Organizing the gift wrapping bin

Basement lighting + iPhone = poor photo but the gift wrapping supplies are slightly more organized 

Do you reuse gift bags? Do you have a storage system for them?

I started saving gift bags/wrapping after my very first baby shower. I'm pretty sure I have enough baby themed gift bags to last me every baby shower I ever have to attend and then some. After Christmas a couple of years later I found a wrapping paper Rubbermaid container on sale. Fast forward a few more years and my bin looked like this (minus the two smaller bins to the left):

My bin was so disorganized that I found myself stopping off at the store a couple times in the last few months out of "convenience" to grab gift wrap. With the boys' birthdays coming up and my nesting instinct in full swing, organizing my gift wrapping supplies was the perfect 30 minute project to make me feel like I got something big accomplished.

First step was roaming around my basement in search of unused/underused storage containers since part of my organizational problem stemmed from the fact that I had more supplies than what fit in the bin. Once I found a few other bins, I gave them a wash in the laundry tub and was ready to sort. Some of the really well used bags went in the garbage.

I now have an entire medium sized bin dedicated to gift bags, a small container with tissue paper,  a smaller bin with tape and some small rolls of ribbon, and a fairly neat stack of unused cards and cards to repurpose all in one spot. I even found a bag of balloons which will come in handy for the boys' birthday party in a couple of months.

I also reuse cards and recycle them into gift tags or other little projects. Extreme? It actually saves a bunch of time and money. Now I have no excuses to buy more gift wrapping supplies!

Hello September

We were planning on heading up north for the weekend but I have been feeling under the weather so we opted for staying home instead.

September always feels like a fresh start - I guess because I am so used to being in school. The other day I headed to Staples and bought myself a new planner for the occasion - my first September in a long while where I am not going back to school.

Here are my September plans:

+ Finally get around to giving B's bedroom a facelift before school starts

+ Rent carpet cleaner and clean the carpets in the house

+ Give the house a deep clean (we've been away most weekends all summer so the cleaning hasn't been thorough.

+ Prep for academic conference I will be attending and presenting at later this month!

+ Book that eye appointment I've been putting off.

+ Get more sleep, exercise, and eat well.

+ Pay off $1000 on our debt.

Ready and go!

Fall Routine

When I switched jobs I instantly gained 10 hours/week back from commuting time. However this meant that I lost a lot of my twitter/blogging time. I think I'm finally back and all settled in with my new routine. I have been trying to prep meals for the week on Sundays and choose easy meals for during the week. I have also been planning and setting out my outfits for the week in the closet so I don't have to think about what I am going to wear in the morning.

Here is what our schedule has been looking like on a typical day when B goes to school.

6:30am - Wake-up
6:30am-7:30am - Breakfast and getting ready
7:30am - My sister arrives at the house to watch the boys or just N depending on the day
7:35am - Walk B to the bus stop
7:40-8:10am - Finish getting ready for work and making coffee (there is no Starbucks on my way to work so $ has been saved!)
8:10am - leave the house for work
8:30am - 4:30pm Work
4:50pm - Arrive home
5:30pm-6:00pm - Dinner
6:00pm-6:30pm - Cleaning up/Preparations for next day
6:30pm-6:50pm - Baths
7pm - N goes to bed
7-7:30pm - B gets ready for bed, bedtime story

The rest of the night I have off so I have typically been catching up on emails, working on my major research for my Masters, and watching all the tv shows I PVR'd over the summer. DH goes to bed around 8:30pm since he wakes up super early for work so we generally don't get to spend too much time together in the evenings during the week but at least we have an extra hour after work now together that we didn't have before.

Toys, Toys, Toys

One of the bloggers I read regularly recently featured a series of posts on "How We Do It" - I thought it was a great idea since everyone does things differently in their homes, it is nice to see different ways of running house without having someone tell you this is how it ought to be done. I decided to talk about toys since a number of visitors always comment on our house being rather "unconsumed" by kid paraphernalia. Maybe you're one of those people who cannot walk into a room in their house without seeing a number of toys either organized or strewn across the floor. At our house this is it....

Might I first say that our house is less than 1200 sq. feet which is "small" by today's starter home standards. We also don't have many closets or dedicated storage space and well since the rooms are small, sometimes it is difficult to fit in an extra piece of furniture to house toys.

Reasons why this system works for us:

• Aforementioned small house/lack of storage situation


• I don't like to dust - yet have bad allergies (dilemma) - and cleaning toys is pretty much last on my list of priorities - less toys means less toys to harbour bacteria and germs and ultimately less toys to clean


• Everything has its place and everything is easily seen. Before we had a toy bucket and only the items at the top were played with


• Toys don't end up in many rooms usually just the living room, adjoining hallway and kitchen and are always close to their "homes" when it comes time to clean up


• Less toys means less mess to clean up and since we always enforce a tidy prior to afternoon nap and bedtime, having fewer toys means a more manageable clean up for a 2 1/2 year old with a little bit of help from mom or dad if he's lucky


• The toys that are actually played with are limited to a wooden Thomas the Train Set (limited to as much track will fit in the small pink bucket), Mega Blocks (we had to buy an additional smaller bag - a $2 find at Value Village), about 1/2 bucket of Hot Wheels Cars (to drive on the train track - naturally), and occasionally the wooden puzzles and wooden tool set when mom and dad are around

I know many families have a toy room - we just don't have the additional space to have a dedicated toy room and since B likes to have us nearby while he plays, the living room is the natural play room of choice. Also..see ablove comment on not liking to clean.
What about they boy's bedroom? No toys there. There is a basket at the end of the bed which contains books for our nightly story - some of these books end up on the shelf in the living room from time to time.

I might have lied just a bit.. we do have a second small shelving unit for toys in the basement. When things aren't getting played with we rotate them up.

Other notes... the toy selection is going to go down even further 6 months from now as some space will need to be allocated for baby #2 as well! Also, we have bought very few toys for B. Most have been given to us second hand from families and friends. Since B has never seemed bored with what he has, we've never felt the need to go out and buy more toys. Also, many of our friends have rooms full of toys and their children only play with a few and make a mess with the rest.

How do others manage toys??

Re-Evaluating What is Important to Us.

As suggested by my last post.. I have been going through a crazy nesting phase as of late and have the extreme urge to purge..well my whole house. Days have been spent sorting. Baby items...kitchen items...linnen closet..bathroom vanity. I have also been posting a number of things for sale on Kijiji and having some success with that. Extra days that I have now without going to school or working gives me this little bit of extra time for which I am grateful.

Throughout the process, my budget has also gone under scrutiny and become tightened. I think in the impending arrival of another addition to the family this Spring, it has forced me to re-examine our lifestyle and values. I think a constant theme in my past few posts has been slowing down. And now, I really am. In a few short months I will be back at home, away from working...away from school... fully immersed once again in family life and community life as I will still have a couple of volunteer projects and activities that I will be involved in.

On Decluttering

Photo Credit: Miss Minimalist

Lately I have felt a real need to declutter my life. I'm beginning to feel trapped in my belongings. This desire has come along with my graduate school aspirations to do ethnographic research which would mean living in another place for a period of time. Consequently, I wouldn't be able to bring all the stuff I (we - husband included - although he has far less "stuff" than I) have accumulated over the past 6 years in various apartments and our current house.

Also, with a new babe coming this Spring. It only seems fitting to do some "spring cleaning" while sorting through all of B's old stuff in storage and since moving him into his Big Boy room. It also feels like I have so much more time on my hands since taking a leave from school this Winter.

It feels nice to let things go - freeing really. This weekend I sold our old dining room hutch which was taking up space amongst our new furniture, along with a mantel clock we've had kicking around but sadly no mantel to place it on. Although I loved the hutch - I felt no remorse when it went out the door.

I keep telling myself - only the essentials but alas it is a process. I'm very into this website on the topic.