Time to Clean Out and Organize

Okay, here it is. The post you look forward to all year, What I've cleaned up and out.

As for regular cleaning out and organizing, here's what I've done so far:

Candle cabinet--yes, I have a whole cabinet---and not exactly one--basically it's a double cabinet. Let me start by saying that we light a candle every morning for a few hours--it's part of our routine. I don't have a before picture, but it was kind of a jumbled mess with holiday candles mixed in so that I couldn't find anything. It's candles and holders of all kinds.

Everything on the top is every day type candles. Hand soap on the far left. The bottom is outdoor candles and seasonal in the tub. Fish food for the pond on the far right.

Pantry--cleaning out the pantry after the holidays is a must. Everything gets kind of junked up. The bags are out-of-control. Paper products multiply.

See all of those paper plates and napkins--in the back too? That's all everyday type stuff. I moved ALL of the holiday (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas) upstairs to the Christmas closet. Which is also organized.

The top shelf holds Christmas stuff. It sure beats carrying everything upstairs.

My closet--got rid of 7 purses and 6 pairs of shoes---unknown number of pashminas (honestly, I know, but I'm not sayin').

Christmas scrapbook supplies--I wanted to clean this stuff out before I start planning my pages for Christmas album 2023. It's much harder if you have too much stuff.

Christmas wrap/bag/ribbon/tags box. I keep all of this in the library in the back, out-of-sight. 

You can barely see a little wrapping paper sticking up. But it doesn't bother me as I'd rather not have to carry all of that stuff upstairs. Plus, the Christmas closet is starting to fill up!

Christmas closet. The reason I love this closet is that it's the one that stays perfectly organized all year long. At Christmas time it can be kind of a mess, but I just straighten it up after we put everything back. It takes like 5 minutes.

I should call it a holiday closet because it holds ALL of the holiday stuff. I've said it before and it's so true. This is one thing that really sold me on this house!

Both refrigerators. When we decided to give up the freezer for an extra refrigerator. I had no idea how much I would love that. 

We don't need the extra space very often, but it's nice to have it when we do. Plus I really like having the beverages out of the main refrigerator. 

Our regular refrigerator always seems a little empty--except for the door which is crammed full. 

Cleaned out contacts on my phone---removed about 50 old ones. It only took about a half hour. I hadn't done this in years!

Cleaned up the list of the blogs I follow--probably deleted 75 of them. Many were obsolete. Others I just wasn't interested in anymore. I think blogs are slowly dying.

Cleaned out my chair side table. This is my personal stuff. I have a pencil cup that holds more than just pencils like: tweezers, emery board and scissors. I have my computer cleaning stuff there, password book (an old address book so they are all in alphabetical order), various scrap paper and notebooks, and napkins. We eat in front of the tv all the time. The little top drawer is all of my bill paying stuff. Checks--although I don't have to write too many since I do most of it online. There are stamps and envelopes and a little basket that hold office supplies: mini stapler, binder clips, paper clips and a couple rubber bands. I have hand lotion and Blister there too. Everything I need is handy.

Did my annual ironing. Whew! I almost missed it! I'm thinking I might go to an "every two years" program as my back hurt when I was finished. All four items were too much. Before you scoff, one of those items was a tablecloth. Okay, being completely transparent, it was only a card table size cloth. Still. Butch came in and said, "You're ironing?" Like it was some huge surprise. Surely he knows by now that I do it annually! 

Photos. I was behind 3 months. I try to go through and delete once a month. I spent about an hour doing that. I don't know exactly how many photos I deleted, but I'd guess around 3-500. There were hundreds from the wedding alone. It makes me happy to be caught up on that again.

I guess that's about it. There's nothing that makes me happier than making order out of chaos.

This is not organizational related, but just want to share. My Christmas amaryllis looks like it's about ready to pop!

Karolyn gave it to me. I don't know if the whole thing just dies after it blooms or if it's the kind of thing I can keep. We'll see.