Sorry, Marie Kondo, I can't

I posted before Kid #2 arrived about the room switcheroo that we were doing (Kid #1 being evicted from our room). I haven't posted any photos. And I will not. I should have posted right after Kid #1 moved to his room so that everything is fresh. And clean. And orderly. But now, it is all a mess. Even our room is.

Kid #1 really took over his room. And I can see a few years from now that is going to be worse. At 8 years old, his clothes and toys are everywhere. Blotches of lotion on the counter, swirls of lotion on the mirror. Tsk. Every weekend, I tell myself that I will fix and clean up his room. But ....

Our room is another story. I need to purge. We need to purge. I will try this spring. Problem is, I don't know what to do, where to put them. Debating whether to send them back to Philippines? Donate them? Give them to somebody else?

Everybody seems to be joyfully decluttering their homes, their lives, or so they say. I don't think I can do that. I am realistic enough that, that is just not for me. Although it is really appealing and joyful to see a clean and organized drawer, a spotless counter top, letting go of things that do not spark joy. I just can't, just not for me.

screen cap from Marie Kondo, official website

While I haven't really read the book, I've read some online reviews and analysis and noted that some of her styles were already used by other 'organizing' techniques. And I have used some of it too. Like instead of stacking up the clothes vertically, they should be folded and stack horizontally, in a way that you can see everything at one glance.

Well, it's like a diet. There are a thousand ways to  lose weight. I guess there's just no one way of tidying up, of decluttering and organizing your life. For now, KonMari is the fad, the juice cleanse of the month. But I didn't say I will not try to declutter, I will. I will find time. One area at a time (Marie Kondo says it should be by Category). Whatever works. And I will start with this:

home improvement: drawer organization

I'm not an organized person. You can ask my mother and my husband. In fact, I am a self proclaimed disorganized person. I remember telling my mother not to touch my stuff and to not organized them because I wouldn't be able to find things that way.

But maybe it's the magic of pregnancy or finally I am maturing (old?), but as I have posted earlier, I want to organized everything in the house. 

So I'm posting my first attempt. This is the drawer by the sink. We don't have an office space. This drawer houses all the pens, elastics, notepads, receipts and everything else. 

Has been a catch all drawer. I think I got about 2 spoonfuls of crumbs from here. Don't know where that came from. And after I have organized it, J said he didn't think we have those socket plugs anymore. So he got almost of them and put them in the sockets that we don't usually use. 

And here it is now:

Yay for me! I have thrown away most of the boxes in the house just a couple of weeks back. Just when I thought I wouldn't need them. These are the remaining cereal and cookie boxes that I have found, and I ran out of cereal boxes for the elastics so I just put them in inside a large safety pin. That way they are all still together. 

I am not sure if I should put everything in their little boxes. And I don't think they will fit in the drawer. I still wanted to put the push pins inside here but we'll see. 

I'm sure this will still change when I'll get to see the contents of the other drawers. I believe the groupings will change. Because, honestly, our stuff is everywhere. Some drawers are overflowing and some are underused. My plan is not just to organize but to maximize space as well. I hope I can do those planned tasks during my Mat Leave. 

One down, 69 more to go. 

how do i nest?

I remember during the early part of my pregnancy, I nested immediately by cleaning and clearing out our pantry. Suddenly I had the urge to throw everything out and have an immaculately bare pantry. People at the house didn't know yet that I am expecting by then.

Then it stopped. By the 7th month, I have the urge to nest again. I nested by trying to organize everything in our house. I am always searching for storage boxes and storage bags and containers so that everything will be in its proper place even pins and tacks.

I am perusing the Pinterest for inspiration for (shared) nursery and for kids' room (for Kid #1) and just pinning like crazy and planning everything in my head what are the to-do's (and to-buy's?) to make the house ready for the coming wee one.

By the time I have to execute those plans, I am too tired. So in reality, I haven't really done anything yet. Haha. And that, my friends, is how I nest.

I am no Martha Stewart and don't expect me to come up with a Pinterest worthy room make over. But in the spirit of sharing a before and after case, this is how the master bedroom looks right now. We are still co-rooming with Kid #1. When he moves out, we will be co-rooming with Kid #2. The bed will just be replaced with a crib but on the other side of the bed.

And here's Kid #1 room right now. Used to be an in-law suite, so that is why there is a bed. Still a longggggg way to go.

Honestly, getting the house ready is stressing me out. That and Kid #1's halloween costume. I am hoping everything will at least be liveable before the wee one arrives.

I have already started last night on organizing our things. I started with my shoes. I bought this shoe organizer and threw away all the boxes that are occupying too much space. Will post pics some other time.

Happy Hump Day!

baked

have you tried baking? i wanted to for the longest time (back in the philippines) but wasn't able to because we didn't have a functional oven then. so when we got here, finally, i got the chance.

the first few months that we were here, i was baking brownies. every week. even twice a week, for a month. no fancy thing though, just store bought brownie mix that i have to mix and put into the oven. sometimes i experiment and put in nuts, choco chips. the house always smells good but then the 3 of us we got tired of eating brownies everyday.

so then late last year, i began to try again. i did the chocolate cheese cupcake turtle. hehehe. anyway, these were the ones from my 1st batch.


my son liked. it i think i was able to bake 4 batches after this (not on the same night though). i baked this on ordinary days. i baked this to g ive out to the carollers. i bake this during our christmas party.

i watch kris tv often, and after watching one of their episodes with erich g baking the butter cupcakes, i did that too. i think the result was not at par as what i was expecting. my son was not a fan, but my husband and brother in law liked it.

and then i did a carrot cake with cream cheese icing for my husband's aunt's birthday. it was good and moist. you can eat it without the icing but i think the icing makes it perfect. i liked it. the birthday girl liked it too.

on that same night, i also baked blueberry muffins. this was also a hit -- with aquim. he'll have it as dessert, as breakfast, as school snack. i was able to bake 3 batches.

for tonight, i'd like to try corn bread. my peg is the corn bread with raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream from racks at megamall. maybe i should include vanilla and raspberry sauce in my grocery list.

what is it with my tree posts?

"song of the open road" by ogden nash (1902-1971)

i think that i shall never see

a billboard lovely as a tree.

indeed, unless the billboards fall,

i'll never see a tree at all.

(so true!)

wala lang. hahaha actually, i was searching kasi wood furnitures. i know there's narra and there's mahogany. affordable wood furnitures that i see are made of tanguile or lauan and i don't know what kind of wood/tree are they.

so yun, i'm not familiar with trees (or wood) kaya i did a litte research. tanguile or lauan or philippine mahogany, is in fact, not a mahogany. matibay din but not mahogany-tibay. hehe dami pang characteristics and baka maging wood expert na ko kung ituloy ko pa. and then i came across nga this list of famous trees from wikipedia.

of which it mentioned of 2 trees from the philippines. the baletes at the balete drive for its white lady sightings -- seen the trees and thank god, not the white lady; then the twin narra trees in rizal high school which saw the progress of the school from 1901 and survived the onslaught of world war II. this twin narra trees, i have yet to see. and i will, promise.
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and then i 've just discovered that the poem "trees" was by a man. haha. all along, i thought joyce kilmer was a woman. alfred joyce kilmer pala siya. sus!
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atleast ngayon alam ko na hehe
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