Now where did I put that book??

By: Melanie

Remember me? Well, I'm back. We survived the moves - from Brooklyn to Toronto and from Toronto to Ottawa - and have been settling in to our new home for the last six weeks or so. We've done a pretty good job of getting unpacked and set up, which is much easier when moving from a small-ish 1 1/2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house with a basement than the other way around, but I'm starting to hit the wall. 

There is still furniture to be purchased, window coverings, photos to be enlarged, framed and hung, a clothesline to be installed, and a myriad of other things that crop up every day. And with a toddler running around infiltrating my every thought with her exuberant questioning and lists of demands, it is becoming more and more difficult to move forward. 

Every time I decide that's it, I'm driving to IKEA and I'm not leaving until everything I need is in my cart, I realize that I have no idea what I'm going for. I also realize that I'm not sure IKEA will do it for me this time. I've been relying on everyone's favourite Swedish Solution for years now, and although I still appreciate their anything-you-could-possibly-be-looking-for-under-one-roof-at-pretty-incomparable-prices (uh, except for bedskirts, it would seem), I'm just a little tired of the generic-ness of it all. I'm feeling the need for a little more personality. Which is another great reason to scour Kijiji, except that requires massive amounts of free, uninterrupted browsing time. Nonexistant in this household, unless I pick up insomnia as my newest hobby.

But, it must get done. I had a deadline of being completely unpacked by July 1st, which we essentially met. When I say essentially, I mean that boxes continue to trickle in from Toronto that we get to as they arrive, and there are boxes of books and things that cannot be unpacked until the furniture that will house them is purchased. But, other than that, we're unpacked.

Now I'm giving myself a new deadline. By September 1st, I want the house to be fully set up. Curtains, bookshelves, a proper guest room/home office - heck, even landscaping. Although I'm using that term loosely. That gives me 5 1/2 weeks, and if I can't do it by then...well...I won't even have to worry about that, will I? Now I'm off to hunt down that little green book and get back on track!

Sleepless, Homeless, and Giddy with Excitement

By: Melanie

The move is complete, our worldly belongings are in storage, and the house hunt is well underway. So far underway, in fact, that we may just have ourselves a new home. Another 24 hours or so should decide it. And my head is spinning. I awoke at 2:30am to the distressed whine of a pooch with a nasty stomach bug, but I stayed awake for the next hour and a half thinking about which china cabinet will go in the dining room and whether E's playroom will be in her bedroom or the basement and how to arrange the living room furniture...and on and on it went in the wee hours of the morning.

I am absolutely determined to make this new home an organized home, and our new lives organized lives. It is within reach - it's just a matter of clinging to that little green book as we unpack each and every box, and giving ourselves the time to do it properly, the first time.

We are about to leave the "Organize Your Move" phase behind and, for all intents and purposes, start the challenge anew. If there is just one piece of advice I want to give about the move itself that I really wish I had followed it's this: LABELS FACING OUT, PEOPLE. Labelling those boxes is key, but it's also the easy part. The most descriptive, neatly-written label in the world won't help you if it's facing the wall. This is particularly important if you're putting stuff in storage. Trust me. No matter how well you plan, you WILL forget something you really need in that storage unit that you will need to hunt for, like - for example - your checkbook. Labels facing out.

Good advice, especially when taken

By: Melanie


It occurred to me today that I read an absolutely invaluable piece of advice when preparing for the move. Unfortunately, remembering it when you are almost finished with the packing reduces its value greatly. Here it is:

For each room, designate one box an "Open First" box and put everything that you will need right away into it.

Brilliant. I hope you can use this for your next move.

Another piece of advice that I actually did manage to use was this:

Pack a suitcase for clothes, toiletries, etc. for each member of the family as though you're going on a vacation for three days. That way, you have everything you need handy.

Also brilliant. I'm glad I remembered this one in time.

On the bright side, I haven't packed the coffee maker yet. So at least I still have time to label one box "OPEN THIS FIRST, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!"

Out of the Office

By: Melanie

To Whom It May Concern:

I will be away from the office (read: my apartment) until April 9. If you need to check on my packing progress during that time, rest assured that I will be doing absolutely nothing even remotely related to packing and/or moving until I return. If you absolutely require assistance in reading about someone else's trials and tribulations surrounding their big move, I wish you the best of luck on the world wide web.

Sincerely Yours,

M.

Box Count = 21

By: Melanie

I've run out of hallway space. Boxes are now being piled in the apartment, and it's only a matter of time before the obstacle course claims its first victim. But I plow ahead, undaunted. Yes, my daughter has started asking for toys that have long since been packed away. Yes, I am continually looking for pots and pans that I swore I wouldn't need for the next few weeks. No, I'm not even close to finished. But still, I pack.

And this week I've made $32 selling some of Elle's toys that she no longer plays with. Yes, she has started asking for those now too.

I have to admit, purging feels especially good with an extra couple of bucks in my pocket.

Photographic evidence

By: Melanie


It occurred to me that those of you who are more cynical might not believe me when I claim to have made so much progress with the move. So I present to you:

The hallway outside our apartment...

...and our freezer. 

Anyone who knows me knows that if there is room in my freezer, something drastic is taking place.

I think I just spotted a tumbleweed.

By: Melanie


Today my darling husband looked around and announced that it officially looks as though we're moving out, that he can tell that the place is looking emptier. And the angels sang, and it was good. 18 boxes are crammed into our narrow hallway and the shelves are looking pretty bare, but nothing has made me feel more encouraged than that casual comment from my terribly unobservant husband this morning.

It lifted me to such high spirits that I immediately got on the phone and set up an appointment to cancel our internet service, the last of the utilities arrangements to be made. I also made a couple of address changes online and - get this - charged my iPod! (Unrelated, but I've been meaning to do that for three weeks now.)

It has been a good day so far. Next on the list is trudging down to the dodgy post office that I hate more than the smell of putrid turkey to submit my change of address request. It turns out that international requests must be done in person, and once again I'm reminded that being one of the largest and most developed cities in the world doesn't mean that you don't get all caught up in red tape and ridiculous policies from time to time. Don't get me started on the cash only issue...I'm having a good day.

Weeding and Purging

By: Melanie


Like most people, I gauge the success of my packing progress by the number of boxes that have been packed, taped and labelled. Bigger pile, more progress. So, imagine my dismay when the box count started to slow in recent days. Looking around our apartment, four weeks before we move out, it has been getting harder and harder to find things to box up. First of all, there's all the stuff we're going to need in the next four weeks. Then, there's all the stuff we're giving away but that won't get picked up until a couple of days before we leave, and I don't want to waste precious boxes on those until I know I have enough to spare. And, of course, there's the logistics of our multi-city move. We're leaving Brooklyn, but we'll be dropping most of our stuff at a storage facility in a city that we won't be living in for two months and driving to another city where we'll be living in the interim. Trying to figure out what we'll need for that couple of months and separating it from the rest of our worldly goods has been challenging. But, I signed up for a challenge, didn't I? So I press on.

Enter the weeding and purging phase of our packing. Okay, yes, I was supposed to do this before a single box was filled. But who can resist that initial thrill of packing that involves pulling random, unnecessary items off of shelves and throwing them into the first box, symbolizing the giant leap into the abyss of THE MOVE? I know I can't. Organized, methodical packing be damned. I needed that first box. And after the first box, things ticked along pretty nicely until around Box 12, when I hit the wall. And started weeding. I went through our papers. I went through my clothes. I went through Elle's clothes. Jeff went through his clothes. The shoes. Oh, the shoes. Donation bags were filled. Trash bags were filled. Dust bunnies borne of months of wardrobe neglect were collected. We purged.

And here we are, with a total box count of 15, but with far, far fewer belongings that are yet to be packed.  There are exactly 12 more packing days in my original plan, with an extra 6 days to work with if things go terribly awry. But I would much rather spend those 6 days wandering around New York, saying our goodbyes and doing it all one last time, so I will put those 12 days to good use.

So it DOES have a bottom after all!

The box! It's EMPTY!!!

And the timing couldn't be better. I could use another box for packing.

One box at a time

By: Melanie

Today I packed my first box. In fact, I packed five of them, plus one that is overflowing with stuff to sell. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a dent, and that's something.

My biggest accomplishment today, however, was convincing my darling husband to see to the colossal tower of papers he has been accumulating since approximately May 19, 2009 - the day we moved into our apartment. Everywhere we go, for as long as I have known him, he does this. He just throws papers on tables, dressers, countertops and pretends that they never existed. I then pile them neatly and place them somewhere where he is bound to notice them. He doesn't. I threaten to throw them away. He gets cranky. They continue to pile up. Then at some point I acknowledge that he will not go through them until we move, when I will force him to go through them by any means necessary. I warned him of this impending task a few days ago. He seemed resigned to his fate and didn't offer even the most perfunctory of objections. Today, I announced that the time had come. And do you know what happened? He sat down and did it. It took him about 2 hours (it would have taken me about 15 minutes), but he stayed with it, didn't try to get out of it once, and got the job done. After that he even went through his textbooks for me. I almost want to tell him he's off the hook for the rest of the packing. Almost. I'm grateful, but I'm not crazy.

Once those first few boxes are packed, it really starts to feel like we're moving and the pressure usually spurs me into further action. Five more boxes tomorrow, then the next day, and before we know it it'll be done, right? Does anyone else have this phenomenon happen: It's impossible to start. Where to start? The preparation for the first box takes several days. Then, after that first day of successful packing, several ultra-successful days follow and it looks like you'll be done far ahead of schedule. Then, all of a sudden you're out of boxes and the apartment looks like you haven't started packing yet. Thus begins a painfully long phase of trying desperately to cram each belonging into smaller and smaller bags until it's moving day and you frantically decide that you really don't need the rest of this stuff and it goes on the curb. I'm really hoping to avoid this pattern this time around, what with the early procurement of boxes and supplies, and the organized, methodical nature of my packing scheme. But I'm suspicious that this will end in the same, grizzly manner as the rest of our relocation projects. Only time will tell...and all this speculation is really just procrastination from packing another box. Back at it!

5 weeks and counting...

By: Melanie

I don't think I've ever been this far ahead of the game when it comes to moving. For our biggest move, when we packed up the home we had shared for almost seven years to put most of it in storage indefinitely, I believe I gave myself three weeks to pack. And I was working full time. I also didn't have any pint-sized distractions, so my time was my own. I worked at it solidly for three weeks and at the end, even with the help of my parents, we were still literally throwing our belongings out the back door at 1am on the day that our new tenants were moving in. I'd like to avoid that this time.

This time, I'm planning ahead. There are 5 weeks + 1 day until the Big Move. One of those weeks will be spent vacationing in New Mexico. That leaves 4 weeks + 1 day. When I factor Elle into the equation, I figure that works out to about 2 weeks of productive packing time. So it turns out that I'm already behind. Hmph. It's a good thing that I've already started. Let's see how things are looking, according to my Ultimate Moving Checklist:

4 Weeks Before:

Set a date - April 15th (check!)

Cancel utilities - 2 down, 2 to go (half-check!)

File a change of address - ...

Start a change of address log - ...

Rent a moving truck - U-Haul 14ft truck (check!)

Get moving supplies - boxes, big fat marker, packing tape (thank you online parents group - check!), extra tape and markers ordered (thank you Amazon - check!)

Start separating essential from non-essential - ...

Start packing - ...

If you don't mind, I'm just going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for what I've accomplished so far. And then I'm going to ride the wave of momentum. Next up: Call USPS to file a change of address.

I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!

On the road again

By: Melanie

Moving.

It happens to the best of us.

And while it sure throws a wrench into the organization of our current home, it opens up all kinds of potential for flexing our organizational muscle in other ways.

An organized move. Packing, purging, labelling, selling, unpacking...and creating a brand new organized space. It's daunting, but thrilling at the same time.

Yesterday we found out that our little family is moving to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in June. We'll be leaving Brooklyn in just over five weeks. There is so much to do in this huge, wonderful city before then. But there is also much to be taken care of in this tiny apartment. Follow along as I skip ahead to Week 47: Organize Your Move and begin tackling one of life's most stressful events, one box at a time.

I found this website while surfing blindly for some help in getting started. I think it will be really valuable, particularly this list. I've already been able to check off a couple of things, and that's always good for motivation. There are many, many items yet to be checked, but I'm getting started early and I'm determined (for your sake as well as mine) to make this the most organized move we've ever had! And we've had a lot of moves.

Leaving Brooklyn will be sad. We've loved it here and we'll miss it. But I love the fact that we know we'll be in Ottawa for at least the next five years, and maybe a lot longer than that. A permanent move? Nothing is permanent, but this is close enough to make one ever-wandering mom very, very happy.

If I just stopped reading we wouldn't have this problem.

By: Melanie

This is a photo I took a while ago of the mass of books I've accumulated from stoops sales and curbs while in New York. And this is how they remain. I do have a bit of a system. I take a book from this pile in my bedroom to read, and when I'm finished with it I put it on a shelf in the living room. At least I've separated read from unread! But I can do better.

As for CDs and DVDs, we don't have a lot, but we do have some and I'm pretty sure that not a single one is labelled. Which means that whenever I find a stray CD, I look at it curiously for a minute or two before putting it down absent-mindedly, with no concern for where it ends up. That will make the job of rounding them all up a tad more challenging, but once I do I'm going to sit down with the laptop and will not rest until each one is labelled...or until Elle wakes up and demands my attention.

You gotta give as good as you get

By: Melanie

There are so many reasons to love donating things. Obviously, someone is getting something they need and you can feel good about being the one to provide it. There's also the fact that you're saving perfectly good stuff from being dumped into a landfill, and encouraging the idea of reusing and recycling instead of producing more waste. But, selfishly, I have to say that one of my very favourite things about donating is the fact that it gives me the opportunity to get rid of CLUTTER! I always feel so good when a bag of clothes or a box of random kitchen gadgets makes its way out my front door.

Recently I've been trying to unload some of Elle's old stuff. There are clothes that don't fit, toys that no longer amuse, and baby gear we don't need anymore. You would be surprised how difficult it is to unload stuff around here if you don't have a car. There are so, so many people in need, many of whom live just around the corner. But many places don't pick up, and drop-off locations are just not practical to get to with a toddler and two cartloads. One day I put a few things out on the curb, and after two days of being ignored I ended up taking them back in. I just couldn't bear the thought of perfectly good, clean things being thrown in the garbage. So I've been slowly filling up the hallway outside our apartment, hoping for an opportunity to come along.

And come along it did! Last week I heard about a clothing and toy swap happening in our neighbourhood. I got so excited that I started furiously grabbing things from shelves and stacking boxes like a maniac. Then yesterday Jeff and I grabbed everything, hung most of it precariously from the stroller and made the 15 minute walk to salvation. A huge room filled with kids' stuff, and anything that wasn't taken by the end of the day was being brought to a shelter. The woman who greeted us implored us to take something in return for our goods, it being a swap after all, but I was not there to exchange clutter. I was there to purge. Jeff needed a little coaxing away from the bag of shoes...and the table of books...but a few impatient chirps from Elle finally convinced him to walk away.

I felt so light leaving that place. There's just no downside. Sometimes it takes a little effort, a little searching, a little footwork, but it will make you feel good. For so many reasons. So go ahead - root through your closets, your playrooms, your cupboards. Find a few things that you don't need that someone else might. Look in the yellow pages, look online and find a place to take them. You will absolutely be glad you did.

$146.27 Worth of Organized Handbag

By Marca

A big pile of handbags were pulled out of my closet today. While away on holiday at our home down south, I was able to do a little organizing around there. I managed some cupboards, boxes and my handbag currently in use. My current handbag is not my favorite. It is deep. With depth comes great caverns of miscellaneous junk that build up and take up permanent residence. I won't even mention some of the items hidden away in there, but among those unmentionables were crayons, 4 chapsticks, receipts (sorry, "organize your receipts week"), a book I am not even reading now, my writing journal, a brush, a bow from my daughter's hair, ten hair rubber bands and gum. Lots of gum. The very best part about this cleaning up of the bottomless pit? I made money...or rediscovered a lot of cash. That is right. 5 metro cards with leftover money, a $25 Starbucks gift card I got WHEN I WAS STILL A FULL-TIME TEACHER (that's at least 2 years ago), a $75 J Crew gift card from my sister (I had been searching for that one for a couple of years), and $46.27 in roaming cash. Now, my handbag is pristine containing my wallet recently filled with new found giftcards and cash, my planner, my writing journal 2 chapsticks (go through it fast), my hand dandy receipt file from organize your receipts week and church keys. Beautiful.

What did I learn? I learned that if I can make over $100 just cleaning out my current bag I may have a lot more awaiting me the remaining handbags in the back of my closet. That brings us back to the pile of bags awaiting clean out and cash out this evening. Since we only just returned from our holiday, I am just catching up on the rest of those bags. Hoping it will be just a lucrative this evening!

Photo Books

By: Melanie

Living in the digital age means that I don't actually have a lot of photos hanging around. And having a baby has made me pretty efficient at mailing out photos to people once I've developed them. I like to show her off, you see. But although we take an extraordinary amount of photos as most parents with one child do, I'm not so great at assembling them into any viewable order...except for making Facebook albums, of course.

I've decided this week that I'm going to start a new routine. Every three months, coordinating roughly with the seasons, I will go through my pictures for that period and put them together in an online photo book. At the end of the year I will order the book, and so we'll have one book for every year. I think it's a great idea. I've even found the website I'm going to use. It's called Photo Inpress. It's a Canadian company, and the finished product is really high quality. My sister-in-law made a beautiful one for my mom...and I just missed getting around to it, back in my pre-organized days...and I just love how it turned out.

I'm excited to get started. I've got my work cut out for me because I want to start from 2009 when Elle was born. And I've killed two birds with one stone, sort of. I have a system to organize my photos, and now I'm crafty too!

Homeschooling and Craft Cleanup

By Marca

I love crafts.  A lot.  I love markers, pencils, and paper.  My daughter does too.  I love to see the colors all organized and lovely sticking out beautiful containers that melt them into a beautiful rainbow of creativity and activity.  Last week, they didn't exactly look that way.  It was, well, more like color had vomited into every crevice of my cupboard.  Well, I did need a craft organizing overhaul.  But, all of it really pertained to the scary closet that was open all day and at night, jammed shut forcing the monsters back behind the sliding door.  But it would literally, creep open when one walked away from it.  I don't have a good picture of the ridiculousness that was this cave.  Well, I do, but that is getting worked out this week while I finish organizing my pictures.  But, this cave is much more than craft and art supplies.  It is my daughter's home school closet.  Of course, art is a big part of part of Ladybug Learns.  And becoming a big part of our whole house as it has been pouring out its den into the rest of the house.

So, I like a beautifully decorated and festive home for the holidays and I don't want that closet to take over the rest of the house (as of only recently, it was seeping out onto the dining room floor, covering the table and making its way to the living room).  We are in the midst of our Christmas festivities here at the Wilson house.  For homeschooling, our focus is on literature and geography and writing.  Away go all the notebooks, tests, and such and suches.  No worksheets or fact sheets.  We are exploring different Christmas traditions from around the world, reading great Christmas classics, writing and creating beautiful little festive crafts from our around the world for her World Christmas Tree.  Our current read is A Christmas Carol.  So, that closet has little use to us this month (except for a few of the craft items and the glue.  You really do use a lot of glue in school).    So, in the midst of a very crazy week, I organized it, one shelf at a time, one day at a time.  To try to tackle the monster in one day wasn't likely, but 5 minutes a day, one shelf at a time, I could do.  I like to call it my 5-minute fix-it.  And the beautiful colorful pencils and crayons have found homes in very cool jars and are being used to create lovely pictures of Scrooge's story this week.  I forgot how much easier school is when it isn't taking over the whole house.  Now, on to the jabberwocky that is my picture file on my computer.  THAT is going to take a lot more than Week 15.  I think my chest just got a little flutter with the week's challenge ahead.  More on that later.

1035

By Marca

That is the number I found staring back at me last week when I opened my yahoo account, an email account that I use for all my bills and memberships. It was scary. The worst part about it is the good stuff, the important emails, gets swallowed up by the junk and it is hard to separate the two. So, I went on a quest to find some yahoo mail solutions. Surely, there is a secret code to unlocking the wonders of an empty inbox. What I found were hundreds of articles that were lengthy and cumbersome on the art and science of an empty email box. Overrated.

I don't have time for complicated fixes to my 1035 emails. I need permanent, time saving and practical.

I went back to my trusty green book (Organize Now). After looking at her sound advice and looking at my mess, my needs, and my likely behavior I came up with a simple plan:

~Spam it!
~Delete it!
~Archive it/File it!
~Respond immediately (if I have the time and it will take less than a couple of minutes)
~Star it (if I need to respond and don't have time at the moment)
~Group it!  A lot of the mail filling my box is from my endless groups I am a part of. I changed my settings for each group to a one email a day update on the threads rather than receiving each email on the thread. Summaries cut down my email by half! Did you catch that? HALF! It is worthwhile.

Another tip to getting the chaos under wraps:  I did a search for a particular common junk mail source in my inbox.  It popped up with over 200.  I clicked the choose all  button and then deleted the whole lot and place them on spam notice.

This really took off the time it was taking me to get through those emails.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  That 1035 must've been 3 months of email neglect.  Nope.  One week.  One week.  That is out of control.  SPAM IT!  Get removed from those email lists and then don't be afraid to open your email box.  I am happy to report my box is pretty clear these days.

Budget update

By: Melanie

For those of you who might have been concerned by my last post and are thinking of sending cash donations for my grocery expenses, you're sweet. But I have some good news. After a little recalculation (read: less money going to savings), we now have a whopping $60 a week to spend on groceries. And the even better news is that I have almost completed my grocery shopping for the week and it looks like I'll be coming in under budget! I have $8.12 left with which to buy an onion, some mint and bananas. No problem! That's even considering the fact that I misread the price on a bag of shrimp and paid $14 instead of $6. Oops.

The meal plan helps immensely with budgeting. I now take the cost of groceries into consideration when planning the meals, and stick stringently to the list in my hand. No more impulse buys. I am also completely boycotting several grocery stores that have exorbitant prices or carry only specialty brands. Goodbye Union Market, Hello C-Town! Thankfully, I can still frequent my favorite produce place, which has the remarkable combination of having exceptional produce and extremely reasonable prices, and is on the way home from the Y.

Last night we enjoyed this delicious meal, and also this week we will be having Coconut Mango Chicken with Black Beans and Spicy Shrimp with Creamed Spinach. Not bad for a family on a budget.

Can I Eat the Pie Chart?

By: Melanie

It's done. I have a budget. I finished it just now. I feel strangely emotional - on the verge of tears although here at the coffee shop it would be difficult to explain dissolving into a watery mess over my laptop calculator with pages scribbled with numbers scattered around me. Wait, that probably wouldn't be very difficult to explain. Especially in this economy. Well, it would be embarrassing anyway.

Along with the weepiness I feel a titch giddy, a dash excited and more than a molehill of pure, unadulterated fear. Can we really do this? Over the last few years we have gradually become better at tightening the purse strings, but this new budget is taking things to a whole new level. We're very broke. I know it's tacky to talk about finances, but isn't it also fun to pry into people's personal lives? Here it is:

I measure my financial stability in food. If I can buy groceries freely based on what recipes I've been reading without having to shop exclusively from the "Dinners for $5 or Less" articles, then I'm doing okay. This is what I've always done. It's sort of the one area of my spending that I have, up until now, been unwilling to compromise. And actually, I was surprised to learn that last month I only spent $398 on groceries. That's less than $100 a week, which is what most budgets seem to allow for groceries. I just assumed that I was through the roof in that category. Sounds like good news, right? It's not. Under our new budget, we now have $45 a week for groceries, which includes booze, cleaning supplies and dog food. So there's probably about $5 or so in there for actual sustenance, assuming wine doesn't count.

To make it more of a game, I'm going to do the whole cash jar deal, where you put the weekly amount for each category in a jar and only use cash. I think it's for the best, considering that I withdrew over $2200 from ATMs last month and have absolutely no way to account for it. Oh, maybe that's where the rest of the groceries went...