Closet clean up motivation

So, I usually teach a course on Saturday mornings, but I am also 'off'' a handful of weekends. I really enjoy teaching the reading classes (and the extra income: ), but it also makes me appreciate my free Saturdays.   Isaac offered to watch kids for the day even though I wasn't teaching! Nice husband. 

I thought, do I want to go run around... shop, eat lunch, go read at Barnes and Noble? Or, get crafty?

I surprised myself, and Isaac, when I decided I would rather work on getting our closets cleaned out. Wow. That means they were really bugging me, because I do not normally do things like this. My car, pantry, and other closets are proof of this.

But, for a few reasons, I was ready to tackle some messes on my day off. 

Number one, I was tired of the way these closets looked. Plus, I was a bit scared an organized friend would come over while the closet door was open... revealing my complete messy side.

Number two, when I am feeling crazy busy, doing something like this can help me feel less overwhelmed. Who knew ?!? ; )

Number three, the Rhea Lana sale is here. That IS the motivation I need to make myself clean out NOW, instead of one day when I am bored. Which doesn't happen very often anymore.

I went to Target, got a few more tubs that I could fill full of clothes that I can't part with yet. 

Then, I made huge mess trying to un-mess.  I am not a clean cleaner. 

I thought I would get it all done in the 4 .5 hours Isaac watched the kids. 

Nope. But, I did make some progress.

Then, I entered all of my items onto the website. Well, I still have some more to enter. You have until tonight to enter items. And I'm a last minute girl, so I will be entering randoms like shoes, toys, and stuff until this evening. You know, when the kids are occupied for a moment and I'm not fixing milk or food or wiping bottoms or playing trains.

This was Annette's closet before.

Here it is now. Lots of stuff out of there, but I still have plans to make it neater. That yellow shelf was Isaac's when he was little. It holds tons and tons of books. Those brown drawer things hold swimsuits and clothes we don't use very often. We have lots of dress up clothes that make this closet and one of my cabinets in the den extremely messy. So, I think my next project will be to organize those dress up clothes. It will have to be something easy that Annette can help me do, since we make a mess playing with them at least 3 or 4 times a day. I have stuffed them in that tote thing on the floor of her closet. Not too organized, but better than all over the floor. I guess we should be making better use at the top of our closets. Shelves? I'm not sure. And I should hire one of those closet organizers. But, I have lots of other things on top of my to-do list than shelving right now. Maybe this summer we can work on that : )

Charlie has an itty bitty room with an itty bitty closet. I have some drawer things in there, that are taking up the whole thing basically. Which was fine for when he was a baby, and almost all of his clothes fit nicely into those drawers. Now, I need to figure out a new plan. But on Saturday, all I got done was to rid this space of outgrown clothes. An improvement, but it's far from organized.

So there is a real look into the messy life of Morgan. I am actually so happy to have them more livable, and don't mind that they still aren't perfect.

Thanks to Isaac for giving me the time to work on this. You are ever giving.

 And thank you, Rhea Lana, for the motivation to clean out to earn some cash!

zoo

Last week we went to the zoo with some friends. Annette has been begging me to take her. She says she can't remember ever going before. Which is kind of funny to me because I've taken her at least 4 times already. If not more. Anyways, I think (hope) she is old enough to where she will remember going this time. And if not, it was still a great way to enjoy our nice weather.

A porcupine?!?! Like on my shirt?!?! : )

Love,
Morgan

By the way, I would like to know how to add a signature in some fun handwritten looking font. Like other cooler bloggers. I am sure I could just google it, but I'll save that effort for another day : )

Ta-ta!

R L time

I started consigning with Rhea Lana last year, and have shopped their sales for the past 3 years. I keep going back because I keep finding cute stuff for way less than store prices. Plus, I truly LOVE to shop and find a bargain. 

Here are some of my past finds that get me super excited to go back again this year.

Yep, I even got there Easter outfits from RL last year! That dress still had the tags from Cupcakes and Caterpillars on it, and the jon jon was 5 bucks (woohoo!) and then I had it monogrammed.  Maybe I'll get lucky and find another Easter jon jon for Charlie this year.

These were my two best finds last season. I found these matching brother sister outfits with blank white panels across the front. IN THE RIGHT SIZES, TOO!! My lucky day for sure. I think they were each around 12 or so dollars. I had them monogrammed and look how cute they turned out! Wish they were looking at the camera here, but at least they are both in the same frame.

These BBTN ric rac pants are from RL. I found a white t and had it monogrammed to match. She's worn this twice. Only because she says that it is not as cute as a dress. I guess I won't be buying many pants for a while. At least not for her.

This vintage (can it be considered vintage if it looks to be about 15 years old?) Monday's Child dress was also one of my favorite finds. It was 5 dollars. And oh how she LOVES this dress.  She wears it about once a week, which makes me happy.

I think one trick to finding good stuff is to shop early and shop at the half price sale, too. When I go back for the half price sale, I always look at the size below and the size above what my kids are actually wearing. Why? Because, many times the reason something hasn't sold yet is because it either runs too small or runs too big. Like the dress above, it was in the size 5 section, but fits like a size 3-4.  I'm kind of mad at myself for sharing this tip, because I'm worried it will leave less treasures for me:) BUT, I know I have the patience for bargain hunting that many others don't... so hopefully that will keep me safely rolling in the bargains!

To earn some money to buy these finds, I consign a bunch of our clothes that we didn't wear that often, or that I'm not hugely attached to. I can NOT get rid of things easily. I am holding on to TONS of my favorite girl and boy clothes for when we have another baby on down the line. Yet, there are things that I know I can re-sell now that don't pull at my heartstrings too badly.

This is what my closets look like. Pretty embarrassing.

All that stuff at the top is stuff that I am going to consign or donate.

Here are some things I've already started hanging and pricing...

As I sort, I have a huge to-donate pile full of things like pj's that are starting to look really worn, or things that aren't even worth a couple of bucks. I also throw away clothes that have stains or holes.  Sometimes I'll be resourceful and make rags with them, but usually I just chunk them. Otherwise, my small house would turn into a hoarded mess. This is my best motivation for spring cleaning.

Books that aren't our favorites, or that we never get to reading because we have SO many MANY other hundreds of books all over the house, will be sold in groups like this. These always sell and help free up bookshelf space for new books : )

I price and tag my items. It takes some time, but it motivates me to clean out my closets and make a bit of extra money. I do eBay and online consignment too, but this RL way is nice because I can sell a whole lot all at once and don't have to worry about boxing/wrapping things up and shipping. Plus, I get an early shoppers pass. Big bonus for me:)

Wish me luck in cleaning out the rest of the closets over the weekend! I have my work cut out for me, but can see the cute bargains at the end of the tunnel : )

Egg Muffins

I love Kalyn's Kitchen. It's my favorite cooking blog. My friend Mandy introduced me to it a while back.

This morning I decided to finally try some of her breakfast egg muffins. I've had them pinned for months, and was grateful for a slow morning which allowed us the time to make them together.  They were the best thing I've made in a long time. Probably since I discovered how to make Bok Choy Shrimp.

I followed Kalyn's recipe almost exaclty, using spinach as our veggie and sliced turkey as our meat. Both of which we had on hand and usually put in our omelettes. She strongly suggested using green onions, and I'm so glad we had some in the fridge. Delish!!!!

I don't have Spike seasoning like she suggested, so I just used Lawry's seasoned salt, and it worked really well. 

The kids helped me fill up the muffin liners by tearing up pieces of spinach and turkey. (Recipe says to spray the liners first, which I found was a helpful step.) I left a few of the muffins without onions and with just a few hidden leaves of spinach in case the kids got picky about the green stuff. To my happy surprise, they ate all of them, regardless of green. We sprinkled some reduced fat cheese on top, too.

Then, I poured in the egg and baked for 25 mins. 

They were super-duper good. We only had 4 left. Next time I'll make a double batch. Or maybe a triple, so we can eat these on busy mornings, too.

The Elephant in the Room

We went to the circus at Barton Coliseum this afternoon. I got one of those Daily Deal emails advertising its coming, and just KNEW that Annette and Charlie would love it. This was no Barnum and Bailey production, but it was definitely a fun family memory maker.

The elephants were so enormous and amazing. They could have tickl

ed us with their trunks, they were so close. I had flashbacks to reading Water for Elephants. Yikes. 

So so so sad when it was over.

Now I need to find out when the other circuses (had to google how to make that one plural ;) are comin' to town, because we want to have some more circus fun again soon!

Our Smidgen of Snow

 We woke up to snow flurries. By 10 am, there was just a tiny layer of snow here and there, but the kids were still very excited to go play in it.

We don't have snowsuits, which I thought might be a problem last night when they were forecasting snow. Thankfully, with this little amount of snow, we didn't even need them.

Yet, getting dressed was an issue, as usual.
My strong willed Annette cried and threw a fit for a solid 30 minutes because she did not want to wear pants. She was sure she could wear a dress and be fine. She pushed the issue hard. I took Charlie out and played with him first, while she kicked and screamed about not wanting to wear pants. A half hour later she finally decided to put her pants on and come outside. That girl. That strong will. Whew.

Here she is... being sweet and fun : )

 I spent the majority of our snow time re-putting on Charlie's gloves over and over again. He wanted them off, but then his hands would get wet and cold and he would want them back on. Stinker!

We made the most of our smidges of snow!