Organizing, Organizing...

Simple Mom is running a Spring Cleaning link-up focusing on several hot spots. This week's was your closet/wardrobe. I am not at a point where I can tackle that one, since I have been wearing the same 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants for the past few weeks, and will continue to do so until Matthew makes his grand appearance in a few more weeks. So...I decided to tackle my kitchen.

Here's the stockpile before...

Note the piles in front of the shelf, and also the stack of magazines next to it. All read, but not taken care of. Please don't hate me, but I finally threw them out because I realized recycling was not going to happen, and they needed to go.

After:

I got this lovely 6-shelf can organizer from CSN.com. I had won a $20 gift code on a blog giveaway, so it only cost $9.99, which is a bargain for one of those. It did make me feel a bit like an idiot when I attempted to assemble it this morning, until I realized I was doing it backward. Such is life. I was able to move everything else off of the floor onto the shelves, and reorganized them a bit too. It's still crowded, but everything fits much better, and I'm much happier with it.

We also took a trip to Goodwill this week to drop off a few boxes and bags of items that had been sitting in the living room for, well, months. We cleaned out our pots and pans cupboard and got rid of a lot of the extras. Jonah was disappointed, because he loves to pull them all out to cook his toys. I am quite pleased that he now has just a few instead of about 15 to pull out for Mom to trip over.

My brother loaded up our old desk, which we had been saving for him (in our living room, because there wasn't anywhere else for it) for his apartment for next school year. We told him it was up to him to store it if he still wanted it, so he's going to take that home to Mom and Dad's over Easter break in a few weeks. Jonah's toys have already overtaken that space. Perhaps it was his retaliation for our getting Matthew's crib mattress and making Matthew's bed in what will soon be their room instead of Jonah's room.

I am in full on nesting mode and I'm exciting to keep tackling more decluttering projects over the next few weeks. Yay spring cleaning!