Tackle it Tuesday - inside the fridge

Edited 11 June 2008 - this is my Works for me Wed contribution - I couldn't resist after seeing Shannon's fridge :)

Hello all!

I decided to do a house tackle this week for a change.

We have systems for our fridge (actually for our whole house). That's the main reason it doesn't take very long to get things in order if they are a bit out of whack. You'll notice I have labels. I got the idea from Aby Garvey (Creative Organising on my sidebar) and love it! We know where things go and it's quick to sort out again.

But here's what it looked like before...not too bad IMO (I see worse all the time)

And here's what it looked like afterwards.

Let me walk you through...

Top shelf - condiments and in the front I put my lunch bag (yes, that grey thing in the 2nd picture). I have to eat everything in there every day.

Middle shelf - leftovers and sometimes, bread. Bread seems to go mouldy here very quickly (or we eat it too slowly - one loaf each a week) so we store it in the fridge.




Shelf 3 - prepared vegetables - cut onion, cut mushrooms, and the carrots and pumpkin I buy prepared. Life is too short for peeling difficult vegetables ;)

Shelf 4 - lunch stuff - cheese, lunch meats, tomatoes, cucumber

The drawer on the left is Dion's - for all his water bottles and his apples. Likes them cold. I don't.

The right drawer is mine - with my water and all my yoghurts.

Oops - forgot to take a picture of the door. Oh well, it is late and just pretend you've seen it because it is nicely in order.

Bottom shelf - milk, water, Marcia's bread

Middle shelf - spreads, garlic (yes, I have a lot - plain, garlic & ginger, garlic & chilli)

2nd shelf - cottage cheeses (we eat a lot), margerine

Top shelf - eggs, medicines

Do you label your fridge?

Hallelujah!

We have water!!!!!

I've been doing laundry, cleaning up a storm and yes, I managed to cook from my menu plan tonight. (huge excitement)

I did my stirfry with a satay sauce (tablespoon of peanut butter) and Dion's with a sweet and sour sauce. Yum!

Menu plan Monday 14 May 2007 & other rants

I just did a nice, long post and blogger lost it. So I'm going to give highlights this time around.

1. We haven't had water since Friday afternoon 5:30pm.
2. Jhb Connect cut off our water supply in error because on their one system it looks like we haven't done anything about the query.
3. Of course you know me - we have been phoning, logging calls for MONTHS now and the call centre says everything is fine but our accounts say another story - no progress.
4. So we've been showering at the gym - do you know how long that takes?
5. Tomorrow morning we are going in to see them personally to sort it all out.
6. If it can't be done quickly, we are going to book into a hotel for a few days.

I said all that to say this! I have no idea if this menu plan will be followed....you'll have to wait and see.

Monday
Stirfried beef, veggies and noodles

Tuesday
Curry and rice

Wednesday
Chicken schnitzel, roast potatoes and pumpkin

Thursday
Spaghetti bolognaise

Friday
Chili chicken pasta – held over from last week

For more Menu Plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.

Chocolate snob

I'm a chocolate snob. I only eat Cadbury's chocolate. After all, "it's the best loved chocolate in the country" - it really is.

So why is it that people keep giving us these Ferrero Rocher??? We get lots of these packets as well as the big boxes.

It's like the cat thing. You know how it is when you don't like cats? They seek you out to curl themselves around your legs - ughh. Just typing that gives me chills.

Anyway, whenever we get chocolate gifts, people give us these. I understand that they're very expensive chocolates (at least they are here in SA) but neither of us likes them at all.

So we give them away and when we have people over, we set them out for them to enjoy. And they do.

But no matter how fast we give them away, they just keep coming back to us. It's like the law of sowing and reaping gone wild.

(you can see I'm still burning to disc, can't you?)

I'm a career girl

I'm busy doing the last item on my monthly to-do list (I know it's the 11th but I was away and then doing the Org Challenge) which is to back up my files.

So while that's all happening in the background, I've been catching up on my blog reading and I saw this on Karen's blog. Karen has the same fabulous taste in bags as I do ;)

I can't resist this kind of thing so I took the quiz.

You are a Career Girl!

You may not be a CEO yet, but you're well on your way to success. You take your career seriously, and you wouldn't stop working for any guy! An independent woman, you pay for your own car, clothes, and housing. And men appreciate that - at least, the ones as driven as you are.

What Kind of Girl Are You?

Tacke it Tuesday - photos and more photos

My tackle for this week was to get the Org Challenge judging done and to get my holiday photos on our travel blog. Both big jobs.

I had a huge emergency yesterday when I discovered my emails hadn’t been sending for a few days (they looked like they’d sent in my Sent Items).

I realised something was up when I still hadn’t heard from my contest prize winners after 4 days. So I phoned up my ISP and it had something to do with me switching to ADSL. So last night I spent about an hour and a half setting up new email, creating new forwarders to route all my addresses to the new email. I still haven’t done the ones on the blogs so if I haven’t said thank-you to some of your comments, that’s why. I will get to it - just have to focus on first things first.

Anyway, the holiday photos are up on our travel blog. Please go have a look and tell me what you think. I didn’t blog every single photo so hopefully you won’t be too bored!

But I am STILL 12 blogs away from done (as I was yesterday) with the Org challenge. So that will get done tonight. And I will update here because now I'm accountable to you!

Go visit 5 minutes for mom for more great tackles. And while you’re surfing, say hi to a blogger today!

Wed 9/5 - updated to add

I finished the judging last night and emailed my picks to Laura today. Now the games begin ;)

Menu plan Monday - 7 May 2007

I have 12 blogs left to look at in the Organising Challenge and then I’m done with round 1. Then the judges “deliberate” as they say in the beauty pageants or as I say, the real fun begins.

I am still speechless (for me) at the amount of work that went on in 58 homes all over the world. Isn’t this blogging world amazing?!

Anyway, here is my menu for the week. Tomorrow I’m tackling photos – gotta get some holiday blogging done!

Monday
Stirfried beef, veggies and basmati rice

Tuesday
Supper with friends. But I have a back-up in case we get stood up.

Wednesday
Bolognaise sauce on roasted sweet potatoes

Thursday
Italian chicken, baked potatoes and pumpkin

Friday
Chili chicken pasta

For more Menu Plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.

7 random things about me

This blog post is my reward for getting through 32 of the OC blogs last night. I am very, very impressed by all the work I've seen and I am so very proud of you all.

I've been tagged by CoachJ and Laura.

Here are the rules: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

The peer pressure did it so here are my 7 random facts...

1. I can't remember the last time I've made the bed. *shock* That's because my husband does the bed and has done it the entire time we've been married.
2. I am fanatical about cleaning toilets and kitchen counter tops. I think they're the most-cleaned things in my house.
3. I have never had a ticket for anything. Well, a legitimate one anyway. I love driving fast BUT I do so safely. Maybe everyone says this but it's true for me. I also like to think I hear God well because many times I'd sense that I should slow down and lo and behold, around the corner is a traffic cop.
4. I studied microbiology at university. That explains number 2!
5. I can't bring myself to watch movies where people wear period costumes. Read this and you'll understand.
6. I did ballet for 13 years, from age 4 to 17, Spanish dancing for 4 of those years and modern jazz for another 4. Then I had a 13-year break before I started again; now it's just low-level stuff like a hip-hop class once a week.
7. You can very easily torture me by hiding something away. I will spend hours looking for that thing especially if I know I had it in the house.

Did anything surprise you? I'm interested to hear what you think.

I'm not going to tag anyone because I'm still waiting for the planner tag.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

I was tagged by Suzanne to show you my daily planner.

I’ve said before how I like lots of order in my life – 3 desks, each with a different function, numerous blogs and it looks like it’s the same with my daily planning because I have 3 tools!

1. An A5 leather-bound daily planner for 2007.
This is for my personal life and out of the ordinary business stuff.

I LOVE this planner. When they come out in August, I buy mine because I don’t want to take a chance of them running out. I tried other versions over the years but this is the 3rd year I’ve used this one and I am very happy with it.

It’s made by Christian Art Publishers in SA and I buy it at Exclusive Books for about R100 (US$ 14). I had to pry papers loose in the front to check who makes them because I have a habit of absolutely personalizing everything.

In the front, I have my affirmations, goals for the year, personal info (I have it in Excel so I just print a few pages for this planner and our household file every year), reference numbers, and so on.

The success of any system depends on if you use it or not. And for me, what works is how I organise it on a daily basis, like this.

The household organizing file has 3 sections – planning, personal and household. I use almost all of the personal pages, reduce them in size and stick them in this planner, at the back in the notes section.

Now you know why I would rather lose my cell phone than this planner!

Why I love this one:
A page a day except for Sat and Sun (half a page each)
Monthly planner before each month
Budget sheet before each month (I’m big on budgeting so that I can spend on what I want. Make sense?)
Lots of notes pages at the back for all my lists

2. A smaller planner (freebie with the Jan issue of O mag).
This is for business only. It shows a week at a time so I write my weekly business goals on the right and the appointments on the left. It is so cool because if I page back, I can see how much I’ve accomplished over the month or year.

And of course, I also use my business binder. (Jennifer D, did you do yours?)

3. Tiny notebook – the pink one above
This is for miscellaneous stuff I don’t want to lose track of. I write lists of topics to blog, shopping lists, things to chat to people about, quotations, anything really. And it has a pocket at the back where I keep spare business cards (besides those in my wallet)

Now let the games begin.

I'm tagging CoachJ, Laura, Lara, Annie, Jenna, Beth, Ariane, Jessica and EVERYONE else who wants to play along. Even if it's just a to-do list, I want to know about it.

This is my first Linky thing so have patience if it gives problems - I'm not a techie!

By the way, here is a holiday (!) photo for the moment!

Org challenge - the big reveal

I'm back from holiday - landed at 10.25 am and straight to work. Will post more later this week (with pics) but will say we had a wonderful time. I always LOVE being with Dion for extended periods of time.

I really had to prioritise tonight so these were the 6 things on my list. The numbers are the order in which I tackled them.

2. Download photos (while typing answers)
1. Download email
2. Reply to email interview (journalist contacted me while on holiday and this is due tomorrow)
5. Post Org Challenge (while hair dries)
4. Wash hair (the coast wrecks my curly hair and turns it to pure frizz - not a pretty sight)
3. Unpack (change of pace from computer work)

Okay, now onto the challenge...bear in mind that I didn't do this for the prizes but for the accountability. And my personal goal was to declutter paper from my old files.

As for the hubby, I am off-limits from his stuff. Which I can respect without understanding. He wants his space to be his space. I asked him if he'd like me to help him and you know what he said? No thank you; I don't want people messing with my stuff! So there you have it

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?
Motivating Dion. Also, underestimating the speed at which he declutters and organises his stuff. Yes and no. I told you at the beginning that a lot of this stuff belongs to D. He is not as ruthless with paper as I am. And I realised that I am incredibly good at throwing paper away (hey, it's less to file, right?!).

He has been through boxes and boxes of stuff but there is still a small pile where I wanted...nothing. And he didn't even start on the shelves. BUT I am so happy that things are moving in here.

For me, the hardest part of any project is just starting. I have perfected tricking myself over the years though. I tell myself "just 15 minutes" and using this method, have written lots of e-books, e-courses, workshop materials and so on (have a look here if you're interested). I think it's the same with anybody.

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?
I am not just dumping tote bags in the bag corner. I am working more with project folders and once the project is done, I carefully consider which pieces of paper I really want to keep before filing.

3. What did you do with the "stuff" you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
I donated an old radio and lots of files to Bea (our cleaning lady). And everything else was paper and magazines, so those were recycled.

The Fitness Flyer is on a few websites and we're waiting for buyers. If not, we will take it to Cash Converters (2nd hand store) with the film projector.

4. What was the biggest lesson you learned from this experience?
Accountability is key to get you moving! Don't print or keep anything you can get online.

5. Now that you have completed the process, do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life?
It already does make a huge difference in my life.

This is why I do what I do - I want everybody to have that same feeling of peace that an organised and uncluttered space gives you.


Now for the fun bits - the photos...
Edited to add - I see that my before pictures are under my after pictures. I am too tired to spend another hour fixing it so enjoy anyway.


The back of the room (look in the right corner!)















The bag corner (used to be a real dumping ground)


























Files decluttered and lots of paper thrown away. There was a lot more - I just like this picture.

























Shelving in wardrobes