Today I went through the mail pile which had stacked up quite a lot It was great to get all that paper into the recycle bin!

It also reminds me - again - to work to get some of these people to stop writing me paper letters.

We got a new shelf for our dining area, so we can start bringing in all our plants before they freeze. So we need to do that soon.

What did you guys organize today?

do you bring in the herbs from your garden? or just let them come up again next year?

I think I'm going to tackle my desk today which has piled up due to the Jewish holidays.

I got my birthday cards for November sent out. I still send snail mail cards to family for birthdays and the holidays; I use museum cards that could be framed as small pictures. One daughter says she has framed them and hung them in her hallway across from the bathroom door. I think of these cards as little gifts in themselves and a set of 10 costs about 10 dollars. (euros) for us.

Oh Joy !
The desk and I have this on-going battle since I was, well about 13yrs..

I spent five days up in the wilderness near the grand canyon and just brought back one of my tiny vintage trailers. It's kind of ruined. I need to organize the things in it, and clear out the rodent droppings and sanitize it a bit.

Wow Jill! Your organizing project sounds fun! Not so much the sanitizing part, but it's not every day I hear about someone getting bring order to a vintage trailer. Have fun!

thanks - it needs quite a bit of doing. I am working on the list and possible resources now. It will be great to have a tiny little camper that is easy to use. I need to sell my big one to have the money to fix this up though.

My best organizing tip is to get rid of anything non-essential. It's surprisingly easy to organize when you don't have much of anything to file or keep.

Jilly -

We bring in our container plants, and we leave out the in-ground plants.

So the sage and mint and chives are in-ground and stay there.

The rosemary, three kinds of basil, and dill are in containers so those come in.

We also bring in the four pepper plants and some flowers like the lantana and two petunias.

Oh we also brought in a bit thing of stevia.

Susan -

That sounds delightful, to send them little gifts that are meaningful and long lasting!

I don't send any physical cards any more, I have become anti-mail in general. I think I've been deluged with it for too long. I do enjoy sending out books from my house, because it reduces my house clutter level. So that makes me happy!

Jilly -

It's great that you are organizing your world one step at a time! I'm sure it's very satisfying to get everything organized!

Today my son James is over for the weekend so I'm sitting with him while he plays computer games. My boyfriend is coming home with two binders. I'll post separate threads about each of the two projects I'm tackling - car notes and people notes!

Binders! I love binders. And I love organizing by category. I will have to read those threads.

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This week i am happy to say I finally got my gigantic mulch pile out of the driveway. It's only been sitting there for a year. That made me happy.

I also picked up my 1950s metal patio glider from the place I had secreted it and put it in the front yard with a small hibachi grille. The other night I made a small fire in it and sat there on the glider with dan to enjoy the fire. Very nice.

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Next organizing plan is to somehow remove the washer drum from its plastic casing to build the fire pit, move the garbage and recycling out from the lean to, and bring the patio stuff into the lean to. In an organized fashion, somehow.

I should break this all down too.

Dear Jilly -

That is awesome about the mulch and the glider! Your world is coming together!

One step at a time!

I am now putting together my auto binder.

Jilly, I also love binders for organizing anything that I need to look at on a semi-regular basis. I used to file everything in traditional files. Then a friend of mine (who is highly organized) mentioned binders. I started using them at work and it made life so much easier.

For things that I need to look at once a year or less, I prefer traditional files (or the recycle bin). But for anything I look at often, I love binders.

Susan, binders are so much fun! In my self esteem class we now have binders for it and i love it. We each have started bringing in funny or meaningful copies of stuff for us each to share and live in the binders (comics, sayings, artwork, handouts). So those things can be interspersed with the classwork. It makes everything more fun and pretty.

Binders are great! They can be powerful tools, customized in so many ways. And they are super easy to transport. Just talking about binders now makes me want to write an article about the many uses they have. Thanks all for the inspiration!

let me know when the binder article is up! Yay!

OK, today I got a lot of the scrap steel out of the driveway and from the lean-to. I filled my jeep with the metal and hope i will be able to sell that tomorrow. I still have another jeep load of steel, and a cart's full of aluminum cans.

I am very excited to get all the recyclables out from the lean to. I am excited to get the garbagey stuff out of my driveway, also. It looks really white trashy here from the road. I feel so much more settled and content when everything is clean and put in it's place.

Dear Jilly -

I know there are emotionally laden reasons for the "white trash" label. I also would gently suggest that the phrase is derogatory and applying it to your own world hinders rather than helps. So while others might use it, mentally translate it into "cluttered" into your mind. Cluttered is not derogatory - it's simply a current state that can be worked on. If things currently look cluttered, then definitely they can be worked on to look more neat and tidy!

With all the branches down, it is very cluttered looking here. Plus we have the entire old shed's worth of steel in a pile in the corner. So we have to get that out to the recycling place. My sleep schedule is really wacky right now - I was asleep about 2pm I think, awake maybe 6pm? And have been awake since then. I am trying to get myself really sleepy so when I go up I actually fall asleep instead of tossing and turning. Which reminds me, I'll go make myself some tea right now. But in any case it means I'll probably sleep through daylight again. Hopefully I'll wake up with at least a few hours of sunlight to do the outdoor gathering work before it's dark. It needs to get done before the real snows come.

Today was mostly about schoolwork, I wanted to get it done early this week so I could focus on web work during the week itself.

Today I want to bring the books that are on the outside porch into the storage area of my house. They have gotten a bit wet from the storm and are looking curly and unhappy. I move so much that all my books get ruined eventually.

I also am hoping to get the rest of the steel and some more metal out from the lean to and set them up for a second recycling run.

Lisa, you know where the white trash thing is coming from. It keeps coming from that quarter and is always either mildly irritating or vastly upsetting. I am working on just being irritated/amused instead of discouraged.

My own POV is that it's all slowly getting tidied up and clean, and that I am in no hurry. It is healing like i am healing. I have to try to remember this in spite of the anxiety of not doing something on someone else's timeline. This is MY house.

I think you should get a nice little bit of money from your old shed. Someone recently dismantled an old bus in the woods around here, and got a thousand dollars from the metal.

Today I have been working on my desk/pantry area. Yes my desk is in the pantry. It's only 150 square feet in here and I have to grab a desk where there is room.

So my books and papers and binders are mixed in with nuts and top ramen and olive oil. I have to constantly weed stuff away from my desk or it piles high in a day. Every so often i just take everything out and decide what goes back in. I'm still in the middle of this process and hope to have it under wraps tomorrow.

Today i worked on pulling more weeds from the garden (almost done!), organizing the wood for the firepit, getting boxes of random stuff off the front porch, and clearing out more things from the lean-to.

Someday all this will be organized and pretty.

Dear Jilly -

That is great that you are making such progress. Celebrate those small steps!

I know it's challenging, but maybe there's a way to start thinking of it as pretty right now. It's pretty and in progress, and that's fine. Any house will always be in progress. There will always be things to do. And that's OK. It can still be pretty right now, in its own special way.

I'll put the white trash comment in the self esteem area since I think it's more along those lines than the organizational lines.

After spending most of this morning writing, I spent the afternoon organizing my storage room and throwing out a lot of my ex's junk! What a liberating day!

Dear Dianne -

That is fantastic! Good for you! I'm sure you feel much better about that room

Celebrate the victory!

Organizing is liberating! Hurray for you! And I am so glad you let things go that no longer served you. I know how good that can feel!

You sound like you are very self aware Jilly. Stay true to what your feel and know. Consistent slow action will result in lasting change. It the consistent part that is important. No need to rush the process. I am of the mindset that rushed never works, it's fleeting at best. Time spaced improvement is the best way to create and stick a new reality.

Today the fire department came and took our exercise bike, for use in their fire station. So we're helping them stay in shape! We also gave them a bunch of beanie baby toys for use in consoling kids who are traumatized. So two sets of things out of the house. Hurrah!

Bob also did a bunch of chainsawing of fallen trees from the Nor'Easter, so the lawn is in better shape.

We *still* have the steel from the shed out there. I don't like it out there, it is a big mess. I will give Bob a few more days and then I'll just call the Craigslist guy to come take it.

The big issue right now is my Dad is coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and the dining area is full of piles of garden stuff that needs to go into the shed. So we'll have to work on that tomorrow.

Yesterday I pulled a lot of small rocks out from one of the rock piles and made a circle around one of my trees. I also pulled out some huge rocks and rolled them towards my rock garden. dan was impressed with the size of the rocks i was able to move myself. I just use my body as a lever.

Today I did some raking and filled up some containers with my nice aged compost, and stacked them under the lean to. I need to make a filter screen to really get the fine compost out. I will put that on my mental list of frugal gardening projects. I know i have some old window frames and some mesh lying around.

Much online work today today. Will get to that list shortly.

That is wonderful Jilly, that sounds wonderful! Congratulations!

We were *supposed* to have our nephew show up this evening and take away a ton of stuff. He never showed up. I'm feeling slightly frustrated that the house was supposed to be much cleaner, and he didn't even call or answer my messages. Now it may be a full week before we can even try again.

I got a bunch of writing projects done today but no cleaning ones. If anything the kitchen got much messier because some of my projects involved getting a lot of glassware dirty (I was documenting what "a shot" looked like in a variety of glasses).

OK, I need to do something organizationally helpful. I will go through a paper pile in my office and at least get that done. That will be one less pile.

Good job, Lisa! Just one more thing each day, even if it's small.

I am sorry your nephew did not show up. Can you take this stuff out yourself?

Today I did a few small things, inspired by this thread. I wanted to at least say I organized something! So I filled up my last two rain barrels with the water I collected from the eaves (in smaller buckets). And I restacked my compost pile and added water to the dry sections. I tried mixing it up a bit. I really do need to restack the pile more often as the top parts were really dry and the bottom was a little anaerobic. (read: slightly stinky).



I also moved some wood pallets and a few small things from my lean to around.

Not much, but it's something.

Today I made some calls to figure out how to get spay vouchers so i can get my kittens spayed - that was a LOT of internet searching and phone calls. I think i have it figured out now. Tonite i will print out the applications and schedule a time to fill everything out and send them off.

I also did some research on trading/selling my land and other high end possessions and put some ads up on craigslist.

Now for some online work to do!

Hi Jilly. Your post inspired me to organize my pet stuff/information. Now when I have a pet sitter in everything will be easily accessible to him or her. I thought I had it all set, but I realized this one area that needs to make sense to everyone, not just me.

Kelly Jayne, that is a wonderful idea. Did you put the stuff in a binder, or folder, or how did you do it?

I am so excited. Right now I am working on my Physical Health Binder. It's almost done! I have the different sections thus:

medical visits
Medication information
AHCCCS information
Phoenix Health Plan info
Mingus Center and misc

figuring out if i have more sections to add. Maybe a numbers/resources section.

Today I am working on my Flylady control journal. It has sections for morning routines, afternoon and evening routines, plus goes over zone clearing for the week and daily habits.

I have a control journal that i put together years ago when i lived in Seattle, and I am revamping it to make it applicable to my life now. It's really fun to make these lists, put them in sheet protectors, and use them to help me from feeling overwhelmed.

Dear Jilly -

That is awesome news! I'm so glad you are enjoying organizing your world!

My nephew finally showed up, so they took away a bunch of stuff. They didn't take the dresser, but we just sold that for $25 on Craigslist and someone took that today. So progress, and money!

Did they take the steel? Glad they took at least some stuff!

Today I took in my own first load of steel and made $20. Yesterday I bagged up my bottles and that will be another $50 when I bring it in for deposits.

I still have a lot more metal and wire to bring in but will worry about that next year. I think maybe I should set aside this money for fixing up the workshop. This way I can keep recycling and earning from this, but have it be a nice organized and pleasant experience. I need to research some sturdy bins.

I also have my calendar organized and also the 'flight plan' journal for my daily self care and cleaning tasks. It's a flylady thing.

@Kelly Jayne, did you get your pet binder worked on?

Steel might be tomorrow. I was just too busy today. I did get email organized, my second to last record set to mail, 3 loads of dishes done, etc. tiny steps.

That is great about your progress! Well done!

Today I got Cameron spayed and I also set up my financial records to meet with Utilities Assistance tomorrow.

I also went to two different food pantries and got a lot of free food for the 'over the holidays' stretch. Both places gave me free chicken, which was nice. I cooked up the cutlets today since I don't have a freezer. Now I can just keep the chicken in my dorm sized fridge.

The actual 'bird' I got from the other place I do not know what to do with. I will have to give it away in the morning when it warms up. I have no way to cook it and no way to freeze it. I actually have no idea how to even safely cook a bird.

YAY! I had my meeting with catholic charities today and they will be giving me utilities assistance in seven or eight days. THis will be a big help with my electric bill!

I also found a free place to take a hot shower right here in town. I hope to go use that tonite.

That is fantastic news, Jilly! Congratulations

I still have steel in my yard. Maybe I'll decorate it for the holidays

LOL, totally put up some lights on it.

Today I took more stuff from my lean to and did some gardening. It was tee shirt weather today, so I really enjoyed the gardening. I was very surprised to see all the great plants that made it through the cold storms of the last few weeks. My thick mulching is turning out to be very helpful in keeping everything growing over the cold months.

Been busy camping, but tomorrow i hope to get some calendar work organized. I also have to drop off some bills, run to the bank, call the MVD, meet my case manager and and pick up my meds.

I'd like to get in a walk or some yoga, too.

YAY! I got all those things done today! Except the yoga - will do that now. Plus a facial. I also did a bunch of house cleaning.

Okay, facial is done.

Tomorrow - meet behavioral worker (call or go to MVD), go to woman's group, go to shower house and fill out more calendar plans.

I got everything done this week that i needed to! It was exhausting. And I am looking at another whole week of appointments ahead...

Today is a total kick back day. I am cleaning, organizing, putzing, reading and enjoying having nothing on my calendar to do for an entire day!

I'm organizing the kitchen this holiday. Get ready for a new year, I want more organized meal times, or I probably mean less stress meals. So I'm organizing so I can plan things better. I guess I'll be working on menu plans soon.

What kind of meals plans?

I want to pick a few days a month to put together and freeze extra casserouls for cook free evenings. I want to use my slow cooker more to help in this area as well.

Ooh, what a great idea - to have casseroles put ahead. And i do not use my slow cooker enough, either.

I really should. It's so easy. I just don't like cleaning the thing out afterwards.

At least you just clean once for many meals!

It sounds like you are doing great!

Okay, you guys are inspiring me to do find and bring in my slow cooker. It's probably got dried food on it from a year ago - ick.

but I would not mind some nice beans. I can even add my garden herbs.

I have to find some of my old vegetarian cookbooks, I remember the greatest chickpea soup from fresh chickpeas. I have a handful of slow-cooker recipe books too that will come in handy in the coming year.

Meanwhile, I pulled a cheese lasagna from the freezer for dinner tonight. That was inspiring to know that one day of putting together four lasagnas created meals for eight days (if you count a left over lunch or dinner for each).

Alllrighty. Found and retrieved the cook pot. It has a black, baked on crust of old beans from last year. Ick.

I am soaking the crock right now in a bucket of rain water.

Violette, that is awesome! Whoohoo, girl; that's just being smart.

You must have a chest freezer then? I have no room for frozen anything in my dorm fridge.

today i worked on my medical binder some more, and I am still developing my Local Resources binder.

My eyes are tired now from the pinkeye so I gave it a rest.

I do have colored bins to hold my recyclables as of today, so i can mess with that this week.

That is great news Jilly! Cleaning the pot is a great first step, and sorting recyclables is fun!

Well done!

It's a new day! I need to go to the urgent care this afternoon or evening for my eyes, but in the meantime i hope to get some planning and organizing in.

ETA: My dirty crockpot? I have it floating in some rainwater and a huge circular wad of burned blackened beans was floating on the surface in the bin. heh.

I guess i can take the thing out and actually wash the rest today.

I have a Kindle copy of Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely where she has weekly menus, shopping lists and recipes. I think almost every week she includes at least one crock pot recipe, most featuring beans. The book is organized by season too which is nice.

She writes about cooking for the Fly Lady (the organizational guru of declutter I guess).

Vi, I am a Flylady fan from years ago. I recently got back on the 'flywagon'. I adore her. It's so nice that someone is just proud of us, all the time.

She is totally a guru. Good call.

I know i have a copy of Saving Dinner "Low Carb" somewhere. I think in the kitchen of my RV.

What kind of things are you interested in cooking ahead then? Bean meals mainly? And that is inspiring about all your lasagnas.

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I wanted to add that I worked on my Bills Binder today after finishing my Pet Binder. I am pretty pleased with these. I also added to my Flight Plan (ala Flylady), which is getting closer to being exactly what i need to refer to each day.

I am a little lost on compiling my Financial Resources Binder - I have so much to add and so many categories to think about. Hmmm. I zipped it all up together to mess with later.

Good night!

Had a lot of fun working on my binders this evening. Tweaked my Flight Plan, my project binder, my bills binder, health binder and class binders.

I am figuring out how to tease the local resources stuff from the financial information stuff. Still have to work on that.

I want to add my daily nutritional goals to my flight Plan next.

I worked with my bill binder tonite, adding a set of checks and pen to the binder, and info on the water and sewer companies. Then I wrote checks for those.

I'm pretty happy with this. When it comes time to pay each bill, I will fill out the specific beta on each one.

Tweaked my flight plan again tonite - added my meal plan ideas, to help me at a glance get enough fiber, whole grains, protein, dairy, veggies, fruits and antioxidants every day.

Today I worked some more on my civil traffic fine - the court wants to see proof of this and that. I gathered all the pieces and had my case manager make copies, and then we mailed the envelope to the court. So now the ball is back in their "court" as to how they will choose to reduce the charges. Hopefully. We will see.

My crockpot is now clean! Ha. Only took two weeks.

Now I just need to find a place to put it, and grab some of my bags of dried beans. I will put this up over the weekend I think. I need to make sure I don't burn the beans this time. I really am hopeless when it comes to heat and food.

Yesterday I managed to grab a friend who also needed financial help on an eye exam, and we went to our local Lions Club and filled out the applications. They will have a meeting next thursday and will let us know how that works out. So that is one more application done!!!

Also, my other girl kitten was accepted by Morningstarr for a spay voucher. So I have to get her deuterined next week.

I received my magnetic brake lights for my vintage camping trailer and want to add those to the vehicle plus the new license plate. I need help from dan with that, but these are here, ready to go.

Still working on my binders. I made a new vision board for my Flight Plan today - lots of images of water and greenery. Of course.

I'm still working on my kitchen.

Got a couple organizer cabinets to put in the basement to put craft and art supplies in for the kids...and mine as well.

oo, Vi, what kind are they?

Today I have been forum posting and then running off to clean and organize small things between postings. Wiping switch plates. Cleaning the cat bowl. Taking out the compost pail. Nothing huge but the little things that add up to a lot.

A good organization day! I am working on getting things off the floor, and putting the stuff that isn't used daily into some kinds of containers, instead of just stacked up. I hung up a few pictures on the wall, made hooks for my broom and baggie holders, brought in a better end table than the one i was using, and returned my swivel chair to the RV.

Also i found a good large spoon, small spoon and fork that I like, a decent mug, and one plate - these are to go along with my downsizing efforts.

Also did some laundry, took apart the cat house now that the kittens have a cat door, and am deciding which three (and only three) jackets to rotate into the home this month.

Okay, i did some minor stuff today - put diatomaceous earth in the cat food (which I have been meaning to do for months), sorted out my coats to figure out the top three I am using this winter), brought in a few purses to pick out which one will be the best for me right now, and eliminated some kitchen items.

I also am working to eliminate some of my winter caps - I have a lot. I kind of love these things. But I can't wear that many. I also have too many winter scarves.

I am sorting through my pajamas right now and am realizing I have way too many. I have big tees, sweats, silky stuff, flannel pj sets and comfy nightie house dresses. I spend a lot of time at home in my pjs but i still think i can get by with less.

hmmm.

I worked on my financial aid projects binder tonite - i put the dividers in a binder and added different papers in between the dividers. Next I need to make hole punches or add sheet protectors so i can track my applications and so on, and also label the dividers. But it is coming along.

Not the best organizational day, but i did get some things done. I faxed in my signature to the disability people - yay!

Also did a heap of laundry and pared down the hair stuff to one brush. next I need to look seriously at my boxes and boxes of hair ties and clips - it's ridiculous when I really just grab the same things over and over. I did just toss one broken hair claw that i kept using for some reason.

I think next time i watch a tv show I will bring up my little baskets of hair stuff and figure out what i actully use, and what is just taking up space.

I also just worked with my bill binder for this and last months' bills. That works very nicely.

I also am laying out stuff to work on tomorrow.

I have way too many hair accessories. And yet i can't seem to talk myself into getting rid of them.