FLYLADY WEEK 5 - Basement

 Good morning, friends!

Appears as if the rain has finally moved out and now it's just going to be HOT! 

This should be the week I work on the basement, but other things have to be taken care of.

Bob did spend some time last week organizing the boxes/ tubs in the shower room. He opened up a tub that said 'restaurant pans' on the label then promptly left the tub sit open in the room rather than putting it back where I had it stored.

I do need to do some decluttering and rearranging. There are cardboard boxes that I can break down and take out to the greenhouse for the strawberry bed mulching and I'm sure there's a few things that can go to thrift but right now there are three other important things I have to take care of.

Wednesday starts #jaritupjuly. I'll be making up all kinds of jar mixes such as both chicken and beef gravy, alfredo sauce mix and cheese sauce mix.  Then there are 'meals in a jar' that I need to replenish or didn't get to in January. None of these require the pressure canner, water bath canner, or the dehydrator. I'll share my complete list with you later this week.  

I'd also hoped to share my 4th of July decor. We got the front deck cleaned then rain/ thunderstorms visited several days in a row. I hope to squeeze in time tomorrow morning to get that done. I also want my coffee bar set up. 

This is a Rough Draft Challenge (writing challenge) month with Sarra Cannon in the Heartbreathings community. I'm determined to be inspired by the patriotic theme of the month and finish pulling this book together. I've already told Bob I need two hours every evening except what we do for the 4th celebration. 

To round things out, I'm doing 25 Days of Christmas in July in my creative community (KellysCreativeDreams on YouTube and Blogger). Aside from a Christmas themed thing every day for the first 25 days, I'm hoping to get another journal kit done up and out of the way with a Pink Christmas theme.  

Not a lot of cleaning this month at all except the basics and trying to declutter the studio as I work through kits. I'll keep the Fly Lady posts coming and I have other posts to pepper in throughout the month on my schedule. 

I hope you have a great & safe 4th of July!

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly 

PANTRY PREP - #JarItUpJuly

 Good morning, friends!

I'd hoped to be doing more of these Pantry Prep posts. Some days, it's really hard for me to come into the office and focus when sitting at the table playing cards or dice games with Bob are much more inviting. 

courtesy of Ray Shrewsberry - Pixabay

One thing you will never see on this blog or my YouTube channel is a pantry tour. In one side, people talk about safety then on the other side they show everything they have stored and where! While I don't buy into the apocalyptic scenario (completely), that doesn't mean I want people to know what I have and where I store.  That said, let's move on. ;-)

So what is #jaritupjuly?  Well, the easiest description is to visit Angela @TheInquisitiveFarmWife on her YouTube channel. You'll find the video with all of the information and participants links HERE. 

I'll be talking about my complete list in my video HERE.

For now, here's the overview:

Since I have no desire to boot up either canner nor the dehydrator in summer heat (why make the AC work any harder than necessary) I'm going to focus on Meals In A Jar, Mixes, and dry canning such as oatmeal, flour, rice, cereals, etc. 

Next week is Week 5 in the Fly Lady cleaning zone so Bob and I will be doing an inventory of the shelves and making a list of what needs replaced. My #jaritupjuly list will grow from there. 

Leisa at Suttons Daze has a VIDEO explaining how are food supply is going to affected and seeing price hikes this fall, so we're out to get ahead of that. If you missed that post, HERE is Leisa's video. She doesn't spout nonsense, or believe in fear-mongering. She gives you statistics and where she gets her information from - reputable sources. I love her.

I hope you'll join the rest of us squirrels and start stocking your pantry.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~Kelly

FLY LADY WEEK 4 - Office

Good morning, friends!

I think this is  my favorite week. I'm sure you know by now I'm trying hard to make sense of the office/ studio.

By the time you read this, I will have FINALLY gotten the gift box tub put together and out of the Living Room. I've also taken care of the canning items except for the table holding wide-mouth quarts for a project I'll be talking about on the 26th in the Pantry Prep post. 

I'm only seven days from the next Full Moon. so pitching really isn't my agenda for this week. The best time to purge is between the Full Moon and the New Moon. Get rid of what no longer fits you or that you don't want to grow back (or at least at a slower pace)

With that in mind, this week will be all about organizing what I DO want to keep. I don't need in the sewing corner at the moment so I'm going to move all of my kits to that end of the room so I can get around in here, then stage what I do want to pitch after the 29th when the next Full Moon makes an appearance. 

I have other things I need to do in here that doesn't pertain to cleaning. July is going to be a really busy month so I'm trying to prep what I can  now.

* RoughDraftChallenge to finally get this book pulled together. 30 days of FOCUSED writing

* Ozark Creative Writers short pieces. Deadline is August 31st.

* #JarItUpJuly (I'll be talking about that on the 26th)

* 25 Days of Christmas (cards) on the Creative blog/ Youtube channel

* Pink Christmas journal kit (I've had this kit in a bag for 5 years! Time to get it done. 

I'm trying to work through all of my kits, one journal per month. We'll see how this goes but so far, so good. As I type this on Sunday, I'm hoping to finish one this afternoon. I've had all the elements and the signatures for about three years. I'd intended to finish it at the retreat in April but when I opened things up, I realized I didn't have a cover. Instead, I used what I did have to make MORE elements for the journal. LOL 

If you don't have an office or a craft room, what will you work on this week? With school out for the summer, maybe work with your kids to declutter their room and give them a fresh start for the coming school year.  Please let me know what you'll be working on.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLY LADY WEEK 3 - Bedroom & Bathroom

 Good morning!

I don't know about you but I've had my share of weather, either for me or for family & friends.

I did get the canning stuff moved to the basement. The basement organization is the last week of the month but Bob got motivated to do some rearranging. The good thing is, I now have a place to put the extra jars from up here away. I may be packing meat sales in the freezer for the next couple of months but I'm not doing any canning until later this fall.

I did get the night stand cleared last week. Looks nice, and I have room for the keepsake box Bob got me for Christmas.

This week, I want to focus on getting the roll top desk in order so I can start listing projects again. Get photos off my phone and into the respective holders. Some are for the list journal and others are for the Yearly/ Monthly albums.  I'll worry about my clothes closet next month. I need to try stuff on and think about what I'll need for conference in October. One thing at a time.

The bathroom is in really good shape except for the cabinets. They need a good going through/ purge. If I take one basket of stuff a month, I'll have a fresh start by January... Baby steps.

What do you want to work on this week? Is there a space in one of these rooms you've been putting off tackling? Now is the time. Purging in the span of time between a Full Moon and a New Moon is the best time to help insure none of what you get rid of finds it's way back in some form. We have about 16 days left.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLY LADY WEEK 2 - Living Room & Dinning Room

 Good morning, friends!

A bit wet and dreary here in the Ozarks but that's okay. The plants all need a good soak and I can stay inside.

While there is still a lot to do in the house over all, I have two main focuses this week.

Living Room:

* take the canning stuff back to the basement. I'm done doing any canning until fall. 

* FINALLY get the gift box tub taken care of

Dining Room:

* go through the pile of 'state' flyers/ brochures in prep for finishing the States Junk Journal this year.

* go through more of the cooking magazines. I'll note any recipes I want to try then take the rest to recycling

Sometimes you just need to find a FOCUS point rather than looking at the room as a whole. That's my plan of attack for this week. What's yours?

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLY LADY WEEK 1 - Kitchen & Laundry Room

 Good morning!

How can we be entering a new rotation already? Where does the time go?

Well, I can tell you a good portion of my time is spent with Bob. Though over the course of May a lot of my time was canning potatoes and baked beans. As you read this, I'll be processing the last of those #40 of potatoes. I am so ready to be done with those! I'm also putting the pressure canner away until fall. We're going to move into summer temperatures pretty quick and, if you've not experienced pressure canning, the task is a hot job. I don't want to work my AC any more than necessary.

For the most part, I'm done canning though I am planning on some blueberry and strawberry jam. I can put those in the water bath canner and they don't have a long processing time. An early morning task.

Now I can focus on serious cleaning.

I'm hoping for next month to focus on an actual task list that I can share with you. Things to look for in your own home you might not have thought of. For this last month in quarter 2, I just want to spruce things up a bit.

Laundry:

Go through the 3-cubby unit and get rid of anything I no longer need. We have no plans to get another dog so the bath towels, extra bowls, vet back pack, etc. can go! That will free up at least 2 cubbies for bird feed. LOL Yes, we have a wide variety of birds (and squirrels and raccoons) we feed on the front deck. Bob has gone from we aren't going to be able to afford bird feed to, 'let's grab a couple extra bags while they're on sale'. LOL He's so funny. He even researched what squirrel prefer and their visiting habits. He's such a softy. 

So cubby/ wild life food is the priority for that room. I also run the cleaning pod for the washing machine. 

From there it's the weekly run of the rumba and detailing the litter box area.

Kitchen:

I have 2 main areas of interest this week. 

The back area of the corner counter top. I want to declutter, add a lazy susan and possibly a couple of 4th of July/ Patriotic decor pieces.

The other area is my baking island. I already have the Patriotic decor for that space, I just need to clear everything else off so I can bring that in. I have planned to show you what that looks like in a later post.

Getting those areas done this week will be a big win. Can't wait for those two rooms to start looking inviting again.

Are you following this cleaning routine or have you developed your own? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

FLY LADY WEEK 4 - Office

 Good morning, everyone!

Looks like we get a day or two break in the rain. Saturday, I finally found healthy strawberry plants as well as Marigolds. Who knew those flowers would be so hard to find! I'll be planting my own next year, so that will help. I'm putting the marigolds in the tomato and zucchini tubs. We're going to put the strawberries in a holding pattern in the tower pots until we get the bed built. I need to wait for the 4-th of July firework tents to go up so I can haul a massive amount of cardboard. 

As you read this, the two areas of my bedroom will be done. I still need to take care of the 2'x4' table holding my Christmas paper crafting but not ready to bring it back into the office yet. But I will be able to sit at my roll-top desk and work on planning out the next big personal project - Alchemy180. I'll talk about it more in a later post. 

For this week, I'm back hard on the office. I have multiple areas to work on so I'm taking each area and using my Your Path Forward game board for inspiration. If you want to know more about that, I'll link the video HERE. I need to do an updated video this week that I hope to have posted by Wednesday, so if you are interested in that, please subscribe and click notifications on the linked video. That channel is my author account, Angela Drake. If you like Hallmark quality stories, I think you'll enjoy my books. I need to re-release one I got rights back to and Book 2 of the Eureka Springs series is coming soon.

Let's start with the Ugly Truth of this office. Watch the brief video then you'll understand. I'm being fully transparent here.

I know this looks bad. I'm not a hoarder. I USE my stuff and, most of the time, I can get exactly what I need in the moment. However, I want to be able to sit on my sofa and write or read the current book I need to write a review for. Come into my office, shut the door and just do my thing. 

The main things I need to focus on are:

1 - The filming corner

2 - The space in front of the scrap rack binder shelf

3 - Record videos then put the retreat items away 

4 - Clear the sofa, stacking the kits in front of the work table

5 - Finish 3 Bee journals and get one of them in the mail

6 - Organize the stamps that we moved. Some hadn't been included into the boxes yet.

7 - Put digital kits away

Next month I plan to focus on my Tim Holtz storage area.

Using the Game Board Strategy of Your Path Forward (brain child of YA Fantasy author, Sarra Cannon), I'm just going to pick one area, map it out on the game board then get started. If I can get through at least three areas this week, I'll count it as a win. 

The red bag has been returned to the car. One task down! The rolling craft bag is taken care of. Some items were put back where they belonged. Duplicate items stayed in the retreat bag. I've also cleared the filming table... then put stuff on it again. LOL It's a process!

So, as you can see I've made some progress.

What area are you focusing on this week? What major project could you make progress on using the Your Path Forward game board strategy? I'd love to hear from you.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly