a week late

so here is the quick list of resolutions i have for 2012. i would like to stay with them all year, but really, most of us quite at some point. if i make it through the year, following through with one of these, i'll call it a successful year.

*exercise more-this won't be hard since there was pretty much NO exercise in 2011. the only thing is sticking to it.

*make wise(r) choices-mostly regarding food/drink. little-no pop. smaller portions. healthier snacks.

*get organized and stay organized-i can already tell this is going to be a hard one. trying to get organized causes a mess with everything that needs to be organized. i hope i can tackle this organized things my mid-march and stay there. 

*learn to drink wine and like it-i'm a beer girl at heart. i'm loyal, but i'm not against stepping away from my go-to alcoholic drink.

*go on more dates with my husband, kid free-i just need to find a sitter that lives close and that i trust. 

*spend less, donate more-i'm thinking about making all of those homemade cleaners that are floating around pinterest to save money. i want to plant a garden and grow my own produce. spending less time at target would help too, i'm sure.  i have tons of totes in the basement full of clothes that are begging to be donated. i just need to load 'em and get 'em out of here. 

*pray more-i know this is doable, but i also know that there were a lot of prayers said last year for one particular little girl, close to my hear, to be healthy again. my prayers were answered. i have no reason to stop now. i know God follows through!

*be patient and breathe-the kids really get me with this one. i've gone so far as to have it permanently placed on my wrist. since having it (late september) it has done its job.

getting organized

 the week between christmas and new years, adam took off work and i didn't have daycare boy, so we decided to get a few home projects completed since we could easily get rid of the kids for a few days. we delivered the kids to my parents' on wednesday evening and bright and early thursday morning, we were tackling the to-do list already. i cleaned/organized the kitchen counter and cupboards while adam started on the livingroom paint job. this is what it looked like before he started, after the first coat of paint and then finished.

i also needed to attack the toy situation. we had too many in the first place, plus all the toys the kids got for christmas made it hard to find a home for all of them. i also needed to get rid of the ones that were no longer being played with, but i didn't want all the new ones to be out for daycare boy to have access to. is that mean? anyway, target had these shelving units on sale so we went and bought two different ones and some of the canvas bins to put toys in. one of the units is in the kids' room and stores toys and other miscellaneous  stuff. if you look passed the mess of toys on the floor, this is the set-up we came up with. the big toys have a place and most of the remaining toys on the floor went in the diaper box and will eventually be taken to the salvation army to be donated. i am happy with the way it turned out and the lack of mess the kids end up making. 

we have two hall closets that store our shoes and coats, but we rarely used them because they were jam packed full of stuff and weren't organized. i went through my closet and got rid of some shoes and coats that i rarely wear. adam did the same, plus bought a shoe rack that he stacked in the front closet that now holds all of his shoes nicely.

so, one of our new year's resolutions is to get organized and stay organized. we are on our way, but we still need to tackle a few more things before we can officially say we are where we want to be.