two lives.
Two houses can be confusing. Definitely not complaining about it, but I do get mixed-up. The other day, we were looking for the baking soda. I kept saying “I just used it the other day!” Until I realized … I used it at the OTHER house. I’ve tried to equip both houses so I don’t
day 25 – pool.
When I started to realize that I might be stuck in Georgia into the late spring/early summer, even just the thought of the heat made me miserable. I feel ill when I get too hot.I decided that one way I might survive is if we had a pool. Five clicks later, we were pool owners.
day 21 – spring cleaning.
So what to do when stuck at home for weeks on end? Read, catch-up on tv shows, bake, and, my favorite, spring cleaning! A room a day. Closets sorted, piles filed, spaces decluttered, linens and couch cushion covers washed. Fridge sorted and wiped down.
grading the arabia lot.
Back on December 21st, we closed on my Arabia lot. What a mess. The land was disturbed beyond imagination. First step, even if we do nothing else, was to have it graded. What a production.
new project: arabiascape
About two years ago, I had crossed enough items off of my forever long to do list that I could start taking Phelix out to hike at Davidson-Arabia. Our once a week hikes grew into twice or thrice a week hikes, time and weather permitting. I feel so very much alive when I’m there in
my not-so-tiny house.
Five years ago, our family of four went through a major downsize. We moved from a three-story, three-bedroom, 3.5 bath, two car garage, storage room, giant house (in the absolute best place ever – nothing will ever compare to Pine Lake) to a downtown Decatur condo. Two-bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office, a laundry room, and
clean and organized!
After two weeks of scrubbing, purging, shopping, and making piles, the house is once again organized! As careful as I am to try to keep things organized all year long, piles grow. Things accumulated. Organization turns to chaos. Clean gets dirty. For the start of the school year, I like to have a clean, organized
organizing: house manual
As part of my getting “all the things organized”, I had an idea to put together a manual for our home. While we don’t have a large home, the running of any home requires various planning and information. I tried to search for a sample house manual and came up with nothing. Some samples on
time for “spring” cleaning.
Over the years, I have written on and off about my cleaning/decluttering strategies, like in Room of the Week and Room of the month. I haven’t been sticking to my schedule as well since we’ve downsized to a condo in walkable downtown Decatur. What I have done, however, is an “everything in a week” each
tidying up.
As everyone’s been discussing and praising the KonMari method, I wanted to find out what the fuss was all about, so I requested The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo from the library. Given its popularity, it took a while to arrive…just in time for us
remodeling.
Fifteen years ago we moved to a ranch house that had good bones and a great lot, but was in need of lots of love and updating. And we updated. And updated. And updated. Walls came down. Stairs were moved. A backyard was rearranged. Walls were painted. windows and doors (interior and exterior) replaced. A
home improvements: den
When we downsized from our beloved Pine Lake house into a condo on the Decatur Square back in 2011, I thought that we had come to the end of our home improvement projects. And, for the first year in our condo, we didn’t do too much beyond a couple of painting projects. When we moved
home: master bath decorating
Now that I feel slightly more in control of my time on occasion, I’ve started to move forward a bit faster with working on our apartment. We moved back in February, and we seemed to do just the bare minimum we needed to do. We’ve worked a bit on the girls’ room, so they now
incremental steps forward, but big steps back
Or lots of extra steps for me today. Or hours behind at work. Or “My house looks great FINALLY!” When we moved to Decatur, I gave up the cleaning service that we had for over ten years, even through a move across county. We moved from a large house to a two-bedroom apartment — how
we’re moving – again.
As I’ve mentioned here and there, we’re moving again. It was only about 16 months ago that we moved here to our condo and now we’re getting ready to pack up once again. This move is going to be very different from our last move. We don’t need a moving truck. We don’t need to
end of an “era”
Today I am walking around with a heavy heart. Five and a half years after we moved into our beloved Pine Lake house, almost six years since we first saw it, it now belongs to someone else. Despite now being free from maintaining the house and the financial burden, I am having a hard time
furniture rearranging continued
Back in October, tired of staring at the parking deck while I worked, I rearranged the layout of our dining room. And I’ve modified that arrangement again already. I’m very happy with the new layout! We are much more likely to eat our meals at the table these days too! And now we’ve rearranged the
minor change results in great happiness
While I was stuck home this weekend recovering from the flu instead of out camping at the LEAF Arts and Music Festival with the rest of the family, I did spring cleaning here at the condo. This amounted to “room of the week” style cleaning and organizing of the entire apartment. It looks better than
bathroom remodeling (finally)
When we moved to our condo almost ten months ago, the only room we (Rob) painted was the girls’ room. Since they were moving from each having a very nice room into a shared room, we wanted to make theirs cozy for them. They chose new bed covers that matched and then picked out a
home sweet home
As I wrote previously, we were gone for almost all of April (Gulf Coast Spring Break, Bahamas Wedding and NYC for Kindiefest) and, for once, have no big trip planned for this summer. So I figured I could make lemons out of lemonade and spend “…some slow weeks at home to get organized. And simply
GBK Gwyneth
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