Organizing Five!

Time for Five on Friday and Friday’s Fave Five and I spent so many hours organizing spaces around this old house that I missed organizing my Friday post last night! Thank you to Amy and to Susanne who have organized these memes for all of us to enjoy.

Our eastern Washington kids are coming to visit the last weekend of this month. My daughter who just moved out of our basement with her hubby came over this week to help me organize her stuff that had overtaken this guest room. Now it is ready for Dan and Jamie’s visit. Although Katie and Andrew have moved out they have to leave a lot of their stuff here because it just won’t fit in their little 570 square foot space.

Besides clearing out guest room #1 we moved some furniture around and changed up Guest Room #2 and organized the basement. One of the additions in the basement is this drape (tablecloth) that covers the closet in the basement that is full to the brim with our daughter and son-in-law’s stuff. The dresser in the photo next to the bookcases is being filled with books we are ready to let go. Organization continues there.

Don’t be afraid as you look at my dish space in the basement. I have my mom’s 50th wedding anniversary dish set (service for 24), Christmas dishes, Thanksgiving dishes, pink Depression glass, lots of blue and white dishes, cake plates, etc. etc. I re-organized this space and even got rid of a few plates. But…then while I was in Canada on Tuesday I bought the fruit bowl (below) with 8 little matching bowls, oops. The boxes under the table belong to our kids. Our poor basement dwellers lived with this dish wall for a whole year bless them…

I’m such a sucker for Johnson Brothers dishes.

While I’ve been organizing inside this old house Dear has been organizing his shop and our garage space. We’ve also completed projects organizing outside spaces. This next photo is our latest organized outdoor space. I can see this planter from my kitchen window.

So I am thankful for spaces to organize, the strength to organize them, the satisfaction of ordered spaces, having help in the process, and looking forward to sharing these organized spaces with others.

What are you thankful for? Are you on an organizing binge?

Nesting at 60 Something…

Is there such a thing as menopausal nesting? This Memorial weekend seemed like a non stop nesting event for both myself and Dear. We organized, trashed and reorganized a lot of our junk. We made trips to the metal recycling sight and now have more piles of stuff to get rid of. Good times. We had some sunshine, some mist, some rain, cold mornings, warm afternoons. We enjoyed good company and our time with each other. Some of our motivation to clean out is the fact that we are getting ready to finally replace our well worn floors in this old house.

All of these spaces will be hardwood by the end of July. Once the hardwood is added we will choose and plan the timing to have carpeting replaced in our bedrooms and living room. Makes me tired just thinking about it. I took some time to walk about the yard with my camera for some relaxing distraction.

The Camellias are at the end of their glory.

I’m excited to see my 5 Peonies that will soon burst forth into their full bloom. Last year I only had one.

My Rhoddies are dropping their blooms.

As some blooms are fading we have the promise of more blooms to come.

I ended my walk about the yard by looking up. It’s good to remember to keep looking up!

Psalm 121: 1-8 (ESV)

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

Hope you had time to look up, too. Blessings.

FFF ~ Late in Summer…

Time to take a deep breath and consider some wonderful things that happened in the past week. Visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in this great exercise. Here are 5 of my favorites…

1. The evening shadows and sunshine that are so soft in late summer. We opened the door to the deck and enjoyed the lovely breeze.

2. Starting up in a new Bible Study on Tuesdays. I signed up for a Kay Arthur Precepts study and I’m looking forward to digging in again and meeting with a group of women each week who are digging, too.

3. Watching my daughter deep clean and get rid of clutter in her room. She’s purging a lot of stuff that just doesn’t fit in her life anymore.

4. Entering a new dimension with our middle son who called to wish his dad a happy birthday and to chat at 5:30 a.m. last Saturday. When we got off the phone I couldn’t help but chuckle thinking this never would of happened in his previous 28 years!

5. Getting some projects completed and having success in some shopping goals this week!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Sequestered…

amongst all these boxes. My brain won’t be released till I’ve gone through and sorted all this stuff. I hope to make a dent today.

As soon as the thermometer outside registers over 40 degrees I’ll pull out the cars, set up my table and get to work. This is just a shameless post to try to drum up some sympathy and also to let you know why I might be absent in Bloggyland. If I don’t surface in a couple days send out the troops to come rescue me…

Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone…

I’ve Been Plugging Away…

…at all the boxes of stuff we had in the attic!

One night during my “I’m awake at 3 A.M. moments” I got this genius idea to take all those old photos out of their frames that were stored in two different tubs. Later that week I bought a package of 5 x7 and 8 x 10 archival quality sleeves. On Tuesday I slipped each photo I de-framed into them. They will all fit in two small binders instead of two big plastic tubs! The old frames will be sold at a garage sale.

While I was completing this task I came across this old photo of Dear and I. I think this was taken at our engagement party way back in 1974.

And in other news…

My dad went home from the hospital last evening. Yesterday while my mom was saying goodbye to some friends from church who came to visit she stumbled and hit her head. She’s ok but she caused quite a stir. I’ll be calling them later to see how their night at home went.

Tonight is the first MLS season game for the Seattle Sounders. I’ll be meeting up with my son and DIL to head downtown for the March to the Match and dinner at the Taco Stand and then the game! Fun times are afoot!!

And yes it is finally raining again the the Northwest.

Hope you all have a good productive Thursday! Blessings…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Thrift Store Treasures

So my walking numbers are way down this week after my high stepping totals last week. I’ve been sidetracked this week. I decided to clean out my kitchen cupboards and reorganize them so it’s easier to work. I had 3 bags of stuff to donate to the local thrift store. Things that just aren’t working in the condo. I have another box full of stuff to take back to the Mother ship in Seattle. Just when I was ahead I had a great shopping day at none other than Goodwill.

6 Water Goblets with roses etched on them (all 6 for 2.99), Tea Pot and two tea cups $2.99, A three piece cream and gold tea place setting for $1.99 (Kahla, East Germany), A Tiffany and Co. Ice bucket for 1.99.

A Limoges little basket dish for $1.99

There were 11 of these little vases that are designed to be place card holders. I got the set of 11 for $4.99.

Now the big decision on what to leave here and what to send to the Mother Ship…

I’m headed to Orange County today to meet some of my family at a Persian Restaurant to celebrate my father’s 85th birthday. I’ll try to catch up with y’all tomorrow. Have a wonderful day.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Organizing