Crazy changes. I can barely believe it myself.

So.  Hubby got a job promotion which requires him being in NYC most of the time.  Wow.

At first, the thought seemed just CRAZY.... but now I am quite excited.  It's not like I am selling my house and actually moving or anything, we will be able to get a small place in Manhattan or Queens and still be OK.

I'm in such an excited tizzy, that I can't express it on the page!

So with that said, I need to get my home organizing project finished cuz I need to start apartment shopping, and deciding what 1/4 of my furniture and items I am going to ship off to NY, and what I will just buy.  This is not exactly what I had in mind when I said we would be downsizing, but I'm gonna be reading a couple of books on the idea... maybe that will help me in time get rid of some things in the house when we eventually do get rid of it for a retirement home.


Children are happily deposited at college

The kids are at their respective colleges and I am in the process of reclaiming and reorganizing our home.  As this is the youngest one's 2nd year at college, I feel comfortable infringing into their space a little, where necessary, and working to make the house work best for my husband and myself.

For example, my son pretty much has the entire basement to himself, and I will be reclaiming the exercise room as a storage room to get rid of clutter all over the house.  I am also thinking of claiming an area for sewing, and of course what exercise equipment I don't give away, will go in the large space outside his bedroom. I will also be putting some of my daughters items in said storage room to make her room more presentable and buying a bigger bed for her room for the occasional guest when she is not here.  (Not really planning any guests... ever, but it is nice to know I have an extra clean bedroom if the need arises.)

In the meanwhile, I posted about the set up of the kids dorm rooms on my website. You can find them here. and here.


I will be posting soon about the re-organized areas of our home.

Packing and organizing for back to college... still

I am still buried in packing bins (plastic boxes from Walmart), Ikea Bags, and Space saver bags.  My daughter asked me to help her organize her belongings, but at the same time, she is also calling me anal retentive. The good news is with careful packing, unpacking becomes a breeze as the items are organized intuitively and can just be slid into drawers or set in it's appropriate place.

This is all of the hanging clothes I am sending
out... less than half from last years amount,
even though she has twice the closet space.
The hardest part is preventing her from bringing all of her clothing to college.  So I insisted on X number of pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, etc... enough clothes to last 3 weeks, which is plenty if you do laundry twice a month.  I put each type of clothing in either a dress bag, or rolled it military style and put it in a space bag, then in a bin (all the non hanging clothes fit in one bin!)

Then there are the bins for all the other stuff.

  • One for stationary, books, and crafts. 
  • One for organizers, hooks, cords, and tools needed to set up the room
  • One for shoes... (there are also shopping bags for boots)


Then there are a couple of drawer storage units:


Steals, deals, and splurges and packing insanity for my college kids

Barely two more weeks with the kiddos, then back to college.

By this time two weeks from now I will be driving home from dropping off child number 2 to college.  I thought it would be easier to have 2 kids in the same city for drop off and pick up purposes, but it really isn't working out that way.  He goes back on Friday, and she on Sunday, and we have to do two round trip drives due to volume of items, lack of rental truck availability and schedules that don't mesh.  Oh well.  That's how it goes.

All my back to school shopping is done.  I really should have given them money and let them buy their own notebooks, and textbooks, and clothing, but they are still rank amateurs when it comes to finding bargains.  They try, bless their hearts, but they don't have the patience or fortitude to to stretch a dime in the way I do.  They also don't know when it is better to just pay full price for item, and

12 grade year of homeschooling, Finishing Strong

We are almost done with my college prep series. There will still be a video on completing the transcript.    Stay tuned... meanwhile, ...