23 Months

I cannot believe that J is 23 months old. 

One month until he's 2. 

Where did the last 2 years go???  Don't answer that - a good chunk of last year was well and truely a write-off, as much as I tried to be conscious of J's growth and development while one stressed-out mamma about Mr Trifectagirl.

His favourite things at the moment are his wooden train set, water, baseball set, water, Fireman Sam, Lazy Town, Thomas, Giggle and Hoot, chasing mum with a spray bottle full of water, ice (frozen juice or frozen oranges or strawberries), bathtime.  This kid is a water baby.

Party plans are in full swing.  We're going to the same park as last year since it gives options for older kids to run around - and I suspect J will only stop long enough to inhale some cake that a friend is making for us, and get back into playing himself.

Gift wise he goes up to the toddler room at childcare on his birthday, so he'll get a new bag and hat on his birthday.  I also want to get him a sand pit, but that will have to happen later with grandpa's help.

Other gifts I've been told about are an easel, bathtub stickers, a quilt cover set and some size 2 clothes - and since it looks like he had a growth spurt Saturday, he'll be in them sooner rather than later, I think!

New Years Organising Revolution - Week 2

This post is part of an organising contest that I'm participating in through I'm an Organizing Junkie.  Please vote for me from Friday - it's the one labelled "39 Trifectagirl". Thank you!!

I missed week one.  I'd planned to work on my desk, but that just got a bit too much last week.

This week the challenge area is the kitchen, so I chose to organise my utensils drawer.   I had sorted through my counter-top caddies just after the kitchen renovations, but not tackled the drawer yet.

I've had a pretty good double decker drawer divider/utensil holder for a number of years, so organising in this case was simply a case of 'empty, purge and allocate a home for what's left'.

My starting point was this jumbled hodge-podge mess. 

J loves pulling things out of this drawer, so I had already removed most of the knives (but I happened to find a few I'd forgotten about at the bottom of the pile).  I found multiple citrus zesters, pizza cutters, items I have no idea what they are, a chestnut cracker and 3 carving forks over and above my grandmother's good set.

I grouped things together, such as salad servers, useful but not used often (on the bottom rack!), skewers, spatulas and measuring spoons and long or chunky items. 

 

The top layer is things like can openers, garlic press, microplane and peelers.  Since finishing this and cooking a meal, I've done a bit of tweaking putting the microplane to the side and the nutmeg/ginger grater fits at the front of the divider.

 

 

I've decided I need to get one of these dividers from my cutlery drawer.  I'm using the moulded one that came with the kitchen, and realised tonight after doing this sort out that there is a bunch of wasted space in the existing set-up.

In the drawer I worked on, and my top one, I found a bunch of tea and hot chocolate items, so I bundled them together and have stored them in a glass mug with the tea and teapots. 

One thing I stumbled on in the drawer was a tea-bag squeezer, which I had forgotten I had.  I've stored this in the jar of teabags that sit on a lazy susan on my bench with the rest of my every-day coffee/tea making things.

This was a pretty quick project - if I'd not also done 2 loads of laundry and folded them, I'd have achieved the sort and this post while J was doing this:

Things I've Been Meaning to Do - 2013 plan

Previously I've done monthly 'Things I've been meaning to do' posts, and since I found them really useful to keep me moving on all those things I've been meaning to do, I'll resurrect them for 2013.

This list are things I've been meaning to do in some cases for years that I'd like to knock off in 2013.  Many of these I can set smaller goals during the year on a month by month basis to get them done.

• Make photo books of the photos I have of my mum and step-dad.  I've got piles of baby and childhood photos, so I'd like to get them organised and published into photobooks.  Only been on the list for 4 years or so.
• Finish J's baby cross-stitch.  He's nearly 2.  I need to get it done. I don't want it to be like the table cloth my mother started crocheting when she was pregnant with my sister in 1976.  It was left unfinished when she passed in April 2008.  By unfinished, there is one square to finish and and two to connect to the tablecloth!
• Sort through my filing cabinet.  This is just a general maintenance task that needs to be done, but something I tend to avoid.
• Sell the stuff I've been planning to sell for ages - some of this also dates back 4 years. 
• Tidy up the couch grass in my yard.  It's invaded the garden beds and since I have good edging, I really should get in and clean it up.  This will be a winter job when the ground is hopefully softer. 
• Re-paint all the trim around the outside of the house, a job that is well, well overdue.  I may use this as an opportunity to update the look.

I'm sure I'll come up with other things.

*The montly 'Things I've Been Meaning to Do' originally came from I'm A Lazy Mom.