FLY LADY - Week 4 - Office

 Good morning, friends!

I'd love to say I'm diving hard into the office this week, but there's a slight change. The weather is finally cooling down here in the southern Ozarks and I can work on the 'warehouse' where the overflow of craft supplies as well as holiday decor is stored. I am sooo ready to dive in to see what can go to the thrift store, trashed or reorganized. Primarily the Christmas decor.

We've been in this house twenty years and have figured out the decor for each holiday in the various rooms that I am happy with. Everything else can get donated so maybe someone else can use the items.

Reorganizing the Christmas decor will also make room for the four big village tubs I have in the basement in our 'safe' corner. I'd love for Bob to be able to build a storage bench where they are now that we can put stuff to be protected in case of a tornado and that we can sit on. 

Over the course of forty-one years of marriage we've developed an amazing working relationship. Either I design something and he builds, we design and he builds, or we design and build together. This office desk I'm working on was an 8' kitchen island with storage I designed and he built over 35 years ago. Nothing fancy but served as a kitchen island initially that could seat 12 people if needed as well as store all of my baking pans. Then it served as an island against one wall in our first purchased home turning our narrow kitchen into a galley kitchen. In this house it was a crafting/ sewing table downstairs before we built the office/ studio almost 11 years ago. Here it remained a craft table until about 3 years ago when the cat took over my writing desk and I moved my 'office' space to this huge work table. I can move stuff easily enough if I need the 4'x8' space to cut fabric and one side still functions as space for my die-cutting machines when necessary. 

That's me for the week. Next week, I'll be back in the kitchen/ laundry with a bit more of a detailed list of what I do there.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLYLADY - Week 4 - The Office

 Good morning, friends!

I can't believe we are going in to week four of the month already! Where is the time going so quickly? The only bright spot is that we are moving closer to fall. I am sooo ready for the cooler temperatures.

While I've been doing a gradual pitch of things in the office, this week I'm diving in deep and doing a serious declutter of some areas. There are only three days left until the New Moon. The time between Full Moon and New Moon is the time to 'get rid of stuff', both physically and emotionally.  From the Full Moon to the New Moon, you work on things like want to attract or bring in to your life. So let the final four days of pitching begin!

I did get the work table cleared off to a large degree. Mostly what is on here now are the things I'm sorting through or using. 

My focus in the office this week is all about pitching junk journal items I've accumulated that I no longer need.  My thought process is in the following lists:

* Pitch things I might want to use but come in to the house on a regular basis or easy to acquire

* Keep only things that I can move to themed kits, such as pets, coffee, chocolate, etc. 

Following these two categories is going to help me get rid of a lot of items I thought might be good in a junk journal but I've since found either I'll never use them or I can replace them easily when the time comes.

The other project I hope to complete this week is the paint cabinet. At some point I pulled all the paints off, was going to add in more shelves & lay my paints on their sides, giving me more room for shelves. Then we couldn't find the glass shelves that went with the unit. Someone moved them from where I knew they were (could have been me lol) Then we couldn't find the shelf clips so I had to wait until I could purchase more. Basically, a 1-day project became a multi-month project. In the mean time, all of my paints are sitting in boxes/ bins on the floor in the studio. Time to get them put away!

What project are you hoping to tackle this week? Let me know in the comments below. If you have storage/ organization questions, post those as well and I'll try to help.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLYLADY - Week 4 - Office

 Good morning, everyone!

I was so intent on setting up blog posts on my author account for the month of July yesterday I totally forgot to post here. 

I leave Thursday for a quick weekend trip to IL to see a dear friend so I've been trying to get a jump on July. That, and I'll be spending most of July in a Fast Draft Challenge to finish Book 2 in my Planned to Perfection Series. You'll find Book 1 HERE if you're in the mood for a Christmas read. 

This week is more about Office 'work' than cleaning. However, I have been pitching some stuff already. I have a sofa full of kit boxes for projects. I'll be doing up anything Christmas related in the month of July so the office is pretty much an on-going process.

The work table still needs cleared and that is being done little by little. If I need to find something and I have a general idea of where it is on the worktable, then I pitch/ organize/ put away whatever is in that spot as I look for what I need.

The idea is to work in small increments of time and space if you have a large project. Pick an area, set a timer for 25 minutes then go after it! At the end of 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break then start again. This is called the Pomodoro method. Be a tomato and squish out the task!

What projects have you been working on that need a little push? Please share in the comments. Let's help encourage one another.

Be safe, be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLY LADY - Week 2 - Office

 

Good morning!

I realize there was not a Friday post as I'd planned. I was too busy actually 'stocking' my pantry to share with you. We'll get to that in a moment.

I did get the laundry room cabinets decluttered and the one drawer I needed for the food dehydrator supplies. I delivered a large box plus a small one to the local thrift store. I didn't get to the other drawers. Really, there is only one. I'll put it at the top of the list for next month - or hand it to Bob while he's home alone this weekend. lol

In the mean time, this week is all about the office. 

There are things in the living room that need to come back in to this space, but not until I get some other things configured first.

I'm still organizing art supplies.  Last week, I finally started breaking down Paper Pumpkin card kits from Stampin' Up!. Many were partly used, a few just opened to see what the kit was then closed and added to the stack. 

This is what I started with last week:

I've taken care of over half of this collection. Some are in envelopes to finish working up and others were nothing more than the tissue paper and the stamp set.  My plan is to finish those TODAY. Then I can use the work table to get other stuff organized. 

I have two 3-cube units to put together. One side should hold 'most' of my planner collection. Then I'm backing that with another unit in my 'sewing' corner but will actually hold writing related journals. I'm trying to configure that corner to have a comfy chair to curl up and write during the evenings for writing sprints or note taking. Still not sure there is actually 'room' in this corner but I won't know until I start configuring.

When I get this part done, I'll be able to put away printed planner items I've collected and sorted out on the sofa bed. From there, the sofa bed will get folded back up and ladder shelves put back in place.

I was initially leaving the sofa bed out from when we had company early last month because I was supposed to have company the last week in September then again the first weekend in October. Since neither of those are happening, I can get the furniture all back into place.

For now, I'm headed out to the garden to pick tomatoes. 

Last Friday I cooked down a large batch of chicken/ turkey carcasses I had in the freezer to turn into broth. I've had (3) 1/2 gal jars in the fridge letting the grease all come to the top. I can remove that this morning and get the broth into jars for the pressure canner. I got a good three cups of meat from that slow cook. I'm going to break that all down into two packages for the freezer. There isn't enough to can but from the freezer, the meat will make quick soup additions at some point. 

I also did and IQF (Individual Quick Freeze) of sausage patties. By freezing them individually first on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, the patties will retain their shape when I put them through the Food Saver. I do this with a lot of things I want to keep their shape.   So those, along with Tyson chicken nuggets will get run through the food processor this morning.

As you can tell, not a lot of 'cleaning' will be done this week but the food needs to take priority. As my mom used to say "canning doesn't keep".

What is your Action Plan for this week? What do you need to get out of the way so you can accomplish other things?  Let me know in the comments below.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLYLADY - The Office Continues

 Good morning, everyone!

I'm getting closer.

Here is a picture of what the Scrapbooking/ Etsy corner looked like before:

And here's the after:

I had to get this corner done for two reasons. One, the Etsy cart was buried and I needed to be able to set up my scale and get to the drawers for packaging orders.  Two - there are two 5-drawer carts to the left. One holds Halloween and one holds Christmas items for junk journals. I needed access to the one for Halloween to do the August Junk Journal Challenge as well as prepping items for my shop.

This week, I'm headed here:

This is mostly done on top. What I have to focus on are the mixed media items below that need filed. I also have this tub (on the bottom of stack) to go through and put stuff away:

As I said, it is a work in progress but I am ...

Enjoyoing the Journey!

~Kelly

FLYLADY - Still in the Office

Good morning, everyone!

I've had a productive week of sorts. To be honest, I can't remember much of last week  I did get the work table cleaned off. I also worked on my novel almost every night for a couple of hours.  

Before the clean up

Almost there!

The boxes in the far upper right are kits I need to finish. The teal is a planner organizer that will go on top of the planner shelf when that's finished this aftermoom. Stuff in the foreground most just needs sorted and filed into the ScrapRack. This should be completely finished by this afternoon.

There is still a lot to be done in the office but I'm taking each area one phase at a time. 

Taking one area at a time helps prevent over-whelm... which then prevents anything from being accomplished. It's the age old story of taking things One Bite At A Time.

The work table (which is worse than in the picture above because items were added to that empty space on the left during sorting of the filming corner a couple of weeks ago) is my main focus this week... and the surrounding floor area. I want to get back to my junk journals this week and I have deadlines for getting stuff in the shop.  A lot of fall-colored items go up this week and I hope to have at least 1 more journal and coordinating kit by the end of the week. 

I know from exeprience that my items sell once I put them in the shop so that has to be something I focus on. 75% of everything I make in the store goes towards paying off the house over the next two years. My greatest wish would be to get our loan away from PNC bank but that isn't going to happen. Interest rates are much higher now than when we refinanced five years ago, so I'll just have to work with them for as short of a time as possible.

That's my story for this week. I have to say I am enjoying the process and being able to have space to create again. 

My wish for you this week is to...

Enjoy the Journey

~Kelly

 

FLYLADY Week 2 - Office

 

Good morning! Happy Monday!

Technically, this is supposed to be the week I dive into deep cleaning the Living Room, but I've been on a mission.

My office is a total disaster and I'm giving an Organizational Series for crafters on my crafting YouTube channel. If you are brave enough to check it out, the series starts with The Ugly Truth video.

If you watch, please know I've come a long way by the time you see this post. 

Except for an additional shelf I need Bob to put in the paper storage when he gets home, the filming corner is done.

Last week I spent most of my time cataloging and repackaging all of my stamps and putting them away. As you'll see in the video, the sofa was covered in rubber and photo polymer stamp sets. They now all have a home and I can sit on the sofa!!!!!

I've also almost completely cleared off the work table. I had to so I could work on the stamps. By Friday I should be able to start making junk journals again. I hope so because I have a self-imposed deadline to get fall items in my Etsy shop. 

I didn't accomplish much on the kitchen last week. I spent two days with a pinched nerve and muscle spasms in my back. Isn't that usually the way when you have plans to accomplish. Bob left on Monday instead of Tuesday so I had an extra day to dive in. By Monday afternoon my back was starting to send signals and by Tuesday I hurt to walk, sit or stand. movement made me nasueous. Instead, I stretched out in bed on the Sert massager mattress and watched the Olympics. 

The thing to remember is, you can have any kind of schedule you want, but life is going to send you twists and turns along the way. Learn to breathe and ...

Enjoy the Journey!

~Kelly

I'M BACK! - Flylady Week 3 - All About the Office

 

That pretty much sums up what I've been up to the past several months. 

One thing is that I found out I'll be speaking at the Ozark Creative Writers Conference in October - on of all things - blogging LOL With that in mind, I've had to focus my attention on my two main 'business' blogs - Angela Drake (author blog) and KellysCountry (my music blog)  Even the music blog has slid a bit with the major focus being on the author blog since that IS my main business and this is a WRITERS conference.

I've also been focusing on my YouTube channel for the creative side as that pairs with my day job as an Etsy seller. 

Due to cold weather, I had to let the interview with Jared (Adventures with Purpose) slide for the time being. Hopefully, they'll do another central US trip this summer and I can hook up with them again. In the mean time, I will periodically share videos from their Ozark searches last winter.

I also need to bring you up to speed on some of the places I've visited. That starts back up on the 25th - just in time to kick off the summer travel season with some AWESOME BBQ!

Travel. Doesn't that word sound lovely? We've been cut off from our normal routine for over fifteen months. Let's start taking precautions when necessary and try to find a new normal.  

Okay... 

I also debated long and hard about continuing the FlyLady series. I watch a gal on YouTube that I dearly love. She terms herself the 'Secret Slob'. Stephanie is fun and straightforward about how she has taken the FlyLady system and made it her own. Pretty much what I've done but on a much more organized scale. hehe

I am almost caught up on blog posts this week so I'm planning to spend the majority of this week finishing (or at the very least making major headway) in the office. Yeah, that still isn't done!

* Catalog paper slabs

* Catalog new stamp/ die sets

* Clear Filming Table

* Get ready for new Washi Tape storage shelves

* Make sofa usable (my favorite writing space in the evening)

There you have it!

Now I need to get busy.

Be Safe, Be Prepared, Be Blessed

~ Kelly