A Clean Home Challenge 1 : 50 items

The holidays have come and gone, and while Christmas is a ton of fun for almost everyone, the aftermath of the holidays can be discouraging and overwhelming. After Santa paid a visit to my children and the gifts had been exchanged with friends and family I stood in horror looking at the disaster Christmas left in its wake. New toys and clothes were piled upon old toys and clothes...boxes and bags littered just about every surface. Scraps of paper were scattered here and there. Then we get into the bedrooms, where it was every bit as bad, except figure in that laundry, and random things like a new booster seat, were stashed in those rooms at the last minute before the family arrived to celebrate.



Just a few weeks ago I went on a cleaning spree. If you follow my Dear Weary Mom series you might remember the box of burdens post. I filled a huge box up and took it to Goodwill and Community Action. Despite that massive decluttering, my house needed another overhaul to accommodate Christmas.

When I really thought about it, my house needs another round of decluttering, a deep clean and a massive organizational effort. My family of 4 with 2 dogs resides in a very small house, only about 890 square feet. We have outgrown this house to say the least, but we are trying to stay here for at least 6 months. To last another 6 months in such a small space with a growing family is going to be difficult if I don't find ways to make the space we do have work for us.

With this in mind I have been collecting ideas, sketching plans and making lists of projects that I want to tackle to whip my home into shape.

Each post in the series A Clean Home will feature an inexpensive way you can clean or organize something in your home. The first Challenge I gave to myself was to  select 50 Items from my home to donate to Goodwill. I gave myself 2 days to gather my 50 items.

Among the 50 items I had 6 towels, 2 top sheets, 3 blankets, 5 pairs of socks, 8 toys from my sons room, 2 sleepers of Harper's. 5 kitchen knives, a cheese grater, a reusable bag, a measuring cup, dog grooming products, an outgrown coat and pair of bibs, baby shoes, 3 handbags, 2 clutches, 2 hats, a book, a few magazines, 2 bottles of shampoo I didn't like, a scarf , Christmas lights and a few t shirts. I exceeded my goal of 50 items and filled 2 medium size boxes. I still plan to sort through stuffed animals and pull 5 out for a donation to Goodwill, and I suspect there are a few more towels that won't make the cut for keeping, both bath and hand towels.

Now that I have reduced the amount of clutter in my house it is time to start organizing. I hope you will keep coming back to read more about my challenges in this series. Next time, we will talk about a very messy drawer in my house and how I plan to get it under control.


7 Ways To Entertain a 3 Year Old

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It is winter and my 3 year old son has cabin fever already. I have been searching pinterest for activities to keep him happily learning and playing all day long. These are some of the cutest ideas I found.


This pretend plate of food for Thanksgiving activity would be a good way to build my son up to eating Thanksgiving dinner. He is pretty sure he doesn't like anything but chicken and crackers.

My son might be down with this pretend ice cream cone craft. 


Hand print flowers would be fun to make and cute to display.



My son would like this make a lion craft. This is a must try soon idea!



My son loves playing matching games so this Popsicle  game would be a lot of fun for both of us.


My son loves to check out tanks of fish so he would like creating a fish of his own I am sure.



My son really loves the idea of Christmas and he loves cereal. Win, Win.