself in my yoga clothes and I am going to wear the same clothes for each Friday photo so that you can see the difference. I am no longer hiding from the truth about my weight. This morning I stepped on the scale and it read 218.8 pounds or for those that want kilos 99kg (I'm 5 foot 10 inches or 178cm).

This week was bad for me. I put on weight. I was stressed over something that I didn't have control over so I lost control of my eating. Anything that I could get my hands on that was high in fat and simple sugars I stuffed in my mouth. I almost get frantic to find chocolate. Yesterday I told myself that enough was enough and I quit. No more binging. Back to reality.
I don't have the right to do this to myself. I don't have the right to be obese. I have a family that depends on me to be healthy and to live a long life. I have a good husband that supports me and is an amazing father. He deserves a healthy, sexy wife. My boys deserve a happy, more energetic mom.

OK you amazing people out there in cyberspace. I want you to write this in the comments section and also say it out loud: Even though I am over weight, I truly and utterly love and accept myself.

I know it sounds corny. But try it. See how you feel. If you are willing then I would love to hear how you felt when you said that out loud. If you don't believe it then I want you to keep telling yourself that every morning in front of the mirror. How can you truly love and respect others if you don't love and respect yourself.
Also, if you are going to loose weight with me, my goal for this week is to not go over my 1600 calorie limit a day and go for a 30 minute walk with my boys in the stroller 3 times before my next weigh in. Baby steps is the way to go to make good choices habits. What is your baby step goal?

So if you are doing this with me then I need a weigh in, your written agreement of loving and accepting yourself as you are, what your baby step is toward living a healthier lifestyle and your thoughts and feelings about that. If you don't want anybody to know who you are then write this up anonymously  in the comments section. But stepping on the scale and telling someone you trust your true weight every week is a big step toward becoming a healthier you and to quit hiding and being ashamed.

Week 1 Decluttering the Laundry Center

(Sorry for how late this is posted. I was having difficulty with Google and storage so that I could upload pics)

This week I am tackling my laundry center. It is in my kitchen and my dryer ends up being a hot spot for clutter. Also the top of my laundry organizer collects all kinds of stuff.
I took a before picture. Normally I don´t have this much laundry but after a lot off illness in this house and lots of school work that I had to catch up on it piled up.

I´ve been working on the laundry all weekend. Had a small anxiety issue yesterday and it put a hold on my blessing my family by cleaning. But I have gotten myself together and today has been a good day in making my house a home that is a step closer to being welcoming to my boys and myself. A place that my family can be proud to call their home.

Do you have a cluttered laundry center? Is there gunk building up under the lid of your washer? Do you have clothes that need to be washed on the gentle cycle that you just haven´t gotten to washing? Well today is the day to bless your laundry center with your love and attention. Take a before and after photo and show me how you have loved yourself and your family. Then post it to the flicker group.

Why I am Starting this Blog

I am starting this blog in an attempt to take control of myself and my home. In the last few years my home and my body has become more and more disorganized with each child that has been born. I believe that I have reached the bottom and there is no place but up.
This is my House

It is a 1500 square foot house with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom.The whole downstairs is just the living room, dinning room and kitchen. Upstairs are the 3 bedrooms and the bathroom. Then we have a basement.

At the moment there is not a single room in the house that is clean and uncluttered.

I have four closets that are full of things that we don't use or love.

This blog will be about my journey to a clutter free life both physically and in my home.

Each Monday I will tell you how I have done decluttering and fixing up my home with photos of my projects. I will have a tab where you can follow along with my process of getting a routine started and what my favorite cleaning and organizing products are with links to where you are able to buy them if you would like to try them for yourself.

Each Friday I will talk about how I am decluttering my body and mind. I will have a photo of the week of me and a tab where I will have photos of me and my changing body through the weeks. My goal is to loose 30 pounds in 4 months because we plan on adding to our family and my body can't handle adding any more weight on to my knees and I also am afraid of being this heavy and getting pregnant on top of it. At the moment I am 24 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant with my first child. I had worked hard to loose that weight and it took a lot of running and changing my eating habits to an extreme. I'm hoping now that I have weaned my youngest son M which is a year old I am able to really take control of my body and do what I need to do for myself.

You might hear stories of my family every once in a while since they are such a large part of who I am. I am married to an amazing man who is a System Administrator for a law firm. He is such a great husband and an AMAZING father. Then there is O who is turning three years old next month and he is crazy about trains and cars. M is a year and is my cuddle monster.
I am also in Grad School getting my Masters in Counseling Psychology and with all of that together I have sort of put myself and my home on hold which is unfair to me and unfair to my family. I now realize that when I look at things around the house and don't clean them up am not giving myself a brake. I am making it harder on me and my family. Now when I think about doing dishes and laundry my mindset it that I am blessing myself and my family with a clean home. When I have little time even if I just pick up toys before bed then I am giving myself a brake when I look around afterwords things are neat.
I have been ill lately and out of breath so I left everything. My dining room table has paper work all over half of it while the other half is cleared off so that we can eat at it. How rude is it of me to make my family eat this way. My washer and drier is in the kitchen and today I went through the house and gathered up all of the laundry and it is now a mountain on my kitchen floor.  What the hell I'll walk through the house and show you how bad it is. The only way to get better is to come to terms to how bad things are and stop hiding. My house was on the fast track to one of those hoarder homes. But no more. OK I can't show you how bad it is today. It's way too embarrasing after being sick. This is not a normal state. But once it gets to a normal state then I will have no problem showing you all my clutter and what I plan on doing about it.