Official Spring Cleaning Start

In order to kick my booty into gear to get this house organized, cleaned and maybe even a nice deep spring clean I signed up for the 30 Day Organizathon over at The Get Organized Wizard. I’ve missed the first 3 days, but hoped right in with the challenge today! The challenge today was to declutter your bathroom cabinets. You’re supposed to set a timer for 5 minutes and just go crazy, well I did my 5 minutes and was addicted so I just forgot about the timer and cleaned my entire bathroom from top to bottom. I threw out 2 full 22L kitchen garbage bags of junk (old makeup, old hair products, wrecked kids bath toys, stuff we don’t use at all)! It was freeing, but crazy to see how much crap was literally just chilling in my bathroom when it didn’t need to be.

This picture makes me happy! Since we moved into this house in October the top shelf (below the mirror) has been absolutely full all the way across. There has also been stuff stacked up under the bottom shelf all across the counter top. I can’t believe how much cleaner it is. I got rid of a lot of my own stuff, but also quite a bit of the mans, I don’t think I’ve seen him gel his hair in ages so why did we still have 8 different gels hanging out taking up space?

This cupboard used to have all the bath stuff in it, the girls and the babies. I got really sick of the girls going into it to get out all their bath toys and play  with them and then have them not be in the bathroom anymore. I moved their stuff, and then put all the extra baby wash and lotions in here as well. The drawer inside was disgusting, they had spilled bubble bath and tub paints all over it. Now there is a zipper travel bag with all the ponytails and barrettes and they each have their comb & brush.

There is still quite a bit of extra stuff in the high cupboard, but that is because this is where I keep nail polish remover, or any expensive creams that I don’t want dumped all  over the tub or floor. I also keep the extra toothbrushes up here because otherwise they would have every single one out all at once!

Ok, so this picture is embarrassing! I emptied out some boxes that had still been packed since we moved (because I knew they were bathroom things, and knew we had no room for them at the time.) I found soap. I opened a drawer, I found soap. I opened a cupboard, I found soap. Yes, we have 23 boxes of bar soap just laying around waiting to be used now. Won’t be needing to buy any for a while.

This cupboard gets kid-locked. I moved all the girls bath toys and bubble baths into here because I am sick of them being everywhere. This also has bathroom specific cleaning supplies, my unused nice bath products and a basket that has more razers and blades in it then I even know what to do with. Did you know it’s cheaper to buy a “starter pack” razer and blades then it is to keep replacing the blades on your current razer? We did, hence a basket of them!

So that is one room done, and boy does it feel good. I only have what feels like 8 billion more to go, and I’m sure by the time I’m done another one they will have destroyed the bathroom. Another reason I took the pictures! They are proof, proof that it really was done!

It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Spring!!

It’s officially starting to be spring-like where I live. The sun is shining and attempting to melt the mass amounts of snow we accumulated over the long winter. As the temperature stays above 0 more consistently during daytime hours I get that taunting voice in my head, summer will be here before I know it and I won’t be hiding in hoodies and baggy jeans. I am seriously kicking my own butt into gear to make a final exercise push to lose as much baby related weight as possible before the season of shorts, skirts & bikini’s.

I’ve got a great set of workout routines that I’m hoping are going to kill me enough to make some noticeable changes before I’m baring too much of myself. I’ve got a diet that has eliminated as many extra junk foods and drinks as possible, but is more about incorporating more good food in than it is about cutting anything out. I did a pretty complete set of measurements, which I will be posting once a month under the pretty tape measure header above, to see if there are any major changes. I’m really hoping there are, there are some numbers that I’m more focused on changing than others! Some of these numbers have changed since I initially started watching what I eat and making an attempt to be more active in January, so yay!

April 2011 Starting Stats:

• Bust: 35.5”
• Chest: 32.5
• Natural Waist: 29”
• Pant Waist: 35”
• Hips: 38.5”
• Thighs: 22.5”
• Calves: 13.75”
• Upper Arm: 10.5”
• Forearm: 8”

Just so you don’t have to go looking, this brings my bust down 1/2”, my “pant waist” down 3”, and my hips are down 1”. I measured some extra places this time around, and measured some areas in different spots. I’m happy I went down in any of these area’s because while I tried to be more active, there were only a select few days that I was actually able to accomplish that. I’m hoping now if I put my full energy into it I will be able to bring some of those numbers even lower, while maybe building some up (umm hello chicken arms!)

Aside from attempting to work out, finding new recipes to try out (apparently I have to improve my sad cooking skills) and looking at paint colors/home décor for house makeover this summer; I’ve been busy with the kids. Specifically this little man:

I swear he’s going to be walking any day. He climbs everything in sight like a monkey, loves to bounce around in his jolly jumper and has acquired his 2 middle bottom teeth within 1 day of each other! Things are very busy around here now that he is so mobile, I feel like I’m constantly chasing kids everywhere! His sisters are pretty good with him most of the time, but at 2 and 4 years old I can’t really rely on them to all wear each other out every single day. It makes all those mundane tasks like cleaning, laundry and errands a whole lot more, ummm, exciting. (Insert any variety of other words in there though. Stressful, rushed, hard to accomplish; they all fit into that sentence one day or another. I’m hanging in there however, always hanging in there.

Happy Saturday folks!