Chaunna.com
I'm a mom of two (Dylan-8, and Cherry-0) and absolutely love it! I spend most of my days being a stay at home mom, but I also run a business from home with my best friend (hubby).
I LOVE to travel with my family! WLast year we packed EVERYTHING we own into a storage and took to the road for three months. We traveled all across the Eastern US and have plans to do a western US trip once Cherry (our newborn baby girl) is old enough for LONG road trips :)
I am a crafty mom - I have a knack for making things. I like to scrapbook, taught myself how to make dolls, and now that I have a baby girl I'm in love with headbands and bows.
On the flip side - I love taking my son to the park. He's an "outdoorsy" type of kid and who can blame him with all the traveling we do. Over the past 8 years I stepped out of my girl shoes and into the "mom of a boy" shoes. I know more about survival guide, how to make bows and arrows, and camping than I ever thought I would :)
This site is where I get to be me! I'll share what I'm up to, sites i like, tips and tricks for whatever I seem to be working on (both for work and for home).
Looking forward to sharing what I know with the world!
#Bittersweet Day
Today I did the biggest purge for this minimalist movement… I sold my dining room table! We’ve had it for years - bought it when we lived in Idaho, moved it across the country to Florida.
We’ve carved pumpkins on it, done science experiments, taught dylan math and reading around it, and enjoyed countless amazing family meals…
It will be greatly missed…
The new replacement seats 4 and is about 2 feet smaller than this one. I’m both happy that I’ll never have to move that humongous (and super heavy) table, and happy to be getting a newer/smaller one, but also sad to see something I’ve treasured for a long while go…
This is getting interesting :)
Declutter Dare - Day 14
Today I’m getting rid of this baby seat. We have 2 (of course)! I used to keep one in the car and one in the house so she could sit with us at the table when we had dinner out…but now she sits in the big girl seat and it’s just not needed.
I should also note that today I posted the 2 floor lamps, a baby swing, a basinet, and the seat on craigslist. And I already have someone picking up the lamps tomorrow!
Hopefully the baby stuff horas that fast too ;)
Today was simple… I went through my
Closet and found 9 shirts that I’ll never wear again. 4 of them are maternity shirts and the other 5 are either TOO revealing or just not cool enough to wear anymore…
One more thing - I didn’t necessarily get “rid” of today but I did get it out of my closet is a ceiling fan. I needed to hire someone to hang it (as I’m no electrician) and just never did so it sat in the closet corner for the last 5 months. Now it’s on the ceiling in the bedroom and I can get rid of the floor fan :D
That’ll be in tomorrow’s declutter pile…as long as this ceiling fan works out tonight!
Next room to declutter - THE KITCHEN
ok, so I’ll admit… I tackled the kitchen before we left to go out of town, but I never got around to the post. SOOOOOO I’m claiming it for day 12 :D
That might be cheating, but the way I look at it, I’ve done WAY more than 12 things from the house, so I’ll be satisfied…
Here’s what left our kitchen:
- 6 plates - why I had a set of 12 plates I have no idea?? I mean when you have people over you either go out to eat or you buy paper for a party. I still kept six which is 2 more than we’ll ever actually need, but they are there. Maybe I’ll decide to ditch the last 2 later, but for now 6 is good.
- one frying pan - I have 3 of the same size and i knew my lil sis had her eye n this one when she moved out for college, so I sent on over to her place and she LOVES IT!
- A complete knife set - yes we had two…actually 2.5 but we don’t need to get into specifics. I had a set in one of those holders on the counter and impulse bought a colorful set because i thought they were “cooler.” We really didn’t need (or use) both sets, so, my colorful set found a new home with my lil sis.
…I don’t think she’ll ever have to buy anything for her knew house - looks like I had enough stuff for TWO houses already LOL - 4 duplicate spatulas - don’t know how, but I have extra spatulas?? so I got rid of the second set and just kept 4 of varying sizes
- Extra silverware - on our road trip last year, I bought a cheap set of silverware. When we got back, I just never got rid of them or packed them up, so they crammed up the silverware drawer when we unpacked our nicer set. They were really just more “stuff”
- unused & pointless kitchen utensils - I can’t really list them all here, but we just had extra “stuff” like an extra peeler, and finger peeler (one you wear on your finger when peeling apples - that never really helped anyway), an alvacado slicer (as if a knife wouldn’t work), 2 ice cream scoops, a small scoop (for what I don’t know), an extra garlic crusher… just stuff we didn’t really used and it clutter up the drawers making it harder to get to the stuff we do.
It really is amazing how much STUFF we have in every part of our house and just don’e realize it piling up higher and higher. The house is really starting to STAY clean without all this extra stuff piling up around us. I have to say - I was a little hesitant to get rid of my “stuff” but it’s feeling better and better every day :)
How many unused kitchen appliances and accessories do you own?
OK so days 4-6 were a little tricky… I didn’t quite pick one thing a day and on the days I did… I just didn’t have the time to blog about so I’m using this post to get me back on track :)
Here’s a run down of the not-so-organized declutter dare
Day 4 - a FRIDAY and my sister was in town sooooo i skipped today and made it a family fun day… booooo
Day 5 - was a saturday that I had my sister in town, soooooo I had her help sorting through TONS of stuff that we’d drop off at the local goodwill. but the only thing i actually got “RID” of from the house was the shoe shelf in the picture above.
It’s ALWAYS been an eye sore in my living room and I absolutely hated it, so I made a place in everyone’s bedroom so that we no longer need this hideous shelf in my living room….. ahhh that just feels so much better…
Day 6 - my decision for today was super easy… i’ve had 4 - yes - 4 lamps in our bedroom… why? who knows - we never use them. So, today I got rid of two. They were originally in a guest bedroom in a previous house and just moved with us to this one… and I’m no longer using them. They’ve been sitting -unused for the past 5 months - definitely an indicator that they are unnecessary
On top of the two floor lamps I dove into the boxes, drawers, crates, and hampers full of Cherry’s baby stuff. Today I got serious and decided I wasn’t keeping around any outfits I knew I’d never put her in… she just has SOOOOOOOOOO many clothes already that I can be a little more picky about what’s staying in her drawers.
I mean, do we really need 5 hooded baby towels? 14 pajama sleepers? and 47 onsies? really? We can clearly cut down on some of this “stuff.” So, I pulled out one of the gray storage buckets I’ve had holding the “excess” that didn’t fit in the drawers (you can see it in the picture) and just started sorting. Here’s what I filled it with
- 2 hooded baby towels
Everyone else in the house has a 3 towel rule - one to use and the other to use when the first is in the wash), the third is a “pool” towel. Cherry now follows the same rule. - 5 pajama sleepers - I realize I could probably get rid of a few more here, but the 5 were an easy choice as they are ones she’s growing out of. I have plans to get rid of another at least another 2 within the next 30 days because 7 (one a day) is more than enough
- 19 onsies - yes - i said NINETEEN! lol
I tried REALLY hard to do a 50/50 split where for every one outfit I kept I found one to get rid of… I got close, but I think 19 is a good number :) - A few randoms I didn’t mention - extra pack of baby wash cloths (we had at least 3 packs of 7 at one time), a couple dresses I don’t really see her wearing (mostly because my own personal preferences - I’d probably never put her in them), and a couple more toys
WOWZERS a busy day and I’m not even done yet! do you think I should give myself credit for future days for all this extra?? lol
Other items from the house that were donated today -
- 1 pair of shoes I no longer wear
- 3 pairs of flip flips (all donated to my lil sis who gladly accepted)
- a baby bath seat - that we never used because we also had a baby bath tub :(
whew! that was a busy day. I’m looking forward to the next post where I tackled my sons overly crowded, always messy, and completely frustrating bedroom.
We spent these three days out of town. So, I didn’t get rid of anything :(
I’m hoping that my excessive purging for the last two weeks sort of makes up for it. On the plus side… while out of town I followed the “minimalist” rule and didn’t bring ANYTHING back home with us that didn’t leave with us.
We seriously took a trip to Orlando and visited with friends, and had tons of fun without any need to bring home anything but memories :)
This house is REALLY starting to clear itself out!
