Antipasti

This year we had Italian for Thanksgiving. I don't remember what we had last year. 

 Since we are broke this year and cereal isn't acceptable for Thanksgiving fare, we had pasta and salad. 

But before we could stuff ourselves on salad and bread and noodles, I put out this antipasti tray.

Like any good Midwestern girl, I love me some meat and cheese trays. But instead of cheddar cheese cubes and summer sausage, I put out fine Italian meats and cheese. 

I had prosciutto, coppa and salami, marinated mozzarella, green and black olives, grapes, crackers, bread sticks and goat cheese covered in fresh, chopped parsley. 

Yum!!

Dresser Organization - Kid Edition

I talked about how I organize The Good Son's room here. So far the room is sparse but functional. I mentioned that this time around I actually had something that doubled as a changing table. With The Good Daughter, I just changed her on the floor but I am too old for that shit now.

So I knew as soon as I got pregnant, after the "OH HOLY FUCK!! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!" shock wore off, I needed something for storage. Since I had been watching too many episodes of Mad Men, I also knew I wanted something mid century style.

But thanks to Mad Men, anyone listing something they knew as mid century on craigslist also knew they could up the price. I searched for months and months trying to find something that was wide enough to fit a changing pad and tall enough to not break my back and cheap enough to not drain the bank account.

The trick was to find something listed as retro, vintage, or old since the seller probably didn't know what they had. I found this dresser for $40 from a girl that was moving out of town and didn't want to move it. We did have to drive 50 minutes to get it, but I think it was worth it.

It has so much storage and is super cute.

Since it doubles as a changing pad, I like to keep all of the diaper stuff within reach, in the first row of drawers.

Diapers, wipes and covers

More diapers

The top drawer also had this super cool divider. I use it to organize spit up rags, socks and shoes, hats, bibs and mittens.

The next row of drawers contains all the clothes for TGS.

Starting from the left and working to the right, I have the clothes organized by size.

9-12 months

6-9 and 3-6

0-3

And so I and The Good Husband can tell what from what, I labeled everything. So TGH knows where the jammies are vs. the onsies.

The bottom drawers contain the things we don't use all that often.

Extra sheets and mattress pads

Receiving blankets and towels

Diapers for when he is bigger

When TDS is out of prefolds and covers in the next month or so, that will leave me an entire drawer to fill with the clothes I know he will get at Christmas. Meanwhile, the old clothes get washed, folded and packed away.

Week 36 of the Weekly Organization Challenge

This is week 36 of The Good Wife's Weekly Organization Challenge! This week focused on home office.

I work from home so I need a dedicated area where I can work - not just a computer in the corner of the living room. We decided to turn a room in our unfinished basement into my home office. 

That is what we started with.

 

And this is how it looks now.

It's still a little bare bones right now b.c we are in debt payoff mode and there are more pressing things that need to be done before I can decorate my office. Plus The Good Son gets to stay at home with me while I work, so his shit is taking up some space down there.

The closet only has some functionality, since it houses the water heater and the furnace. 

 

I would love to get more storage down here - shelves and another bookcase and table, but I haven't found anything that I love love love, so it remains bare. 

Meanwhile, I am pinning things I like for inspiration.

 

Organize along with me in The Good Wife's Weekly Organization Challenges

Week 35 of the Weekly Organization Challenge

This is week 35 of The Good Wife's Weekly Organization Challenge! This week focused on kids' games.

Since The Good Daughter has her own room, she keeps all her toys in there and out of the living room, like we had in the past. But I don't keep any of her games in her room.

One, I don't want her getting into them when I am not in her room and everything gets lost or messed up. Two, I love family game night and it is easier to have the games in a common area so we can get them out and actually play with them.

So the games live in our entertainment center.

Right now we have a good mix of adult and kid games.

We also have games that The Good Husband loves (Up Words, Chess, Checkers, Scrabble) which I hate and games that I love (everything else). Right now, TGD can play Candy Land and Operation. Everything else will just have to wait.

Since I couldn't fit all the games into one cabinet, this side doubles as game storage and DVD storage, mainly box sets. I have some card games in here as well as other kid games.

See that game Pictureka! in there? It is one of the best games I have ever played. I love it to death and play with anyone, anytime. I highly, highly recommend it. Everyone from my 88 year old grandma to my 6 year old niece loves it and we all have an amazing time.

This post rounds out kids' bedroom organization. I have highlighted how I like to group like toys, separate clothes by size and keep games in common areas to facilitate family game night.

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Week 34 of the Weekly Organization Challenge

This is week 34 of The Good Wife's Weekly Organization Challenge! This week focused on the kids' closet. 

I will admit that I haven't done much organizing of the kids' closets. The Good Daughter has too much shit and The Good Son has almost none at all. So I started with his closet and will hopefully continue on to TGD's soon.

TGS mostly has clothes in his closet and not a lot of much else. Other than boxes I still haven't unpacked from when we moved into the house four years ago.

But organizing his clothes can be a pain, since little babies have so many different sizes of clothes in the beginning.
 

So, one way I like to keep them organized is by making clothes labels. This way I can divide the clothes by size and once he is out of the smallest size, store or sell them.

I have labels until to size 2T. By then I figured he would have mostly all the same size in his closet at once.

To make the labels, I just used old CD labels I had around the house. You know, from back in the day before MP3 players. I made a simple design for each one, printed them out and then stuck them on some cardboard. I cut a slit on the left side so the label would fit on the bar and then organized the clothes until my heart was happy.

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Week 33 of the Weekly Organization Challenge

This is week 33 of The Good Wife's Weekly Organization Challenge! This week focused on kids' books. 

I love to read. I was reading Steven King novels in 6th grade. I blame The Stand on my zombie/survival/end of civilization obsession. It was very important for me to show my love of books to The Good Daughter. At Christmas and on her birthday we ask that everyone get her books or clothes. I tend to buy her just books. 

So she has a lot. And we keep them in her room so she can read them whenever she wants and I am able to read them to her each night before bed. 

There are two ways that I organize her books.

The super anal retentive way {by far my favorite} by placing them on the shelf in order of height. 

And the group by colors.

While I prefer the almost OCD organization practice of sorting by size, I don't want that to rub off on TGD. So I let her hand me all the books at the end of the night and I put them on the shelf in the right order. However, she can group her books together by color, so I found that at the end of the night, both of us can help clean her room and feel good about it.

Now if only I didn't have to sing that damn clean up song every fucking time.

Organize along with me in The Good Wife's Weekly Organization Challenges