Metro Moms

We Have a WINNER!

Congratulations Crystal!

Our winner for the Spring Cleaning Contest is Crsytal Law.  With a small baby to care for, she organized several areas of her home.  Crystal embraces everything with passion...so we weren't surprised when she approached the emphasis on home organization with faithfulness.

All our contestants did a great job...and several lost items were found along the way.  :-)  Thanks to everyone who participated!

Tomorrow we return to our series on training children to be worshipers of their God!

Winner to be Announced Monday!

Drum roll, please....

The winner of our Spring Cleaning Contest 2007 will be posted today (Monday) at around noon. The winner's prize of a $50 gift card to the store or restaurant of her choice will hopefully be a wonderful reward for all her hard work.

Who will it be? 

1. Jaime for her garage?
2. Julia for her brother's closet?
3. Medana for her and Jonathan's closet?
4. Taraleigh for her closet?
5. Allura and family for their garage?
6. Crystal for several areas of their home?
7. Tracy for her office closet?
8. Tammy for her homeschool supply area?

See you Monday by noon for the surprise!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will continue our series on Inspiring Your Children to be Worshipers with some excellent advice from an article by Noel Piper. 

Final Contest Entries

Today is the last day of our Spring Cleaning Contest - a first for our Mom's blog.  Our hope is that you have been inspired, as we have, to take on the tasks that we tend to put off.  Make sure you check back on Monday to find out who our winner is.  But first take a look at how Medana Cox took on the challenge by cleaning and organizing her closet.  The results are amazing!  Here's what she has to say:

Ok, Well this took a long time! I had maternity clothes, chubby clothes, fat clothes, and my "oh one day I will fit back into those" skinny clothes. I had to try on almost everything to see what was going or staying, I got rid of several pairs of shoes, 2 trash bags full of clothes (multiple sizes;) all of our winter sweaters and jackets are   now in the attic, I found a brand new shirt with the receipt in the shopping bag that I have been meaning to take back to the store, $10 in my pocket!

Although my husband would not prefer his shoes in nice plastic bins - I do, so mine are, but his are organized neatly in pairs. My "fit into" clothes are organized in bins according to sizes and items and ready to be worn on the top shelf. I am totally excited about our "new" closet and happy for the incentive of the contest, although if I don't win I am pleased at the accomplishment.

Here are the results:
   

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Second, we have Crystal Law who was so motivated she organized four areas in her home.  She says:

I thought I’d start small. Here is our mail holder.  (I’m always missing my hair ties – I guess it’s because I usually just stick them wherever is closest, like here on our key rings…I found 2)  We usually just stick all our mail here, and anything else, including coupons (which I hardly ever use because it takes too much time to find them.)  The orange thing (in the “After” picture) is an organizer that we have to organize coupons according to the month they expire.  I put it here so that I’m reminded that we actually have it and I went through all the coupons that were stuck in here & only kept the one’s we’ll use. Here is the after picture:

Next, Crystal took on a little bigger project.  Here are the before and after pictures from under her stove:

Thirdly, was their baby son, Joshua's closet.  Crystal says:

Found: An ice pack I didn’t even know I had & the tongs to our ice bowl.

There are other piles of stuff to get rid of that I didn’t attach pictures of including clothes to give away, a trash pile and a Christmas gift that WAS wrapped (I think we knew we had this…we had it for a friend but then they got one before we gave it to them, so we didn’t give it to them and just tucked it away in Joshua’s closet still wrapped.  The sad thing is, this wasn’t even a gift from Christmas 2006, it was still wrapped from 2005!)  NOW WE HAVE ROOM FOR ANOTHER BABY!  Not that there’s one on the way, that we know of…but you just never know.








Lastly, Crystal moved on to her largest project - the dreaded kitchen pantry.  Here's what she had to say:
We only have 2 – 6 ½ inch drawers in our kitchen and this is our only pantry, so practically everything is here including our silverware, etc.  I guess I just never gave much thought before to how I could best use this space. I bought baskets to individually hold our teas, vitamins, baking supplies, snacks, baby food and glass canisters to organize other goods.  Now instead of digging to the very back of the pantries to find food items that have been hiding back there for a long time, I can just slide out the basket and take a look. After I organized this area, I kept walking in the kitchen just so that I could open up our pantry and take a sigh of relief.








That's it!  Thanks to all who took part in our contest!  Even if you don't win, you are each rewarded each time you open that drawer or closet!  That's the joy of being busy at home, not to mention that your family is blessed as well!  Have a great weekend!!

Two Entries Today!

TRACY'S OFFICE CLOSET

I finally took on my office closet.
I guess I move a lot slower than everyone else because this took me about 4 hours.  =)  We do not have a garage so a lot of Seth's tools and other things that would go in the garage are stored in our office closet.  As well as all of my teaching supplies and paperwork.  I had the idea to buy little clear bins and put a label on the outside listing all of the contents of the bin, keeping the contents organized in similar groups. That way Seth doesn't have to go digging through boxes and shelves to find what he is looking for...he can simply read what is in each bin and go right to it!  Hopefully this will cut down on the "Honey where is..." This is probably the reason why it took so long to get the closet organized.  But it was worth it!  I also bought this cool hanging file to store all of our different kinds of paper.  It is really nice because it gives me shelf room and keeps the papers from getting all mushed.  In the end I managed to fill 2 1/2 trash bags of junk.  The most unusual (and embarrassing to admit) thing I found in this adventure was an old rotten banana (unpeeled). If you look closely you can see it in the before picture.  I have no idea how it go there - and I really wish my daughter was born so I could say it was her!  =)  Here's my after picture:

 

JULIA'S BROTHER'S CLOSET:

She found:

• A “Star Wars Episode 1” pencil of Jake’s that has been lost for 6 years.
• 5 nasty socks that didn’t have matches and had been there for only the Lord knows how long.
• A chess piece of Jesse’s that had obviously been there since it was his room over 2 years ago.

She also did this on her own without anyone asking. For a 12-year-old younger sister there has to be points for THAT!  Here's her after pictures:

Tammy's Homeschool Cabinet

    Mission Project:  Homeschool Cabinet

 

    Mission Challenge:  To re-organize and get rid of half the contents

 

                              Mission Accomplished:  One bag of garbage, homeschool curriculum to sell, and                                      contents for my daughter's MissionX garage sale!   

 

    Mission Find: The location of a homeschooling book that was missing in                     action!

 

    Mission "What is THAT?":  Oh!  It's playdough that could double as rock! 

 

Just think, I was not going to tackle this mission until the school year was over, and it only took me 1 hour and 15 minutes!

                              Mission Complete and Cleaned!

Jaime's Garage

Jaime took advantage of having her little sister stay with her while her parents were away.  Julia helped Jaime clean out the garage.  It took the two of them only 45 minutes from start to finish!  She found a toy that her daughter, Kayla, had been looking for for over a year, and she threw away a box full of stuff that she hadn't opened since they moved in (a year and a half ago!)  The amazing thing is that she didn't even look to see what was in it!!! 

She said, "I figured we had not used it in almost two years so it couldn't have been that important!
(I think it may have had old computer junk, but again, I am not sure and will probably never know)."

Wow!  I don't think I would have been that willing to let something go without at least LOOKING at it!  That's definitely bonus material!  How about it ladies?  If we haven't received your contest entry yet, there's still time!  Need more motivation?  Check out The Clutter Diet Blog!

Jaime's Garage Before:

Jaime's Garage After: