Tackle it Tuesday – My Bathroom Shelves

Bathroom Shelves

In the bathroom that Kaitlyn and I share, I have a deep recess in the wall with shelves that I use to store all my makeup and skincare stuff. I never meant to let it get this bad. The storage cabinets with the multiple drawers seemed like such a good idea at first, I would have one drawer for face makeup, one drawer for eye makeup, one drawer for lip makeup, etc. Everything would stay neatly in it's drawer and I'd always know where everything was. Yeah, right. Not only have I failed at keeping the drawers organized, but I have all this big stuff that doesn't fit in the drawers that ends up piled up in FRONT of the drawers. Which means I can't OPEN the drawers. I'm going to show you something that causes me all kinds of embarrassment any time someone comes over here and needs to use my bathroom: And here's my biggest problem, bigger even than these shelves - I can't throw things away if they still seem useful. For example, I have lipsticks I bought that seemed great at the store … [Read more...]

Tackle It Tuesday – Trying to Achieve Inbox Zero

Tackle It Tuesday posts are usually about getting something done around the house, but I'm using it today to discuss a problem I have that is much, much bigger than just a messy house - my email inboxes. My inboxes are the bane of my existence. Everyone in my family and most of my close friends have, at one time or another, had to listen to me talk about how I cannot get caught up on email. I use Gmail, which lets me create folders to put messages in, or labels to mark what messages in my inbox are for, and I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. And to make it worse, I have three Gmails. One for Table for Five, one for MomReviews, and one for MomCooks. Gmail lets me combine all three into one inbox if I want, but with hundreds of messages a day coming into all three, it just got stressful seeing that many messages all in one place! My ultimate goal is to achieve Inbox Zero. Inbox Zero is the creation of Merlin Mann of 43 Folders, a site about finding the time and attention to do … [Read more...]

Tackle It Tuesday – Kaitlyn’s Room

Kaitlyns Room2

This is my first post for Tackle It Tuesday, a terrific weekly feature that started on 5 Minutes for Mom! We had no specific plans for Memorial Day, so while Chris & the kids were cleaning out the garage - meaning, breaking down all the boxes I had tossed in there over the last month to take to the recycling center - I decided to tackle Kaitlyn's room. At first I wasn't going to take a picture because it was just so embarrassing, and then I decided what the heck, it would be a good excuse to do a post for Tackle It Tuesday. Brace yourselves: Why yes, it DOES look like the Barnes & Noble kids' section and the Target toy aisle exploded all over her room!  Also, last week I asked Nathan to put the laundry away and he whined that he couldn't put Kaitlyn's clothes away because he didn't know what drawers anything went in. So I solved that problem for him: No more excuses for you, Mister :P I've always assumed that the goal of Tackle It Tuesday was to show how you … [Read more...]