You Go Girl!

One of the counselors in our Relief Society presidency came up with a "one-a-day organizing challenge" for the month of September. She'd done it with her daughters before and thought it would be fun on a bigger level. You just organize one thing every day of the month. If you miss a day, you make it up later. Or you can do two or three things in one day in advance. Whatever you want. She had us sign a piece of paper to make it more official, and she sent us motivating emails periodically throughout the month. I totally took this challenge to heart! It was exactly what I needed. Ever since we moved in, I've been so overwhelmed with all of the disorganization and "to-do" lists. So I made a list of all of the projects that I wanted to complete, and all of the junk areas that were driving me crazy, and I organized one thing every day. It felt awesome! And I got soo much done. Best challenge I ever participated in.

Here's just a little taste of what I spent my month doing: the junk drawer in the kitchen

The pantry (which turned out to be a much bigger endeavor than I realized. After I'd emptied the whole thing onto the countertops and table, I thought, "What have I done??"

  

But the end result was totally worth it. I've even organized it further since I took these pictures. Thad was out of town that day and when he returned home I was totally beaming when I showed him what I'd done. He was impressed.

In all, I organized:

-3 closets
-movies in the TV stand
-fridge
-kids' toys
-2 nightstands
-computer desk drawers
-our dresser drawers
-my jewelry
-piles of receipts
-the mail on the countertop dilemma (it seems like this annoying pile of stuff never goes away: it just gets moved to different locations in the house. Anyone else feel that way?)
-magazine bin
-office shelves
-food storage boxes
-cleaning supplies
-cabinets under sink in both bathrooms
-linens and extra blankets
-misc stuff in the hall closet
-pantry
-suitcases downstairs
-two purses