All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill

I had a lot of things on my to-do list this weekend, but I did not get to any of them. But I'm okay with that because I was extremely productive anyway! I got so much done this weekend, just different things than I had in mind.

What I had hoped to do:
Clean out the bathroom cupboards and drawers
Clean the bathroom
Go through more books to sell to Amazon
Go through my clothes
Continue going through the binders of school papers on my bookshelf
Go through our winter gear to donate to the winter drive at work

Just because I didn't get to these things this weekend doesn't mean I crossed them off my list. They are still there and I will continue to work on them throughout the week and beyond if needed.

So, if I didn't do any of that, what did I do this weekend?

Well, I worked primarily in the room that we hope to hold my daughter's 1st birthday party in in just 1 month! It has over the years turned into a large storage pit and is a completely un-usable room at this time. After this weekend it is now a half usable room! Yes, I was able to clear out half of the room. I even vacuumed that half and took pictures. It hasn't been that clean since we moved in 5 years ago. I am very proud of the progress.




BEFORE




AFTER (half way there!) See even the kitty likes her new found clean-ness!



AFTER

 Here are all of the boxes of papers that I have gone through so far:



Boxes of papers

 Unfortunately when I boxed these all up I did not take the time to sort though things that may need to be shredded or burned. My husband says it's too much work to burn paper so we must go about this from a different direction. We do have a shredder at home, but it is so time consuming! I went through two boxes on Saturday and shred a lot of documents. We can only do 3 sheets at a time at home or else the shredder jams so it took a very long time. I am not looking forward to going through the rest so my husband is going to call the bank and see if we can shred any documents there. We are unaware of any other ways to safely get rid of personal documents. If you have any ideas for us, please share!

Since I have been cleaning out the house we have accumulated piles upon piles of things that we no longer need or want. The idea was to sort through everything saving some things and donating other things. At this time we were storing massive amounts of items in the large room that we did not want any longer. I brainstormed where I could possibly store this stuff with having it out of the way. Here's what I came up with. I printed out large signs on the computer that say, "Garage Sale". I got as many boxes together that I could find and I starting putting everything we didn't want in these boxes. I then closed them up and taped a Garage Sale sign on the box.

We currently have attic storage that runs the entire length of our house and is accessible by a little door in the wall in our bedroom. Currently we store things that we are keeping in plastic storage bins. I was able to re-arrange the bins so that everything we are saving could be to the left side of the storage and this left the entire right side empty. I swept it all out and made sure it was clean and then decided that anything for garage sale would go to the right. This is what we have so far. I have also decided that I will donate things, but I would like to try them on at least one garage sale first and get back some money. Whatever can't sell then I will determine from that what I will donate.


I also was able to clean out 2 closets this weekend! They were small closets, but still I felt like I accomplished a lot! And I was absolutely exhausted by Sunday night.

Now I didn't just clean and organize all weekend. I did something awesome for myself. I participated in a bike tour through Minneapolis By Bike It was a really great experience and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to get outdoors and explore. I don't do a lot of "fun" things for myself so I was really happy that I decided to do this. I was a little nervous because I don't exercise other than just walking sometimes and I haven't even  rode bike since high school. I did really well though. I was wobbly at first as I was learning the new bike, but then it was really comfortable for me. The company is run by my friend and she provides bikes as well as helmets. The helmets have a speaker hook up so you can hear her talking throughout the tour. She points out attractions. There are 2 current tours that she does. I participated in the Historical Tour. There is also a Farmers Market Tour which I would like to do someday. The bikes have baskets on the front so you can store anything you would like to take. I highly recommend you take a camera. I also brought a light jacket but did not end up needing to use it. They provide ponchos in the event that it rains. You also receive a complimentary water bottle with the company logo on it. The first 25 participants receive a tee shirt with the company logo on it (you can see the cool logo by clicking on the website link above). Since I was on the 2nd tour I did receive a tee shirt! Here are a couple pictures from our tour:



I really liked the tour because it made me see Minneapolis in a way that I have never experienced it before. I very rarely make it to Minneapolis and when I have in the past it has always been by car. I really appreciate that I was able to have this experience and I hope other people take the advantage to go on a tour for themselves as well!

What are some fun activities that you like to do? Do you make time in your busy life to do "fun" things for yourself? If you find that all you do is go to work and then continue to work when you go home (either housework or take your work home) try to make it a goal to do at least ONE fun thing for yourself a month. Make it be an outing with friends or spend time with family. Just make sure you do something you enjoy (and it doesn't even have to cost money if you are on a budget!)