Shoe Storage

Shelves courtesy of my husband. Didn't he do an awesome job? Out of gratitude I allowed him a small section on the right for his shoes.

This makes it look like our house is incredibly organized. If only I could get the rest looking like this. Well, I can dream and maybe work on it a room at a time.

Organized Medicine Cabinet

Before and after photos of the medicine cabinet. This thing was stressing me out every time I opened the door. It was super-deep cavernous, narrow place. Very difficult to navigate. Nobody could find anything in there but me which meant "Mom, where are the bandaids?" People rifling through and tossing stuff around had it looking like this:
Before

                                       
                                                                                 After

Now each family member has a basket for their prescriptions and supplements they take. Then there's a basket for cough/cold remedies, a basket for OTC pain medicine, one for ointments/topical meds and one in the back for my kids' asthma medicine and home nebulizer which, fortunately, we rarely use. Best of all, we can see all the categories at a glance and instantly grab what we need.

I'm so proud! Becoming an organized person at 44 feels amazing. O.K. So I had to start taking an ADHD medication to get this far, but I'm also learning some new skills. It takes all these resources to address the disorganization but I think it's worth it.

Organizing is fun?

 

I'm mighty proud of this drawer. Of course the wood glue shows in the flash photo. If my husband had done it, there would be no visible wood glue and it would be done correctly. But where's the fun in that? Me, I just grabbed some balsa wood, glue and an exact-o knife. Presto!

I'm on an organizational kick big time. Since I started taking medication for ADHD about 8 months ago, my organizational abilities suddenly kicked in. I'm on a mission to re-do all the badly planned storage in our house and, believe it or not, I'm kind of having fun. I just wish I could take a week off from work and do it all at once, but that's not going to happen.

Energy to complete the task is another big thing. For whatever reason, things that used to seem insurmountable don't any more. It's not perfect and medication seems to be helping way more at home than at work, but it is helping.

And here is my nemisis--a medicine cabinet so deep we can't tell what lurks at the back. Every single member of the family takes supplies in and out of this space too. All of this is a recipe for total chaos. We eventually want to install those sliding drawer things, but I really need to tame this beast now. Stay tuned for after photos hopefully coming soon.

Considering my husband almost didn't marry me based on how my apartment looked when we were dating . . . I've come a tremendously long way. Of course my twins were 3 at the time. Feel free to address comment to him about it. Ha ha.  He had his reasons which  I really can't go into. And he is amazingly understanding now that he knows my brain just doesn't work to organize automatically the way his does. Some people are born organizers and some have to learn.

Fear and Creativity

Fear is the enemy of creativity

Somebody famous probably said that, and if so, I just stole it. I remember hearing of an experiment where a pottery class was divided into 2 groups. One could make as many pots as they wanted, experimenting until they got to the final product. The second group had one chance to get it right. At the end, the group who could experiment produced a much better pot. Apparently, the ability to experiment and make mistakes along the way frees us up somehow.

The story was in something I was reading about art, but it can apply in fashion and daily life too. Pretty much anything you're afraid others will judge you for. Since I've set about playing with my clothing and experimenting, I've had to face down insecurities I didn't even know I had. My husband likes to say, "Gee, you have a lot of issues!" Yeah, and for some reason God seems intent on opening them all up to the light and dealing with them all in the last few months. I really don't know why. What is he preparing me for? I'm hoping it's just time to deal with them. I mean, I'm 40+. How long am I going to let these things hold me back?

All of this was prompted by my attempting to arrange my front entrance of my house in a pleasing way. I've been joyfully tackling the closet and other areas, but the front curio cabinet had me frozen in fear. It's the 1st thing you see as you walk in. Bam! There it is--the first impression of me and my home. Just to add to the pressure, it was hand-made by my grandfather. As I was begging my Facebook friends for help, I realized it's not lack of inspiration holding me back, but fear. Normally I play with something till I'm happy with it. You know just enjoying the process. O.K. I'm feeling this is a little too deep for a Saturday, so get out there and enjoy yourselves.

Hopefully more closet progress to come. I have begun nagging, um, I mean brainstorming with my husband on ideas for shoe storage for both of us. The poor thing was very patient as I showed him every shoe storage idea on Pinterest last night. He's awesome at stuff like that and will probably do something I haven't even thought of.