Life On The Central Coast

Happy Halloween "My Pretties." Hope your day is filled with fun, laughter and loads of sweets! Stay tuned.... Putting the final touches on my closet!! I KNOW! Mike finished work on the "skeleton" part and it looks FABULOUS! I'm running out to Marshalls and Ross today to see if I can "flesh out" the insides with some organizers and hangers. Then everything that has been lying around for the last month will have one last sorting of "do I really need this" and then placing back in. It's funny when you ask yourself that how much you can part with. No more "3 sizes of clothes" stuffed in there... if it doesn't fit today, it's outta there!! I'm even going through things I was keeping as sporting equipment to make certain I only keep what I plan to continue doing. No more excess just space, space, SPACE. I'm loving the feeling of emptiness and openness. It's freeing!

You all know that I've been PLANNING for a closet remodel. Planning... it's good but it's not action. Action gets things DONE! Well, right now my husband is working a planned outage at his plant and is working so many hours he has not time left over for my projects. That's where the magic happens. Just when I thought it wasn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon, I get this call from my son-in-law, Mike V. , saying he can work it into his schedule!! He came over on Monday to take out all the old stuff and he's coming back tomorrow and the next day to finish the project! Tonight we buy supplies. I'm pinching myself in disbelief that it is actually happening. It's one thing to see it on paper and totally another to be able to actually have it complete. I hope to be able to paint the closet before putting everything back in so it will look and smell fresh and new. So I created a slideshow, a bit boring if you see it for what it is... but empty is goo...

The progress is continuing on the closet although it is SLOW! This week's past "assignment" was to go through the closet and decide what was Keep, Donate and Trash and also which items just didn't belong in the closet. I set aside about an hour on a couple of days and made it through all the items in my closet except for the craft area behind the door. I think this area is going to have its own, separate cleaning time. For one thing, I have absolutely no place to put what's in here... yet. By the Spring though, I want to have a HUGE garage sale and winnow out some of the crafts I don't do any more. In my first hour session, I took out all the clothes and tried them on for size. Then I only kept what fit and the items I really LOVE. I heard a great idea here. Turn your hangers around the wrong way and hang your clothes on them. When you wear them, rehang the item back on the hanger in the proper position. At the end of a set time, let's say 6 months, you wi...

The closet has been on my mind a lot. This morning I woke up and decided to do something more than just think about it. Today was "action" day. I grabbed a tall kitchen garbage bag and filled it to the brim with miscellaneous trash items. That was pretty easy!! Now the ball was rolling! Next, I decided to put together a bag of "unnecessary" items for donation. Today's items were mostly handbags and some clothes I wasn't wearing. Yes, it was just two bags today. But that's two bags more than yesterday! Small steps... baby steps, but I'm doing it! Little by little the change is happening and it feels GOOD! Tomorrow, I'm grabbing some large boxes and labeling them with KEEP, DONATE / GARAGE SALE, and TRASH. I'll sort and put into the boxes. When they are full, I'll do the labeled action. Today I was in a World Marketplace store and found myself looking at all the organizing baskets. At this point, I don't know if I really want to buy m...

Confession. My closet is full of unnecessary items. These items serve "no purpose" and are " unrequired " in my current everyday life. So why are they there? Is it as hard for you to let go of things as it is for me? These items USED to hold value. I HAD to have them. Some items were gifts, some inherited but mostly, these items were bought by me. They seem to hold an "essence". Some part of me THINKS there is some kind of residual value in these unnecessary items. The larger part of me realizes that it is all just "stuff" that is taking up space that could be organized and pleasant to the eye. There was an organizer many years ago that suggested taking a picture of these items (since this takes up less space) and then donating or selling the item. You can take the picture out and look at it and perhaps, experience some of the same feelings as if you actually had the item. I've thought of doing that. A garage sale sounds really nice because I...

This is the teaser photo. Behind this door lies the closet I share with my husband. Here are some facts about the closet I will tell you before the big interior reveal. The closet is 11 ft. long (into it) and 5 ft. wide. A built in, 11 in. wide shelf all the way around the top, about about 2 ft. down from the ceiling. Some built in shelving, a section of closet for longer items and a section that has two poles for hanging skirts or pants and tops. Ineffectual lighting My side of the closet contains about 50/50 item that BELONG in a closet and items that really don't but are stored there. Most shelves contain non-wardrobe items There is a 3 tiered shoe rack, some craft room overflow drawers and tiny shoe box size organizers that are basically empty right now. What would I LIKE to see in my closet? Only clothes I LOVE to wear. It would be nice to have a better way to organize my shoes. A clear floor. The upper shelves need to become more useful. Some matching closet organizers. A pl...

Eating out is expensive. Convenient, but expensive. So I'm trying to get back into making a weekly plan and sticking to it. I've been a Blog "lurker" over at "This Week For Dinner" for about a month now getting an idea of what everyone else is making. We aren't 100% vegetarians but we do try to have at least a couple of meals a week that are or can be. Most meals I make these days are just for the two of us too, one of THE most difficult things for me to do after cooking for a large family. So here is my intended meal plan for this week. Monday: Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Oven Fries Tuesday: Layered Crockpot Chicken Enchiladas Suiza Wednesday: Udon noodles with Asian veggies and peanut sauce Thursday: Grilled Foccacia Bread Pizza with Fresh Tomatoes, Basil and Buffalo Mozzarella Friday: Date Night Saturday: Greek Pita sandwiches with grilled chicken, tomatoes, feta, Kalamata olives, cucumber, romaine lettuce and Greek Dressing Sunday: Breakfast fo...