This is Me: OCD

Something that you may or may not know about me is that at age nine, I was diagnosed with a mental illness: an anxiety/panic disorder. This has been one of the most monumental aspects of my entire life, and I intend to share my journey with my disorder at an upcoming time. But there are two other issues that are inevitably linked to any person suffering from anxiety disorders: depression and obsessive compulsive disorder {OCD}. Today, I wanted to take a moment to share about the OCD side of my disorder.

Here on my blog, I often joke around about my OCD-tendencies and my obsessions with all things neat, tidy, and organized. I must admit that I really shouldn't kid about these things, for I can understand all too well those who actually suffer and deal with severe OCD issues on a regular basis.

My OCD issues have always been apparent, even at a young age. At times it just seemed that I was particular, whereas other times {most notably during the stages when I severely struggled with panic attacks}, my OCD would be much more prevalent. I never was at the point where some OCD suffers find themselves, such as touching things a certain number of times, turning things on and off so many times, or doing any other compulsive behaviors that they believe would lead to disaster if not completed. Yet I was not far from these habits, either. Mostly, I had an overwhelming need to control my things and their location.

Halloween Candy

My OCD was always a sense of trying to control my environment in times when I felt everything else in my life was out of control. I couldn't control my anxiety and panic attacks. But I could control my physical items, and when placed exactly where I liked them and felt they needed to be, it brought me a sense of peace and calm I could otherwise not produce.

I can remember so many times, placing a book or a piece of paper on my desk,  and laying it just right so that the edges of the book or paper would be perfectly perpendicular to the edges of the desk. I'd walk away, then stop. It wouldn't feel right, so I'd need to go back and check it to make sure the lines were perfect. Sometimes I'd even make it to the family room, sit down, then continually doubt that the lines were perfect, so I'd go back to my room to check the position of the book or paper. Especially with paper, I knew that a simple breeze from a passerby could slide the paper out of its position. Paper was always risky.

The amount of control I used to exhibit was extreme, but I felt it is how I could best function in life. I have come so very, very far from where I used to be with my OCD.

During college, I really made leaps and bounds coming out of my need for my items to be just perfectly so. I had roommates all through college, so I quickly learned that I could only control my items and that often our shared spaces would just have to be. I even relaxed so much that really for the first time in my life, I sometimes let things go and my room would get cluttered and messy.

I've carried this leniency on though to our married life. Matt is well-aware of my tendencies and he will sometimes find I've gone through his dresser and refolded everything and placed them back neatly and carefully. Thankfully, Matt is overall quite neat and clean for a guy, something I feel I owe to his years in the military. But sometimes our house does get cluttered and definitely in need of cleaning, especially now that we have a little one to chase around {and who is in the current destruct-o stage of tearing the house apart room by room}.

Yet my OCD is there. I don't sleep well if the house isn't at least picked up; I still get that feeling that things aren't good or right. I can't stand knowing that there are closets or drawers that are cluttered. At the times I've put things into closets or drawers before company comes over, and though I know this is a completely common and normal practice for most people, I feel shame. I feel that I am hiding something. It feels wrong to present a clean and orderly home when drawers and closets can be opened up to show disorder and clutter within. In a weird way, I feel that I am presenting some false version of myself, one that is dis-genuine. And there is little else that I distain more than being fake.

It has always been my own things, my own sense of order {well, Matt's and Makenna's included, since it's all our things} that concerns me. It doesn't bother me to walk into someone else's space and see clutter, and I can sincerely tell you that I never pass judgement when I'm in someone else's home. I don't honestly even think about it, because the things are not mine and they make up a space which belongs to someone else. Furthermore, I am keenly aware that my standards based on my tendencies are extremely abnormal.

As I write this, I'm realizing how difficult it is to articulate my tendencies--the way my personal spaces deeply affect my mental well-being. It's one of those things that probably can't really be understood unless someone else has the same tendencies or battles with disorders.

I've come to accept that like my anxiety disorder, the OCD side of Deanne will always be there. It's intrinsically built into my DNA. I am pleased with the progress I've made with my OCD over the years, and still I accept that I will probably never feel at peace unless all of my drawers and closets are organized. And I'm OK with that.

Recent organization of our bins of infant items

I pass it off as one of my quirks, but it is so much more than that. I know better than anyone what it is to struggle with mental illness and to have it turn your world upside down. The key, I have found, is to accept and adapt--to learn to live a normal life with mental illness.

And, yes. I will probably always blog about organization because it is truly something I enjoy now. I find it fun and inspiring and it makes me feel good. I praise God that I can now enjoy this part of myself and not feel it is something that controls me or our everyday family life.

Hello FREEDOM!

Matt left Monday morning for work training in Arizona and won't be back until Friday of next week {it's a long training!}. Yesterday, I drove to meet my mom in Indiana and handed over Makenna to her care until Friday evening.

That's right--I am free of both child and wifely duties for the next few days! All of my time is my very own!

 I may or may not even have celebrated by eating a Party Pizza {one of my super-guilty indulgences that I hardly ever allow myself}.

Once Makenna comes home Friday evening, I will only have her until Sunday afternoon, at which time I will hand her over to Matt's parents for ANOTHER four days and three nights of freedom.

I planned for Makenna to have these fun getaways with her grandparents during Matt's work trip at the prompting of my best friend, Laura. She has taken advantage of similar opportunities and convinced me that I'd "be a better mom for it." It's true---this is a time of both recharging and opportunity to accomplish many things for which I normally don't have the time.

I have so much I am planning to do during this time {which is already passing by much too quickly} and I've already given myself pep talks about how I'm trying to cram too many projects into too little time, so I need to know that they won't all get finished. To begin with, I decided to undertake painting our basement since it has been completely cleared out for the new carpet installation. I wasn't originally planning on this and it is quite time consuming, but since I had envisioned painting the basement at some point anyway, it really would've been silly not to take advantage of the both the fact that our basement is all cleared out and that Matt and Makenna are both away. We spend a significant amount of time in our basement as a playroom for Makenna and our family room {which contains the only TV in our home} where Matt and I like to relax in the evenings and on weekends. I am really excited about making it look prettier and feel a bit more cozy. The new carpet will make it look amazing, too!

After handing Makenna off yesterday, I drove back to Michigan, went to Ikea, went in for a dental cleaning appointment, and painted half of our basement. I have vowed not to waste this time!

It will be hard to maintain a balance between the many projects I want to tackle and making sure I take time to relax and enjoy myself. I am still needing to fit in my 19 hours of weekly work, too. I have plans next week to have a shopping day where I will leisurely browse all the less-kid-friendly stores I rarely visit anymore and partake in one of my favorite pastimes: sipping a Starbucks and spending a ridiculous amount of time browsing the Barnes and Noble book shop.

I must go...time to work some more, finish up the painting, and then head out to meet my small group for ice cream this evening!

A Lot Going On

This is the end of my second week back to work with my wonderful part-time, work from home job. And these last two weeks have been crazy, to say the least.

But first, let me back up to update a little more on Project P.R.B. If you remember, two of three goals I set to achieve by the end of July were to hold a yard sale {to help eliminate all the items from the major household purge} and to paint our office desk.

Sadly, neither of those were achieved by July's end. We had arranged and made plans to have the yard sale on the last Saturday in July. To my immense frustration, the weather forecast was threatening rain with multiple possible thunderstorms, so we decided to postpone the event. And then during the final days of July when I had planned to tackle the desk project and get it painted before I began my seasonal work, Makenna came down with some sort of virus which had her running a fever for nearly two days.

I vowed not to despair over my foiled plans.

So then, on the first Monday of August, I officially started working again. On Tuesday, it seemed Makenna could be coming down with yet another sickness. This time, it was much worse--she contracted croup. Our poor darling was coughing the most awful sound, and by Wednesday she started with a fever, too. Caring for her took up much of my free time.

And on top of this, I was finishing any last-minute preparations for our yard sale, because this past Saturday was our rescheduled yard sale day. By Friday, our house was a complete and utter disaster with the categorized piles of items sorted here and there, ready to be taken out and displayed in the early hours of Saturday.

I am happy to report that our garage sale was a success! Not only did we bypass the minimum amount I was wanting to make in order to feel that the whole effort was worth it, but we made just $1.50 short of my overall goal. What we earned was exactly enough to put together a new coffee bar in our dining room, which will give me a lot more usable counter space in our little kitchen. {I will be blogging the results soon when the coffee bar is all put together!} I can't even begin to tell you how wonderfully free I felt after eradicating all that stuff for the yard sale, whether it was purchased or later dropped off at the Salvation Army. It was as if a thousand pounds were lifted off of my shoulders, I tell you!

Then this past week, we had another big event. If you might recall, we live in the greater Metro Detroit area, and we had some massive rainstorms come through Monday evening that left a wake of devastating flooding. I'm not talking about flooding up to the rooftops or anything that severe, but rather several feet of water in many folks' basements, and most major roadways closed due to the flooding {which in places, flooded enough to almost submerge cars}. Apparently there were even a few elderly folks who drowned.

It is quite a sight to presently drive up and down our street and the surrounding neighborhoods. Every house has piled furniture, carpeting, and boxes upon boxes of personal items at the curb for the garbage service to haul away. I was blown away when I went on a walk with Makenna to see all the damage that was done. And that's when I realized exactly how lucky we are.

Most people had inches, if not feet, of flooding in their basements due to sewer backup. We, however, did not have that. We have a sump pump in our basement and for the first forty five minutes or so of the torrential rains, we didn't realize that our sump pump didn't trigger for some reason. Matt was able to trip it and the pump started working immediately and stayed working, thankfully. But we did have a carpeted area of about five feet by ten feet that had gotten well-soaked from water coming up through our sump pump hole. {Our basement is partially finished with dry wall and carpeting, and one area of our basement is completely finished, which we have made into a cozy little family room.}

We diligently worked at getting the water out, cleaning the carpet, and drying it as much as possible. But the damage had been done and there was no question that unless we wanted a super-stinky basement {that likely would have ended up moldy, too}, we'd have to pull out the wet carpet. The wetness had spread to a very large area, so about half of our basement carpet was taken out.

And then, by some miracle, we discovered that we have some kind of allowance in our homeowners insurance policy that would help cover damages. We don't have flood insurance so I don't know how this worked out exactly, but when they said they wanted to send us a check and waive our need to meet the deductible, I was beyond ecstatic. We haven't heard of anyone who has had any kind of insurance coverage to help with repair and replacement, which is such a shame given that most people had much worse damage than we did.

The carpet company came out today and we can re carpet our entire basement for $20 less than the amount of the check we're receiving from the insurance company. We are still in disbelief!!! Oh my goodness, what an incredible blessing we have received. We are praising the Lord because truly in this situation, it is only His hand that could have provided this gift for us.

Next week, this beauty will be in our basement:

A tremendous blessing in disguise from the water damage.

And now, here's to hoping things quiet down around here and we can settle into a little bit more normalcy!

Project P.R.B. Update

I am pretty excited because {for the most part}, I have completed part "P" {purging} of my project and I'm well into part "R" {reorganizing}!

{See explanation of "P.R.B." here}

The house has been sorted through from literally top to bottom, and this is what I've come up with for the yard sale:

{caution: ugly basement photo!}

This photo does not include our big ticket items, either. It will be so nice to sort through this, get it prepared for the sale, and get it OUT of our house!

I've reorganized our kitchen, which I've been itching to do for months, and made a few changes to maximize storage space in our tiny kitchen {I'll write about this later}. I've also mostly gotten our utility room under control, thanks to the new shiny set of utility shelves we purchased to help with organization. I'd never thought I could be so excited about adding utility shelves to a space!

I also pulled out all of the bins from our attic to purge and ended up reorganizing all the bins of baby items and clothing. I added labels, too; nothing fancy like you see online but at least functional. That's one of my quirks, too--I have more peace of mind knowing the baby clothes are folded nice and neatly in their bins. Maybe other OCD-types can relate? Anyone??

I have planned a lot of "before and after" photos to share of things we've done around our house. We've been working hard, but there's still much to do.

Thanks to project P.R.B., I'm feeling so much better about the overall state of our house. Lots more things to share soon!

Project P.R.B.

Our house is a disaster right now. You can't come in. I won't let you.

Ok, really it's not that bad. Except for half of the basement.

I'm in the midst of some major projects around here. In fact, I've come up with my own little name for this massive undertaking {because I'm just a nerd like that}: Project P.R.B.


P = Purge
I got rid of very few items when we first moved from our apartment into our house because I felt unsure of what we'd actually need and use in our bigger place. Now I know, and the excess has really started to eat at me. Especially with all the stuff that comes with having kids, I'm really feeling the urge to simplify as much as possible.

So I am going through every corner, every closet, every box and bin and purging my little heart out. It feels amazing.

Because we have a fairly significant amount of stuff to get rid of, I'm setting it all aside for now and planning to have a yard sale later this summer. I'm hoping we can at least make a small sum of cash that can help pay for some upgrades in our kitchen that don't fit our current budget.

The pile of items "to yard sale" is growing by the day and is making our basement rather precarious. Hopefully the bigger the pile, the bigger the income, but for now, it's a major eyesore and I can't wait to get all of that stuff out of our house!

R = Reorganize
We all know the tale of how we moved into this home exactly three weeks to the day before the arrival of our first baby. That means that our whole house was unpacked in quite a hurry. Whether we had unpacked just before Makenna was born or in the weeks after, we did it all without a lot of thought and just for the sake of being entirely unpacked.

I have put a little effort into making things more sensible and functional for us since then, but I haven't majorly tackled it all as it should be. As I've pulled everything out to complete the purging, I've put of lot of thought into how to best organize or reorganize items to make our life easier.

Unfortunately this has become a bit painstaking. I'm spending so much time trying to visualize or put something away one place but then decide it would work better somewhere else. The fact that I have such strong OCD tendencies does not help one bit!

B = Beautify
I've always been a stickler for organization but I haven't always paid much attention to making the whole scheme beautiful and elegant. I freely admit that I've gotten sucked into the organizing/home decor blogs out there and fallen madly in love with the thousands of ideas for pretty organization. The photos I've seen have made me hang my head in shame at my brown cardboard boxes, even if the contents within are organized.

Yet it also doesn't fit our budget for me to run out and buy lots of pretty new containers and such. I'm going to have to get pretty creative--spray paint, wrapping/contact papers, and whatever else I've got on hand will probably be the tools I use to attempt some more aesthetically-pleasing storage spaces.



I'm a procrastinator. {That's always something I'm working at!} So I'm a bit ashamed I've not gotten around to doing all of this until roughly a year and half in our house. In typical Deanne-fashion, I am pushing myself hard to get things accomplished as I have only a few remaining weeks until my "work season" will start up again. Once that happens, it's so much harder to get major projects done.

So here are my "musts" in the coming weeks:
1. Complete the P {purging} and R {reorganization}
2. Have a yard sale
3. Paint our office desk

Yikes. Wish me luck!

I'll try to keep you updated on the progress, and possibly even share some cringe-worthy photos of the current chaos in our home.

Reuse: Simple and Pretty Organization

We all know how much I love organizing. Even more than that, I love pretty organizing things. But I especially love finding a great organizing tool from another item that has served some previous purpose.

My mom is actually the one who turned me on to my affinity for using box lids as mini-organizing trays. I have these stashed in drawers all over the house. It corrals several items and keeps them from cluttering a space, yet allows for quick and easy access to them.

Here's the box I use in my night stand drawer where I keep my lotions, lip balms, and mints.

This is the bottom-half of a box of cards I purchased and used up from Barnes and Noble a few years ago.

It was already crying out to me to be used for some other purpose, since I sincerely love this shade of blue.

Because I use this as more of an open-tray piece, I decided to pretty-up the inside of the box with some scraps of fancy scrapbooking paper I had.

Simply measure, cut, and glue and in a matter of mere minutes, you'll have yourself a lovely and functional little tray!

Since I love organization so much, I think it's time I start blogging about this topic more often. And I always, always love to hear new ideas for organization, so if you have any, please be sure to share!

In the mean time, I highly recommend checking out this blog--{I Heart Organizing}--if you're really into organization. I am completely and utterly hooked on this site! It is wonderfully inspirational.

Martha and Me

I've already shared with you about my neat-freak tendencies, so it may come as no surprise to you that at a young age, I became mesmerized by a woman who seemed to be perfect in every way: Martha Stewart.

One afternoon, when I was about thirteen, I was browsing television channels when I happened upon a program I had never seen or heard of, Martha Stewart Living. This was long before she had her current show {which hosts celebrity guests in a talk-show format, demonstrating how to make a recipe or craft}.

I was hooked within the first three minutes. This woman, Martha, had such a beautiful, soothing voice. Her movements were soft and graceful and she had the loveliest manner of speaking. The show was filmed in her house, which was immaculate, and the intro/transition music was a charming, classical sort. Everything she created was such a work of art. It only took me one episode, or even half of one, to decide that Martha Stewart was an utter genius.

My collection of Martha Stewart DVDs. I actually bought these at Dollar General for about $3 each!

The first show I saw was a Halloween-themed episode since it was late in October. Martha showed a craft project making a sort of black lantern-box. I distinctly remember her explaining how it was a tradition in the town were she grew up as a child for each child to make one of these lantern boxes at Halloween. Then one evening, all the kids and families would carry their lanterns to a big open field and Martha explained how magnificent it was to stand in a field as night set in, with hundreds upon hundreds of lanterns shining in the darkness.

At the end of the show, I spent the rest of my afternoon making my own Halloween lantern box. Luckily my mom already had a perfectly square box on hand. I cut out shapes on all four sides {a witch, a ghost, a pumpkin, and a bat} and then spray painted the box black. I attached wax paper to the inside of the box to illuminate the cut outs and covered the inside of the box lid with foil {to keep the box from getting hot/burned from the candle}. I was thrilled with the outcome; very proud that I had successfully crafted a Martha Stewart project. You better believe that my lantern box lit up our front porch along with the jack-o-lanterns when then trick-or-treaters came that Halloween. 

I have a few Martha Stewart magazines...

From then on out, I watched Martha's television program religiously. I'll admit that I held this woman on a pedestal for many years. Of course my idea of Martha's perfect life was shattered when Martha was convicted of four felonies and sent to prison. 

I still thoroughly enjoy reading Martha Stewart magazines and getting all sorts of creative ideas for crafts and delicious recipes. 

...my two year-long subscription stash of Martha Stewart Living magazines.

I really don't care for Martha's new TV show, so I don't watch it. But I have plenty of Martha books, DVDs, and magazines on hand to keep me inspired all-year-long.

I purchased this book in high school.

I no longer hold Martha on a pedestal, but I do still consider myself a huge fan. In a way, since I began watching her TV programs at such a young age, she shaped some of my ideals for my grown-up life; cooking and baking away in the kitchen, playing hostess, decorating for the holidays, and keeping a beautiful garden.

Martha Stewart is someone who always leaves me incredibly inspired, so I am sure Martha recipes, crafts, and ideas will always manifest here and there in our life throughout the years. So, cheers to you, Martha!

Neat and Tidy, Part Two

On my recent trip to Indiana, my sister and I were looking through books in little Will's new nursery. She had some brand new books, but also some old ones she kept from our childhood.

I was so utterly delighted to come across two books I had completely forgotten about--the Serendipity Books. When I was little, I absolutely loved looking at the beautiful illustrations in these books. The writing is very poetic, too.

The thing I loved most about these books were the depictions of a very proper, clean, lovely life. I had a tendency to fixate on these books because of my intense love of the idea of a "perfect" life.

The first book, The Grumpling, tells the story of etiquette and good manners. This is a charming story which teaches little ones all about politeness.

The main character is Buttermilk; "She was very polite and her manners were impeccable." I loved this photo of her in her little apron, busy baking delicious treats in her kitchen.

Buttermilk invites the Grumpling, a bear without an ounce of manners, to tea. Of course, it is disastrous. {I always loved looking at the photos of the beautifully-set tables of an afternoon tea time.}

 

It all ends well, however, with the Grumpling finally learning proper manners.

The next Serendipity book I loved even more:

This book is all about perfection. My sister and I were laughing as we came across this book and she noted, "Yup, Deanne, that's you! The OCD dragon..."

Persnickity is a dragon who is unique in his cleanliness, for dragons are naturally filthy. He moves out of the cave he shares with the other dragons in pursuit of a "perfect" life.

I never thought the word "perfect" was used too much!

And even now, reading the below page fills me with a warm fuzzy feeling...

As you can imagine, the party isn't what Persnickity had hoped for.

The book ends with Persnickity loosening up, and enjoying entertaining the dragons at his home often, even though they make a mess. {this was an especially good lesson for me to learn!}



These two books reminded me of one other book that was a favorite of mine growing up, again because of the theme of a clean/organized life:

I was raised on Berenstain Bears books, and I have our family's collection of sixteen books to this day. Of all sixteen, this book alone stood out to me.

I always adored the fact the the Berenstain Bears lived in a tree house. And this book describes how lovely their home was...

...all except for Brother and Sister Bears' room.

It's a story of struggle between the cubs and Mama Bear over the mess and clutter.

I can still feel the eager anticipation I experienced as a child, when reading this book and coming to the very end:

A very clean and very organized room! I could think of nothing more wonderful! 

The very last page of the book was my favorite. I used to sit there and just stare at the page for several minutes on end. {Oh, it's just so organized!}

As you can see, I was sort-of a weird kid in that I was so infatuated with cleanliness, organization, perfection, etc., etc.

I guess that's just always who I've been, and always who I'll be--ever the girl who needs to loosen up a bit about things not being so perfect.

***

{After reading yesterday's blog post, Matt thought it would be funny to go around the apartment and switch/move little things. I guess I haven't come so far since childhood, since I instantly had to go around the apartment, putting things right again...why does everyone find this so amusing!?}

Neat and Tidy, Part One

I've been called a lot of things throughout my life: Perfectionist, Anal, Neat Freak, Obsessive, etc.

This part of my personality has truly been with me since early childhood. Part of it comes from the influence of my mom, who has always kept a very clean, organized, clutter-free home. In fact, on several occasions when I was a kid, my friends would comment to me, "Your house is so clean!!" And since most kids don't notice/care about that kind of thing, the fact that our home stood out to them says a lot.

But my neat-freakishness also comes from another place, one much more deep-rooted in my psyche. You see, when I was nine years old, I was diagnosed with an Anxiety Disorder. It's something that became so severe, it kept me from going to school for months at a time, or even leaving the house. This is something I'll share with you another time.

With my anxiety disorder comes obsessive thoughts and tendencies. These were most pronounced during my periods of intense struggle with my anxiety, where I truly exhibited obsessive compulsive tendencies with my things and how they affected my overall well-being. I don't really exhibit obsessive compulsiveness anymore, but as I always have, I often wrestle with my own obsessive thoughts and keeping them under control.

But the fact of the matter is that I've always just been someone who prefers to keep my things neat and orderly. I don't really care about other's things, it's just my own that affects me. Aesthetics are the most important part of my organization, even before functionality. Thankfully, as I've grown up, gone to college {meaning sharing rooms with others}, and gotten married, I have loosened up TONS on my perfectionism.

Growing up, my room was always just so. My sister nicknamed my room "the museum room," and her friends used to comment to her, "does your sister actually sleep in there?" My sister also used to think it was funny to move things in my room by mere inches, or switch two decorative items, and then giggle as she watched me notice within seconds of entering my room and have to fix it right away. She also turned my friends on to playing this trick on me whenever I left them alone in my room for a few minutes. Looking back, I can admit that it's pretty funny! They all teased me in good fun about this side of my personality, like when after having sat on my bed together and getting up to leave the room, I'd instinctively go and smooth out all the wrinkles on my comforter and replace the bed pillows just so.

Here's some evidence from my childhood:


Age nine. {Seriously, what kid does that with Halloween candy?!?}







And a story my dad likes to tell about my perfectionism:

Around age 6 or so, my dad read me a story at bedtime and tucked me in for the night. After goodnight prayers and kisses, he put the book back on my bookshelf and turned off the light. As he was leaving my room, he saw me from the corner of his eye quickly get back out of bed.

 "Deanne, what are you doing?" he asked.

"You didn't put the book back in the right place." I said.

And then I put the book back in its proper place and got back into bed.

Musical Bliss

I'm a happy girl!

You know why?

Because I just got my new 160GB iPod Classic!

I have seriously been wanting one of these for years. I literally have hundreds and hundreds of CDs and I wanted to be able to have ALL my music in one place without having to worry about running out of space.

My last iPod was only 2GB, which didn't even hold all of my music from iTunes.

But then...God smiled! I won a contest in our apartment complex of which the prize was an 8GB iPod Touch. I wasn't really interested in having a Touch...I just wanted all those 160 GBs! So, what did I do? I found a buyer for my brand-new, unopened iPod Touch on Craigslist, then combined that money with leftover birthday money I've been holding onto....and ta-dah! I had just enough to pay for the iPod I actually wanted!

Now I am a very busy girl as I begin to load all of my CDs onto this new beauty. The result will be exactly what I've been dreaming about: Music Heaven!

Waste Not

A couple months back, my lovely sister Erin gave me all her past editions of Real Simple magazine; the past three year's worth. I was elated!

I adore this magazine and always find so many useful articles and recipes. Naturally, I couldn't afford the space of keeping all these editions, so I meticulously went through all the magazines, clipping out the many articles and recipes I wanted to keep.

Afterwards, I had such a large stack of clippings, I knew I had to organize them somehow.

All the many, many recipes went into a binder:

I love Real Simple's recipes, and now I have a great collection of everything from appetizers, to entrees, to desserts.

I even clipped some articles about general know-how in the kitchen.

For the other array of articles, I simply found putting them into colorful file folders to be easiest.

These flowered folders were a steal, on clearance at Barnes & Noble.

Now, I just need to create a pretty cover for my binder...

***

On a purely different note, Happy Fourth of July! God bless our great nation!

Getting Settled

I'm here in our new apartment! The move went quite well and God spared us rain during the loading/unloading processes, though it rained other times and the weather forecast predicted constant rain.

Things are mostly put away and all furniture arranged, but there are still a few boxes to be unpacked and lots of smaller things I need to figure out spaces for.

HUGE thanks to my parents and Matt's dad for all their help with this move!

On a totally different note, did anyone else watch the Royal Wedding this morning? I set my alarm and got up at five am to watch the live coverage leading up to the six am nuptials.

I've had a life-long love affair with the Royal Family {mostly stemming from my awe of Princess Diana when I was a little girl} and so this event was very exciting for me. I thought Kate's dress was classic and elegant and I loved watching the whole thing.

Off to more organizing... which {being the nerd I am} I happen to adore...

Photos to come once things are all put away and decorated!