Throwing Away All the Things!

I get into moods where I just want to throw everything away. Since Steve is a serial keeper, and I am a serial throw away-er, I try (try!) to stay away from his stuff. One place that I'm always trying to keep streamlined is my closet. I have 40 of those fancy hangers in my closet, and I try to keep my entire wardrobe fitting on those. (other than sweaters, which are folded on a shelf, and pjs/workout clothes/socks which are in drawers) Which means when I buy something new, something else has got to go! I'm ruthless. If something isn't working for me, or I haven't worn it for a while, it goes into the donate bag. (I should state here that I don't really have Winter/Summer clothes. I live in Texas... I have one long sleeved shirt... Obviously this would be harder if I had two separate wardrobes to deal with.)

Buuuut...

I am a scarf junkie. I love scarves, even if I don't really get a chance to wear them a lot in the Texas heat! When I find a vintage scarf I love for a good price, you better believe I am getting it. I tried to declutter my scarves, but I couldn't do it. I even have a few that I have only worn once, but I just can't get rid of them.

I used to think I was just being silly. After all, ALL the articles on decluttering say to get rid of things you don't use! And I love throwing things away! And think how much cleaner my scarf hangers would look!

But then I decided, forget the experts! I like scarves. They don't take up much room, and looking at them makes me happy.

So I made a new #1 rule of decluttering. If you aren't using something, but you like it, and don't want to throw it away, keep it!

So Cloche!

I haven't done a lot of yard sale-ing since I moved to Texas. Maybe it's the heat? But I saw a sale being advertised in our neighborhood this weekend, so Jules and I walked over to check it out.

I found a few pairs of shoes for Jules, and also a cloche! I've been wanting one for a while, but I'm cheap, and paying $15 or more for one just wasn't going to happen! But $3 seemed right! The lady selling it was so excited that I wanted it, she said she loved the bird pattern. I didn't have the heart to tell her I was going to paint it... 

I looked up some tips for painting over ceramic, but there was way too much information, so I ended up just jumping in. I had some white and grey acrylic paint in my craft stash, so I started out with that. I figured if it didn't work I could go spend some money on the right stuff. First I sanded it a bit to rough up the finish. The first coat of white looked bad. Really bad...

But I let it dry for a few minutes and added another coat. And another one. And another one. It finally started to look good!

After it was pretty well covered, I started with the grey. It looks green in this picture, but it's grey, I promise.

After three coats of grey:

I roughed it up with some sandpaper to let some of the white show through. The sandpaper I had wasn't fine enough to get it just like I wanted it, but I didn't want to go buy some (I'm cheap, remember??) so I left it.

 Nothing like a good before and after! I'm so excited with how it turned out! Not to bad for $3 and some elbow grease!

30 for 30

To celebrate my 30th birthday, I decided to throw away 30 things. Because, obviously, I know how to party it up!

I decided to start with the bathroom cupboards. Jules has been loving taking everything out of the cupboards while I get ready in the mornings, and having to put it all back every day was driving me nuts. Please tell me I'm not the only one that hoards old beauty products. Because you never know when you're going to need the last bit of that scrub, or the eye shadow you wore once and it made you look mostly dead (which is slightly alive), right?? I was ruthless. It all got thrown away. I even made room to move some of my makeup that I don't use every day, but still use, into the drawer. Ah. I'm feeling better already. And I threw away 18 things! (I counted a lot of the old make up as one thing, otherwise it would have been way over 30 already!)

Next I moved into the kitchen. Another spot in the house that always seems to attract clutter. It's funny what you see when you are really wanting to throw stuff away. I found three empty boxes, just sitting on top of the toaster oven since who knows when... 19, 20 and 21, in the trash! Actually, the recycle bin. I'm 30 now, remember? I can't go totally crazy. A plastic frog from Easter (22), an old wedding announcement (23), and two old (and empty) cans of wheat (24 and 25). I'm starting to feel young again!

Next comes the living room. I found a gold mine of trash sitting on the organ. Three grocery receipts (26), a stack of old Primary lessons and coloring sheets (27), and a few business cards (28). On the piano there was some junk mail (29).

I decided number 30 better be big. Something that would really make a difference. Then I spotted the three diaper boxes in the hall that I had put out last week to help me remember to enter the Pampers rewards numbers (it didn't work, obviously, and I had been walking around the boxes for a week, why do I do this??). So I entered the points (it took two minutes, why did I put it off??) and the boxes got put in the recycle bin!

Ahhh. I love the feel of open empty spaces. Happy birthday to me!

Gardening!!

After almost two years if being in this house, I finally started a garden!! And I haven't killed anything yet!!

We didn't plant much this year, just two tomato plants, pickling cucumbers and green beans. I didn't want to buy a bunch of plants, kill them all off and then hate myself for spending the money! But so far, so good!

Future tomatoes! 

 A tiny cucumber!

Future green beans!

Steve did an awesome job building the raised bed. He also went to the brush recycling center to get mulch, and went to home depot a million times for things I kept forgetting... I'm so glad he puts up with me!! The bed is 18 inches by 14 feet, so we have plenty of space for more stuff next year!