A Cluttered Mess

We have too much stuff.  Ok, maybe I'm the main reason we have too much stuff.  And maybe alot of the extra stuff might be craft related.  And decorations for the house.  And tot school stuff.  And craft stuff.  And stuff to file.  And all this extra stuff ends up in the craft room/school room.  And now it looks like this

Oh the horror!  Look away, look away!  Kids, don't be like me. 

So now my big project (in between the thousands of littler projects) is whipping this room into shape.  Yes, whipping.  Whip it real good.  Into something a little more like this:

created using Pinterest

Oh this is gonna take awhile.  And I'll have to refrain from buying more craft stuff.  Or at least find another place to stash it ;)

Spicing Things up in the Kitchen with...Shoes?!?

Another round of Tipsy Tuesday!  I was trying decide what to post today as I rummaged in my kitchen for sweets a healthy snack.  As I opened the door to my pantry, it hit me: post about the wonderful uses of the over-the-door shoe holder!  I have a door mounted shoe organizer hanging on my pantry door.  No silly, I do not keep shoes in my kitchen (well, not intentionally anyway).  I use this genius organizer to corral my spices, tea bags, cooking sprays, etc.  I should note that I do not have an amazing state of the art kitchen with built in spice organizers (poor, poor me!) and my cheery little kitchen is also pretty tiny.  I DO have a nice pantry with shelves deep enough to swallow a sea of spices.  Enter the shoe, ahem, spice organizer:

I saw this idea in a magazine eons ago (I'm thinking Real Simple, but I'm really not sure) and my mental filing cabinet spit the idea back out to me when we moved into our current house.  I cannot tell you how much easier it is to find spices this way AND I don't have to dedicate an entire shelf to my spice collection!  Oh how I love simple things that make my life easier and more organized :)

Evernote Rocks

Welcome to Tipsy Tuesday! No - not that kind o tipsy. The actual tip kind. As in, here's a tip that makes my life easier (ok, I DO see how the other kind of tipsy would apply to the previous sentence, but really, not that kind of tipsy)

So, today's tip - the AMAZING personal online note repository Evernote. I {heart} Evernote! I love it so much, that I might need a 12-step progam someday. No - I'm not paid to say that. And, no - I have zero affiliation with Evernote, other than I'm a user and I LOVE it! I have an oh-so-slight addicition to organizing. You would think that this means I'm totally organized... I'M NOT. I just love the idea of being organized and all the fun organizing stuff. I have alot of information swimming around in my head at any given moment (yeah, I'm sure noooo one else has that right?) and I really just needed a place to dump it all. Enter my favorite in-the-cloud site: http://www.evernote.com/. Here's they're tagline:

So, what makes it awesome you ask? Well let's fire up the bullet list:

• It's FREE (yeah that goes a long way towards awesome for me)
• You can create whatever folder/tagging structure works for you
• You can share one or more notebooks (really just a big folder o info) - i used it for Christmas lists this year
• You get 40 MB of free monthly storage - I have NEVER come close to needing more monthly storage
• You can email straight into it - I cannot tell you how much I love that functionality
• There's a mobile version - another HUGE reason that I love it! Hello grocery list available from anywhere...
• It's completely searchable...completely

And how do I use it? Lists, lists and more lists:

• Links and tutorials to all of the crafty ideas that are on my to-do-someday list
• my regular grocery list along with special grocery lists (for freezer cooking, baking, etc)
• errand lists (because I am forever wandering around a store wondering what it was that I needed)
• gift lists including sizes & preferences (you never know when you'll find a perfect something for your Aunt Matilda, but be unsure on whether she needs a petite)
• wish lists (hmmm - maybe this one I should share with the likes of my husband and family)
• brain dump lists to be dealt with later (so that I can shush the voices and get some sleep)

Ok, I'm starting to make myself sick. But, really it is an awesome application. It has made my life quite a bit more organized and smooth - and all for FREE :)