New Years Resolutions~ 2012

This year we rang in the new year at my best friend's house, as has become our tradition.  Last year, Laila did not get to come along because their dog, Wrigley, was recovering from being neutered (poor pup). But this year we brought along Laila and the dogs wreaked havoc all night. Laila was pretty exhausted this morning and still hadn't gotten up by 10:45. Awesome!

My favorite part of our New Years celebration is how low-key, low-stress it is.  Lots of girls spend the days leading up to New years Eve finding the perfect dress to wear out.  Not us!  I arrived in yoga pants...ready for a night of eating, drinking wine, talking, and hanging out! I wouldn't have it any other way.  Now for some grainy iPhone pictures...

Wrig hopped in the picture

Not sure why he was picking Laila up!

Happy New Year!

Bring on 2012!

Now on to my resolutions for 2012! I've found that it's really helpful to post them on the ol' blog because it helps me remember what I'm supposed to be working towards!

1.  Work out 3x each week.  I know, I know. This is not a very lofty goal. But really, I did not consistently work out this often during the week last year. I'm really good at talking myself out of a workout. Really good.

2. Run 500 miles in 2012. Last year my goal was to run 211 miles in 2011.  I reached that goal by July, so it was a bit too easy. I just joined an Endomondo challenge to keep me motivated!

3. Buy Local. This was actually part of my resolution in 2010 but I did not even get started with it really. I'm going to try to go to the local farmers market for produce or to Eastern Market.

4. Use my time more efficiently.  This is one I've been working on, but I think it's good to mention here. I tend to get distracted. Sometimes I'll start one thing and get distracted by another project I want to work on. So I need to focus a bit more in 2012.  I also want to do a better job of not letting things hang over my head. For example, if I have a homework project I really don't want to do, I'm going to try to get it done before anything else so I can enjoy my free time more without worrying about what I really should be doing. On that note, I should be organizing my closet right now since I've needed to do that for about the past 3 weeks (it's outta control!!).

So there you have it, my New Years Resolutions for 2012.  I'm just going to finish this post by saying...I'm going to finish my Masters this year! Woohoo!!!! My last class ends on April 21, to be specific!!!!!

Don't you just love a fresh new year to start off with? It's refreshing. Happy 2012 Everyone!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Organize the Kitchen? Why, yes, I think I will...

This will not be very interesting to anyone but me, but I do enjoy a good day of organization.  Any time I find myself feeling annoyed with the amount of space (or lack thereof) in our house, I try to think about how to reuse the space in better ways. If you need some organization inspiration, head over to I Heart Organizing . Check out her project gallery for some ideas...I love that website!

I made a list of all the areas in our house that I wanted to work on over the break and funnily enough, the kitchen did not make that list. However,  somehow I ended up spending a couple of hours cleaning and reorganizing our kitchen yesterday.

I always felt like we did not have enough cabinet space in our kitchen, but after snapping some pictures of the cabinets, it was easy to see that space was not the issue; they were just messy and disorganized.

This is one of the problems in our house, things start out organized but when we are in a hurry, we tend to just throw things wherever and over time, that clutters everything up.

We have a huge cabinet over our kitchen sink that was not being used well.  There was too much stuff in it and some items, like to-go coffee mugs, had to be crammed wherever I could find a space.

Before

Before

After

For this cabinet, I moved less used items to a different cabinet or to the highest shelf. Since we use tupperware everyday for lunches, I moved them from a slide out cabinet (picture below) in our pantry to this easy-access cabinet. Like! Before, our tupperware lids were taking over the world.  Now they are tucked inside a container inside the cabinet and are much more contained.

We have a huge, deep cabinet above our refrigerator.  I hardly ever go in it and it can be hard to access things in the back (I may need to invest in a foldable step stool).  Pretty much the only time I used this cabinet was to get out a vase every now and again. It was a huge waste not to be using this cabinet for storage in a more effective way. 

Before                                         

After

First I cleaned the cabinet out and then moved less used items to it, like baking pans and serving ware. This is a good cabinet for those bulky items that I don't use as often. It's not a very dramatic "after" shot, but it does reflect more thoughtful organizing in terms of what is stored there now!

We also have a large cabinet above the microwave that was in need of attention. Again, I took everything out of the cabinet and gave it a good scrub down.

Before

One of the problems with this cabinet was that I couldn't see everything easily. Because the cabinet is not at eye-level, it was often hard to see all the canned goods. Also, there was a hodgepodge of overflow tupperware in this cabinet and miscellaneous boxes of tea.

After

We have two cabinet shelves from IKEA that were not being used effectively before. Now, I moved them both to the top shelf to help display items that are very high up. Now that I can see everything, I won't be buying repeat items by mistake anymore!

The last cabinet that I reorganized was pretty atrocious.  People usually have a "junk drawer". This was the equivalent to a junk cabinet.   

This cabinet held some meds, lint rollers, some cleaning supplies, lunch boxes, and paper plates. And they were all out of control. This was the cabinet that you would open and hope that nothing fell out onto your head. 

Before

After

I pretty much got a whole empty shelf out of this one! I moved all the cleaning products to our cleaning caddy in the laundry room, so that freed up a lot of space. Garbage bags went under the sink. All plastic  cups, plates, and utensils went up together on the top shelf.  I can breathe again...

Reorganizing the kitchen cabinets was mostly about being more thoughtful about where things were placed. High-use items needed to go to more easily accessed cabinets. Lesser used items got moved to the storage shelves in the basement, a different cabinet, or the Goodwill pile.

Little changes like this make me so much happier to live in our house.  Have a happy Friday!

                                     

A Day to Catch Up...

Nothin' much new here. I'm just finishing up my 8th grad class this week and I'll be happy to be done with it! Only two more classes to go, plus a Capstone project and I'll be officially done with my Masters program.

This week I've been busy working on my final for class and trying to get things done for the holidays. This morning I woke up, showered, and started getting ready for work. Around 6:30, I checked my phone only to find that we have no school because of a power outage. I'm pretty grateful to have an extra day to get things done this week! I have a list of things to knock out before the weekend.

On Sunday, we went to the Lions game and this is a picture I took on my phone as we were walking to Hockeytown. I don't know what the plan is for this building, but only the front of the building is standing...made for a cool picture.

13 Hours Left!!!!

There are only 13 hours left until my Donors Choose project expires...and we don't want that to happen, now do we??

Livin' Loud with a New Listening Center

Check out my project at the above link...and then please donate! Every little bit helps!

U of M vs Ohio State

Gil & I headed to Ann Arbor on Saturday for the big game. We were about 20 minutes away from campus when we realized we had forgotten the tickets. Ouch. Drove all the way home, grabbed them, and then headed back to U of M. We tailgated with some of Gil's coworkers before heading to the stadium.

The weather was unbelievable for late November. I, of course, was still a bit freezing but was thankful for the sunshine! I did watch the entire game without a coat on!

The game itself was fun, although I'm pretty bad at live sporting events. We stood pretty much the entire game, so my back was getting sore. When we did get to sit, we were all smooshed together, so I spent a lot of time trying to keep my crazily long legs out of other people's personal space. Pretty much I just kneed people in the back. Oh well, what can 'ya do?

The end of the game was pretty exciting and all the fans rushed the field. We were pretty content to watch from our seats!

Now I'm anxiously awaiting our first good snowfall...bring on winter!

Thanksgiving!

We had a quick overnight trip to GR for Thanksgiving and then it was back to our side of the state. Gil's parents are awesome cooks, so of course we ate a ton for Thanksgiving dinner last night. Soooo good! They sent us back with lots of left overs, which I'm pretty excited to eat.

I also had a nice visit over at my mom's. She gave me a box and scrapbook of my old school stuff, which have been in her basement forever. It cracked me up to read some of my old stories from kindergarten and first grade. I will have to share later. One of the funnier stories was called "Princess Susan", in which I got a guinea pig named Cocoa (true story) and then referred to it as the "Royal Guinea Pig". Oh geez...

Tonight I (sadly) have a paper to write, which is due tomorrow. Since the college was closed for Thanksgiving, I'm pretty bitter that I still have homework and a paper due for my online class. I don't think that's fair at all!

Tomorrow we are going to tailgate at U of M and then we're going to the game (hence, I have to get the paper done tonight).

On another note, I can't believe how awesome the weather was today. It was so pretty in West Michigan and the temp was amazing. Laila was also happy on the way home...

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for! Enjoy the long weekend! :)