Weekly Goals: December 6-12 and Clearing the Surface Clutter

We put up the Christmas tree this week, and these two goofs were really excited to hang their ornaments.  Christmas is pretty much the only holiday I decorate for (at least for now), so I enjoyed putting up a few things around the house as well.

Last Week's Goals:

• Put up the Christmas tree and other decorations. Done!
• Declutter a few specific surfaces that always bother me when I look at them: the shelf above the craft cupboard, the ledge in the upstairs hallway, and the top of the appliance island. Done (almost)!  See below...
• List the rest of the lots of baby clothes on ebay. Not done.

Here's the shelf above the craft cupboard before (I apologize for the lighting, but there's really no way to get a good photo staring at a window).

And after! I moved a few of the decorative items from the mantel over to this side to make room for Christmas decorations, and put most of the stuff that was up there away.  Because honestly? Most of the stuff up there did not belong.

Here's the pretty fireplace with the Christmas decorations all set to go.

That space was easy enough to take care of, because I knew I wanted to put up Christmas decorations.  The other two were a different story.  Here's the upstairs ledge before:

I love this ledge because it's an easy place to set things down, but I hate this ledge because it's an easy place to leave things for months.

It took me about ten minutes yesterday to put everything where it belonged or find a home for it.

And finally, appliance island, as I have named this cart.  The top always gathers extra stuff.  

There's no after for this one, because I didn't get to it yet.  But 2 out of 3 isn't bad!

This Week's Goals:

• Mail Christmas cards! This is one of my favorite things to do, and I love receiving updates and pictures from everyone else too.
• Continue working on homemade Christmas presents.  I will be doing a post (or two) after Christmas to show you all what I've been working on.  For now, I'll just have to be vague...
• Make a Christmas treat! My mom gave me a bunch of extra baking chocolate and almond bark, so I'm going to make some sort of popcorn/chex/white chocolate mix.  Hopefully it turns out well (and I'll certainly share if it does).