home talk

I started a big decluttering project this past weekend: cleaning out my bookcases. I easily have 500-600 books in my house, most of them housed in the bookcases in the basement family room. Some of my friends are downsizing now and moving into smaller dwellings. I've seen how much they've purged when moving. Inspiring, for sure! Not that we're planning on moving anytime soon. But sometimes I look around my basement - the family room and the storage area - and feel overwhelmed by all the stuff we've accumulated over the past 30+ years of living here. 

Most of my fiction books came from library book sales. Mind you, these are books I've never even read! (I don't keep fiction books after I read them.) I only keep non-fiction books if they're ones I will refer to again. Here's the piles I'm getting rid of: 135 books, so far! I am going to start by trying to sell them in bulk on Facebook Marketplace. If that doesn't work, I'm going to call a local used bookstore where the profits go to the Environmental Defenders group, and see if they want them. If not, I will donate to the Salvation Army.

These are the main bookshelves in the family room. You can see the cleared out spaces I have now. There are two more small bookcases in the family room - one with my non-fiction books and the other with children's books from my boy's childhood days. I worked on cleaning out the children's books today. I have about 50 of those books to either sell or donate. I'll be working on my non-fiction books and cookbooks next.

Speaking of Facebook Marketplace, I've been looking for a new piece of furniture for my large kitchen wall. I'd like to replace the tall, skinny hutch and vintage cart with a mid-sized hutch. I found a beautiful pine hutch just the other day that had glass double doors on top, a nice ledge space, then two big cupboards on the bottom. And it was only $50. It sold right away. I have emotional ties to this skinny hutch. Brian and I bought it when we were first married. It was our first quality, vintage piece of furniture we purchased in an antique store. But it doesn't serve us well anymore. I need more cupboard space for larger serving dishes, our wedding china, and smaller kitchen appliances such as the blender, food processor and Crockpot. My cookbooks (I have about 40-50, soon to be less!) could go in the upper portion like what I have now. I considered a buffet instead of a hutch, but then I wouldn't have display room for my cookbooks.

The nourishing comfort food continues...this is a soup I made a few days ago. This one started out with your basic onions, celery and garlic and then I added three sweet potatoes, one carrot, a can of tomatoes and broth. Baby spinach was stirred in at the end. You can also stir in a can of drained white beans. A reader in my last post asked if I would share my posole recipe. I don't have a "recipe"! I do sometimes follow recipes I find online or in my cookbooks, but I also make a lot of things just from the top of my head. That's why I like cooking better than baking...I feel more creative with cooking. I make up a lot of my own recipes and just go with the flow as I'm cooking. 

A winter storm is going to hit here anytime now. Depending on how it tracks, we should get 4-8" of snow by tomorrow morning. High winds will also make for blowing and drifting snow across the roadways. Brian's working until 11 PM tonight so of course, I worry about him driving home in this weather. I won't be able to go to bed until he's home safe and sound. In the meantime, I have a pot of chicken and veggie soup simmering on the stove. I added fresh garlic and ginger to the soup, as well as turmeric, rosemary and thyme. Anti-inflammatory, comforting and delicious! I wish you all could smell my house right now. 😃

Have a good week and stay well and safe.

when it's too cold to go out

 When it's 5 degrees F. and the wind chill is below zero,

I stay indoors.

I really needed to make a dreaded Wal-Mart run, but I'm putting that off.

So, I started a project today. Organizing my huge pile of cut-out recipes.

I cleared the kitchen table to use as my work space.

I took manila envelopes and wrote a category on each one...appetizers,

brownies, cookies, muffins, cakes, breads, chicken, pork, beef, vegetarian, rice,

potatoes, salads, fish, veggies.

 And I went through each and every recipe and got them into the appropriate piles,

and then stuffed the envelopes.

I threw out a lot of recipes, too. And I still have too many.

Are you working on any projects around the house?

This is just one of several for me. But it's a dent. 

mission organization - before and after

 Well, here we are...a new year. I don't make resolutions or pick a word or mantra

for the year. I don't even necessarily make new goals at the first of the year. Instead,

I make goals for myself throughout the year.

One of the most positive things that happened to me last year - a huge change -

was leaving my job. Did you know I contemplated leaving that job for at

least two years?!

So, 2013 finds me settling into myself and let me tell you - it feels good.

I love being on my own schedule and being a full-time homemaker.

I have time to clean, organize, decorate, putter, get together with friends,

take more walks, work on art projects, read poetry, cook and bake, and

be of service to others in different ways (visiting the sick, making a meal,
helping with a home project, etc.)

I do keep my eyes open for job opportunities and I have applied for one job,

but haven't heard back from them. I'm trusting that these things are meant to be.

One thing I like to do in January to get a fresh start, is to declutter.

This morning, I started with a drawer in the buffet.

It held my camera, old eyeglasses, coupons, restaurant menus, 

bills, and the checkbook.

 

After:

I put the old eyeglasses in my car to bring to the Lion's eyeglass drop box.

I put all the rechargeable batteries in a little basket.

Weeded out all the expired coupons and restaurant menus that we don't

use - or don't need if the place has a web site.

In the bill and checkbook pile, I shredded old receipts and filed some bills that had been paid.

 In the kitchen, my baking cabinet was a fright.

On the bottom shelf, you'll see a plastic bag with biscuits and a large, gray

bag in the back left - which contains bagels. Why? And in the baking cabinet?!

Two of my kitties are very naughty and love to get into anything wrapped

in plastic or in a plastic bag. They both have a plastic fetish.

Seeing I can't leave anything in plastic on my kitchen counters, I have

to hide them! So, at the time I was lazy and threw the bread items

into the first available space.

After:

Baking cabinet is neat and organized and the bread items are in the freezer!

Now, on to the dreaded basement. I didn't work on this area today.

This clean-up was actually done a few days ago when Brian was home from

work and could help me out. We were packing up all the Christmas items

and getting rid of a lot of it, as we simply have too much and don't decorate

for Christmas as much as we used to.

The piles of stuff in the background is all stuff to donate!

 Brian loaded it all up into his car and took it all to Goodwill.

(Sorry for the quality of the basement pictures - there's hardly any natural light

down there so the pictures turn out fuzzy with my point-and-shoot camera.)

After:

Cleared out! (Except for all my books. Yes, I have a mini-library.)

Brian was saying that we needed a little sitting area in front of the 

bookcases. I agree it needs something, though we already have a sitting area down

here in the family room. I was thinking a little table and a couple of chairs.

It'd be a good place to sit at and look at books, or play some board games.

Here's another view so you can see most of the sitting area. 

 Tomorrow will bring a little more decluttering - another drawer in the buffet

and my pile of personal paperwork.

How are you starting 2013? Do you make resolutions or goals? 

Start new projects?