My $3 Home Office Makeover

After reading 6 Tips for Designing a Cheery Home Workspace, I looked at my "home office" and realized I need some color and organization on my desk.  Although I don't actually work from home, as a full-time graduate student, I spend a lot of time writing and reading at my desk.

When I took a hard look at my desk, I realized how little workspace I actually had.

 

As you can see, it is lacking color, organization, and my post-it notes hanging on the wall are not exactly classy.  But I don't have money to spend on revamping my work area, so I decided to see what I could do with what I already had.

The first stage was de-cluttering.  I took the non-essential items off of my desk and into the rolling cart I have next to my desk (from my teaching days).

The rest of my papers went into my desk drawers, which were also cleaned out and reorganized.     

Next, some color was needed.  I started by looking for colorful things that I already had on my desk that I use as more prominent centerpieces.

After cleaning up my desk, moving things off, and pulling a few more colorful items that I had around the house, I came up with this:

 The last step was where my $3 renovation came in.  I purchased two black frames from the Dollar Tree, filled them with two inspirational quotes from Pinterest, and hung them up with picture hanging supplies that I also got from the Dollar store.  All together, this is what I came up with!

I'm enjoying my clean, organized, and colorful desk already!

My Daily Schedule

The month of January has been completely different for me (although it is a lot like my summers when I was teaching).  I have long stretches of day without set structure, spend long periods of time reading, researching, blog-surfing and errand-running.  Without classes back in session until February, I have a few more weeks to get used to these kinds of unstructured days.

Last week, I was practically going crazy with the lack of structure - it's funny how much we dream of getting away from it all without any responsibilities, and then when we actually have it, we don't know quite what to do with it! (Just a note - I am doing work as a research assistant/web editor for my graduate school's public policy program - so I do some things to do.)

This week has been so much better:

• I made myself a schedule
• Have found other things to do with my days that I enjoy:
• Checking out books from the library
• Gotten back into blogging
• Listed new clothing for sale on eBay (you can check them out here)
• Set aside certain days to help my mom with housework since she has knee trouble

My best move though for making this month sane? Making a schedule.  The more structured I am, the better I tend to work and feel.  So here's an example of what my weekly schedule looks like:

Along with that, I have a monthly schedule that helps me keep track of the hours I need to put in for my research work, as well as which days I'm going to exercise (staying with my New Year's goal to exercise every other day).

This is still just an outline for me to work from, but just having these makes my life so much more productive and less anxious.  I'm still trying figure out what methods work for me to stay more organized in my home, life, and work.

What are your favorite organizational methods/ideas?

Post-Christmas Clothes for Sale!

Once again, I'm cleaning out the closet post-Christmas and putting some Women's and Kids' clothes (that fit petite women too!) on eBay.  Check them out here - if you message me (through eBay or email: rewardsofthesimplelife@gmail.com) that you saw my listing through the blog and would like to purchase an item, I'll discount your shipping to $2.99!

Check it out here!

Freezer Day: Time to Restock.

After a busy weekend celebrating and recuperating from my sister's wedding, I needed Sunday to just relax.  After a few hours, though, I started to feel a little lazy, and I was inspired by this post from Money-Saving Mom to plan my own freezer/cooking day to stock up for the next few weeks.   I have been realizing how necessary it is for me to plan ahead with meals or at least have quick go-to meals on hand for weekday evenings.  Since my classes are often in the afternoons and evenings, I often have to pack dinner for a few days, as well as leave Ben to "fend for himself" for a few evenings while I'm gone.  All that to say, some freezer restocking was much needed!

The List.

The Plan.

After using MSM's model to plan out what meals I wanted to make, what ingredients I needed to buy (which involved inventorying my pantry) and then making a to-do list for my afternoon.  I decided on 5 different meal options to make, and 2 baking recipes to try.

- Broccoli Cheddar Pockets (from Food Network magazine)
- Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake
- Pizza Dough and Sauce
- Broccoli-Cheese Potato Soup (from Simply in Season cookbook - one of my favorites!)
- Sloppy Joe meat

- Chocolate Chip Walnut Banana Bread
- No-Bake Energy Bites

I was ambitiously hoping to also make shredded barbecue chicken and my favorite black bean burgers, but I lost steam by evening and opted for a break instead.

I set out to work, and was amazed at how smoothly everything went with my plan in hand.  I rarely take the time beforehand to think about the order that I should cook in to make sure things get done in a good order, which leaves me frustrated later that something is cold while another thing still has hours left to bake.  My take-away from my freezer day was to continue planning out my cooking/freezer days with this method.  For me, planning = a much higher degree of success!

Ingredients

No-Bake Energy Bites

Sloppy Joes

Broccoli Cheese Potato Soup

Banana Bread - so good, we've already polished half of it off!

Banana Bread

Keeping track of all our new additions

View of our freezer as it's being filled...

 After adding 5 new meal options, it seemed like I needed to have some way to keep track of what I have in my freezer so that it actually gets used! Until I can think of a more creative method, I have started a list on the side of our freezer that lists the number of each thing that we have in our freezer for quick reference.  That way, when I use something, I can cross it off and know how much I have left for the next time.

It feels so good to be organized!

End of a Rendezvous, Back to Reality!

We got home at the end of this week from what started as a little and turned into a week-long getaway!  We had a great time being away and exploring a new city.  So much good food, great coffee, and time to relax.  Just what we needed.

Looking back at my list, it looks something like this:

- Catch up on sleep (already doing a good job on this one!) No problem here!

- Catch up on reading (school-work reading)

- Relax and enjoy it without guilt  Almost without any guilt...

- Go out for a nice dinner with my husband to celebrate his new, upcoming job! (so proud of him) Yum, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse!

- Watch a good documentary

- Catch up with my blog a little bit...this is always the hardest thing for me to fit into a busy week.

- Get back into an exercise routine.

So, I did pretty well!  My exercise routine only went as far as downloading new yoga videos on my Netflix....  Although I did do a lot of walking around the city this week (so that's something, right?).  I still need to do some reading, but I did get two major papers done, so I feel like I had a good start.  Last thing to do, find a good documentary.  Maybe this will be a perfect Saturday afternoon fix...

Coming up this weekend, a bachelorette party for my little sister (can't believe she's getting married in 2 weeks!) and a chance to hang out with my little brother while he's home from college.  Good things ahead.

Happy Weekend!

Pictures from a Rainy Weekend.

Rainy weekends call for none other than a good house cleaning.  There's finally no excuse to ignore the piles of dishes, dust, and clutter that has accumulated (at least that's what usually constitutes cleaning at our house...).  This weekend we did all of that, thanks to the help of my willing husband and some laundry assistance from my parents.

I took advantage of some down time on Sunday to start working on better organization for my kitchen.  I made a good start, but I know I have more to do, which first will involve reading/researching a few good ideas for organizing a small apartment kitchen.

Just a few before and after photos of surface-level organizing:

Before

 (Yes, I do like to watch Hulu while

working in the kitchen.)

After

And then I was finally able to get outside and survey the state of our very wet fall garden.  We still have a few things going - kale, pumpkins, eggplant, tomatoes, and hot peppers, not to mention a few cantaloupes and maybe squash (we're waiting to see what will happen with those).  I would have snapped more ground-level photos, but the bugs were at me non-stop, so I made as quick a stop as I could!

Tomatoes, squash, kale, and pumpkins (look hard!)

LOTS of tomatoes!

(You can see the effects of a few days of rain 

from looking at the pots on our fire escape!)

As you can see, we still have burgeoning tomato plants, which means that more salsa is in the works this week (maybe with a little extra kick since we have so many hot peppers and we're not really spicy-eating people.)! 

I am already looking forward to next spring and the garden planning and experiments that it will bring.  But for now, we will enjoy the last simple pleasures of our wet fall garden. 

"...I have great faith in a seed.  Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."               -- Henry David Thoreau

Last Week's Simple Living Secrets: Week 2

.... Back to the blog after a full yet restful weekend.  Ben and I walked to a baseball game, completely rearranged the living room, had good friends over to barricade in with as Irene came closer, walked down the street to our favorite brewery/restaurant, and enjoyed lunch and an afternoon with our favorite newbie twins (belonging to our dear friends), and met with a church small group to recap the summer - all in one weekend!  Even with all that going on, the weekend managed to still feel relaxing.  We spent time eating leftover bruschetta, drinking iced coffee, and catching up on some reading and short naps.  Sometimes, bad weather is just the excuse you need for some quiet time at home....

A Few Simple Living Secrets from the Past Week (either practiced, or reflected on):

1. Canning is work, but well worth it, to save money and time in the future.

This week, I canned for the first time by myself.  I ended up with a pantry full of bread-and-butter pickles and basic tomato sauce.  I enjoyed trying it on my own, and I know later this winter when I'm in the midst of classes, I'll be glad I did!
You can read more about last week's canning adventures in my posts Yesterday, In Pictures. and Updates from the Garden, and My First Time Solo-Canning!
  
2. Natural Cleaning Continues to Impress Me with Its Wonders!

Fruit flies will forever be a pet peeve of mine.  It seems we battle them on-and-off all summer long, especially in a kitchen without air conditioning.  Last week, while at my parents' house for supper, my mom shared a tip that her mother-in-law passed on to her (the best tips are gathered from stories, I've learned!).  If fruit flies are in your kitchen, put out a bowl of apple cider vinegar with two drops of dish soap.  You'll find a few flies in there in almost moments.  Today I got a chance to try it, and truly, within minutes, there were flies floating in my natural concoction.  So easy!  Now, who is going to clean them up...?

3. Give Freely, and Double for Yourself.

This title will sound incredibly selfish, until you read on.  I am continually learning about how I can give more freely to those around me, with my time, resources, and self.  It is not easy, especially in a self-centered society and as an independent person.  However, I have learned that the moments that I go beyond my natural inclinations to give, I receive back twice a blessing in the feeling of joy, contentment, and reward that comes back.  Also, it is a powerful way to foster relationships with others in a more authentic way.  So, one way Ben and I are both learning to give is through cooking.  We went over this weekend with lunch for dear friends of ours who have just had twins.  It was such a pleasure to be with them and their boys, and easy to bring over lunch for the four of us (+2!).  While we (or rather, Ben) was getting the ingredients for a crockpot of Mennonite mac and cheese (one of our favorites), we decided to get larger containers of ingredients to make a second batch for ourselves for dinner this week.  My work this week for planning out our meals has been virtually nothing - just adding a few veggies and sides to our crockpot of mac and cheese that will certainly take us all week to finish!

5. iTunes U.

If you have not discovered iTunes U, then you are missing out!  My poor family, in my excitement to share my "tips" with them, I have probably told them about every lecture I've listened to on iTunes U, and then asked if I've ever told them about it before.  Lovingly:"Yes, Rachel, you told us about it the last time you were here..." - oops.  Well, if you're a learning-a-holic like me and love to hear new things, you are just going to dig iTunes U.  Through Apple's iTunes store, you can go to the iTunes U tab on the top of the store menu.  There, you can download tons of free lectures, talks, roundtable discussions, and videos from major universities around the world in any department you can imagine.  They are all free, and can be downloaded onto your iPod.  I have learned about sustainable food systems, Michael Pollan, immigration laws, gardening, psychology and attraction, and much more in the past few weeks from listening to these lectures while I work around the house, or walk through the neighborhood.  If you haven't, check it out!

I could keep going (and going, and going...), but I'll leave it at that for this week.  Later this week, I'll be writing about a lesson learned in gratitude, perspective, and abundance.

A few thoughts on simplicity that are challenging me this week, to leave you with:

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.  The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.  ~Elise Boulding

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.  The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.  ~Lin Yutang

The best things in life are nearest:  Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.  Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Yesterday, In Pictures.

 

Yesterday there was an extremely successful pickle canning, thanks to:

1 - Tons of cucumbers, 

2 - Seriously, as big as my hand! (See the comparison?)

3 - Target canning equipment, which has been so much better than I would've thought

4 - A happy kitchen, looking out on a reorganized porch (more on that later in the post)

5+6 - Coffee (always a must-have for me!) and a new apron from my great friend, Amanda.

Ben and I tasted the pickles a little later that evening, and they are delicious (Ben said even better than store-bought!).  We devoured the first jar so fast, we are now glad we have six more pints of them in the pantry!

I was also feeling inspired to reorganize our porch.  Since summer has been drawing to a close (although I'm not believing it quite yet...), our porch has kind of become a little...straggly.  My plants have mostly died since our last vacation, and the deck has become somewhat of a shelf for all the last minute things I drop there and neglect to put away later on.  SO, it was most definitely time for a clean-up!  I think it's much better, and mostly because it feels so much better - cleaner, less haphazard, and more shabby-chic (at least I hope so!).  

 Happily reorganized and clean porch!
1+2 - Before photos: Not proud of these...
3,4,5,6 - Salvation Army purchases to organize/decorate the porch
7 - All for $13.29! (everything else I used was what we already had around)
8-13 - The "afters", plus curtains from our closet and tie-backs made from dishtowels... I had to work with had we had!

Once again, I'm reminded of an article I read in Psychology Today a few weeks ago, that an unexpected source of happiness is to do something with our hands.  Psychologists have actually found this effective as a source of therapy - to have their clients begin pottery, art, writing, journaling, playing piano, etc.  You can read more about it here.  It makes sense to me, though - after a full day of doing something productive, I feel more completed myself, more at peace with my life (but maybe it's also because I don't have to trip over the things on my porch anymore!).