New Basement Reveal

Well, after that last scary post, I feel like I need to demonstrate that I don't actually live in a cave! In fact, most of the time, my house is pretty nice. And believe me, the embarrassment of being caught with a messy house is a big motivator to get back with the program on your daily routines!

Anyway, here are some pictures of my new and improved basement that my husband painted up all nice for me!

Being in the blog world is hard to explain to non-bloggers. But sometimes you can really get some great ideas from other people's blogs. For instance, right after the first of the year, I was poking around over at Life With my 3 Boybarians (love that name!). She had just redone her schoolroom and I liked the color scheme so much, I sent my husband straight to Home Depot to get some paint and get right on that basement. Click HERE to go take a peek at her schoolroom. Naturally, he thought I was crazy, but if he doesn't know that by now... And anyway, it was a holiday weekend and he was bored, so he went, and a few weeks later, it looks like this:

Doesn't that look wonderful? I especially like the high gloss white on the bookshelves and fireplace. It looks SO much better. In the right light, you can even see the reflection of the books in the paint. I also took the opportunity to reorganize my bookshelves and shift some of the furniture around.



I think my husband did a great job too. He apprenticed with a professional painter for about six months and he really does very meticulous work on all the trim and everything. Although, I do have to give props to the guy at Home Depot for helping us pick out the paint. Below was my original paint color. I thought a rich chocolate color would be just great, but when we got it on the wall, it looked exactly like someone had smeared a Hershey's bar all over the wall. So I was glad that we switched to a much lighter shade and Tim, the paint guy showed us how we could take the same can of paint and just lighten it a few shades for the contrasting trim.




Here is what the basement looked like when we first bought the house two years ago. It looked like they had taken a 5 gallon bucket of some kind of cheap, nasty off white color that looked sort of like a dingy tooth color and put it on every wall in the house. I'm serious! The entire house - every single surface in it, was this nasty dingy, yellow-y color. It was the only thing I didn't like about the house, well besides the ugly carpets, because I just love color in a house. My Mom always painted everything either white or off white, but I've got to have color around me. So we painted several rooms before we moved in, and several more since then, but we've just gradually been eliminating that yucky color a room at a time.


The basement was a challenge though because the walls are all textured. You know, like they texture ceilings, well they did that all the way down the walls, all the way through the whole basement. I wasn't sure how well that would look with a color, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think it looks great with the color. It feels much warmer and much more "finished" than it did, less like a basement. What do you think?

Caught with my pants down!

Well, it finally happened, the ultimate embarassment. My super-duper cleanie sister happened to drop in on a day when my house was looking like a total train wreck! Ugh. Don't you just hate it when that happens? It is SO humiliating! You just want to crawl right under the couch and eat dust bunnies.

I know you're thinking that I am the last person who should let myself be placed in a situation like that. After all, I teach this stuff and I write posts all the time about cleaning and organization. But, we all have busy weeks, and get distracted with other stuff and start drifting out of our normal routines. And even though I've learned a lot about organizing and developed a lot of new habits, it doesn't mean that I don't have a little backslide once in a while.

And my sister, of all people - sheesh! These are pictures of my sister's house. As you can see it is gorgeous and it looks like this 24 X 7. I always go into hyperdrive when I know she is coming over because I can't stand the thought of her seeing my house in less than perfect condition. And believe me, today it was in much less than perfect condition! We had just redecorated the kitchen last night and were too tired to finish it up, so there were boxes and plastic wrap and styrofoam all over, and so were the pictures we had taken down. We'd run out of kitty litter and the cat box was in a very sorry state, and naturally her grandkids were begging to come in and visit the kitties. Even my normally clean entryway was all cluttered with my Easter decorations that I was in the process of putting up. And of course, my husband had to bring her into the very messy kitchen to show off our new dining room chairs and new decor, and then take her down to the cluttered basement to show her the new paint job. Man, I so need to retrain that guy!



Oh well, what can you do? It is what it is. You can't get a do-over on that one. And stumbling around mumbling excuses and trying to shove stuff out of the way just makes it worse. You just have to stand up and deal with the situation as best you can.

After she left, I was tempted to get mad and blame my family, but it's not their fault. Yes, some of the mess was their fault, but I'm the Mom and I'm the one who sets the tone for keeping the house clean (or not!). So, I didn't get mad, but I did get busy and so did the rest of the family. And you know, with all four of us working, we had the house back under control in just about 30 minutes. Hopefully, next time we'll think to do the 30 minute clean-up BEFORE my sister comes over rather than after!

Closet Organizing 101

My friend Pooba did a post about her closet organization. She's mainly talking about Wally world and all the fabulous containers they sell, but I think she did a great job of using them to redo her closets. Pop over to take a peek - Pooba's Closet.

PS: Wanna hear something weird? I found Pooba when she entered my SITS Spring Fling contest and won my prize. Turns out she lives right in my neighborhood and I think she's the first blog commenter I've ever met in person. What are the odds?

Dealing with Financial Clutter

This is a subject I am kind of a fanatic on. Money is very important to me. Not because I want a new Lexus, or a mink coat, or a cruise around the world, but because I want to make sure that my family is safe and secure, even in precarious financial times such as these.

I've had some tough financial times in my life and it wasn't fun at all. And it isn't all about having nice clothes, or eating in nice restaurants, or taking nice vacations. It's about having a safe place to live.

Because of my Mom's financial situation as a single mother, I was raised in some very rough neighborhoods. The kind where your Mom doesn't let you play in the back yard or go across the street by yourself to play with a friend. The kind where there are shootings and police around all the time and scary looking guys walking around. Where the kids at school have lice and belong to gangs and will be only too happy to beat you up if you look at them wrong. My Jr. High School backed right up against the Long Beach Projects, so when we moved to Orange County a year or so later, I thought I'd died and gone to paradise.

Here's a great post I found on Unclutterer.com the subject of Financial Clutter - click HERE to go and check it out.

Spring Cleaning

OK folks, it's about that time of year - time for Spring Cleaning! However, the kind of Spring Cleaning I'm talking about is a little different. This is an exercise from the Fishful Thinking institute (the people who belong to that cute little fishy on my sidebar). This type of Spring Cleaning is a way to help both you and your kids eliminate mental clutter, negative thinking, and limiting beliefs. I know this exercise is designed for the kiddos, but especially if you have house cleaning issues, you have a lot of shame and guilt in your life and it isn't doing you any good. Try this exercise yourself to release those negative thoughts and replace them with positive intentions and a plan of action to make a few simple and small changes that will make your life so much better.

Fishful Thinking
Week 2 Activity: Spring Cleaning – Bag It Up!

Ingredient: Optimism, Emotional Awareness

Ages: Grade 2 to Grade 5

From Dr. Reivich:
It is finally here, springtime! It’s a time of renewal, rejuvenation and — spring cleaning! Our desire to start fresh each spring doesn’t have to stop with cleaning out drawers and bagging up all the hand-me-downs. This can also be a good time to take stock of our mental clutter, and help ourselves and our children to “bag up” any old perceptions that no longer fit.

One of my sons found the start of this school year challenging and would wake up in the morning with thoughts like; “I don’t like my class,” “I won’t do well,” “I can’t do the homework,” swirling around in his head. It was a rough start. But rough starts don’t have to mean rough middles or endings. Now, he’s enjoying school, finding the homework to be manageable and liking his class.

I can help my son develop confidence by talking with him about “those old beliefs that just don’t fit anymore.” In doing this, I’m helping him to take notice of how he’s grown—not just physically, but mentally, too!


How to Bag It Up!
Help your child to take stock of the mental clutter. Start by sharing an example of a negative belief that you want to get rid of. Write the belief on a slip of paper and then put it into a bag labeled “giveaways.” (If your child will find the “bagging up” part silly, simply talk through examples of beliefs that are no longer accurate.) After you’ve given your example, ask your child to come up with examples of his or her own. These questions will help:

• Is there something that you used to think about yourself that no longer seems to fit? Examples: “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do that.” Can you give examples of how that old belief no longer fits?

• Can you think of a negative thought you have that gets in your way or makes you feel down about yourself? Examples: “Nobody likes me” or “I stink at sports.” What is some evidence that proves that belief is not true?

• What is one thing you are doing now that you weren’t able to do last year?

Getting rid of things that no longer “fit” creates extra space, and that feels good. This spring set a goal of cleaning out negative beliefs, and filling up that extra space with Optimism!


Article for Mom:
Live Long and Smile; Keep Smiling, Be Healthy (Natural Life magazine)
According to a recent study, maintaining an optimistic perspective throughout your daily life can have a beneficial effect on your physical health. In fact, positive thinking may just help you to live longer!

Legal stuff - I am a Mom-bassador for the Fishful Thinking website and as such, I am eligible for prizes and incentives based on my activities and the traffic I generate to the site. Please contact me if you are interested in becoming a Mom-bassador too.

The Clutter Game

Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend that over the course of the next month, you have to actually use everything that is currently in your house. You have to wear every piece of clothing, eat off of every dish, use every towel and sheet, and read or watch every single book or movie!

That’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? But even if you stretched it out to a year, what percentage of your “stuff” do you think you would use? I would think 50% would be a pretty generous estimate. If the statistics folks are right, it’s probably closer to 20%. That means that 50% to 80% of the stuff in your house is living there absolutely rent free, all year long! Because when you think about it, that is how possessions earn their keep, by providing us with comfort and convenience and by serving some useful purpose. But if you’ve got a whole house full of “freeloaders” who aren’t pulling their weight, they are costing you money.

You have to own and maintain a larger house with more and more storage space to keep them in. Some people even rent additional storage spaces because they’ve outgrown their houses. You have to buy boxes and baskets and bins to store it all away and keep it out of sight. I’m hoping you do anyway. If not, then you have the emotional cost of having all this stuff lying around and taking away your peace of mind.

And how much time do you spend messing around with it? I just spent almost a whole weekend reorganizing all my pictures. That was OK with me because those pictures have a lot of meaning for me and now I won’t have to do that for probably another 5 years, but how often have you spent a whole Saturday or a whole weekend cleaning out the garage or doing the “stash and dash” for company? That’s a lot of time and effort this stuff is costing you.

Then there’s the energy drain. There are some things that really give you joy and bring back fond memories for you, but a lot of excess stuff just acts as a drain on your spirit and just makes you feel depressed and guilty for letting it pile up so much. And you feel so embarrassed when someone drops by and your house is all messy and disorganized with your” freeloaders” taking up every spare inch. Not to mention the conflicts with your children, spouse, or mother! More than one marriage has ended because of conflicts between over messy homes.

Wow, I’ll bet you’re really looking at your freeloaders with new eyes, aren’t you? Let’s do one more fun game. Mentally estimate what percentage of your house is filled with unused “treasures” – everything from old broken toys, clothes that don’t fit, stuff hiding out in the garage, books you aren’t ever going to read, etc. Be honest now. Now mentally pack it in boxes and stack it up in one (or two) rooms of your home. Estimate what percentage of your square footage that would represent. Let’s say it’s 10%. If your house payment is $1500, you are paying $150 a month to keep all that clutter! If you’re not getting $150 worth of joy out of it, I suggest you start sending that stuff out into the world to go freeload off of someone else!

Clean up Music

I read a good tip this week - I forget which blog I saw it on, but I thought it was great. Not only does upbeat music boost your mood and get you in the right frame of mind to want to do your cleaning, but it also can be used as a sort of a clue to your family that it's clean-up time.

If you always play the same artist or the same genre of music when you do your cleaning, your family will start to build a subconscious association with that music and when they hear it, they will be more likely to get up off the couch and pitch in with the work.

Flylady has a whole CD of songs that have been put together just for cleaning. You might want to pop over to her website and check it out. My favorites are the Pointer Sisters or the score from Dreamgirls.

PS: Here's a quick tip from my Grocery Tips for Smart Shoppers. Bring your Ipod with you when you go grocery shopping. The stores play that draggy elevator music so you'll shop slower and buy more stuff. Listen to your own upbeat music and keep your own pace!