OYOL, Week 13- Before and After

I have a LOT of stress causing clutter spots in my house, but probably the one that is most frustrating is my kitchen counter. It's kinda hard to make dinner when there's canisters strewn across the work surface, along with cereal boxes from breakfast, sippy cups from who knows when, dirty dishes overflow, stray receipts, odd toys (no idea why they're there -except some kid put them there), and just about anything else you can imagine.

So that's the clutter spot I chose for this week.

Here's the two befores...

Now this is a bit drastic. It was the morning after shopping day and I still had groceries I hadn't put away yet. This is not what it looks like on a typical day, but it is what it looked like when I started to declutter it.

Here's what it looked like after I awoke from a nap and found that my husband had put away the left over groceries for me. That was nice. He gained cookie points for that one. This is what it looks like on a typical day... not very functional at all. It's so aggravating to have to move junk out of the way to cook.

And here's the after. It's not as perfect as I like, but it's much, much better. It took me 2 1/2 days, and I've been trying very hard to keep it clear. It's amazing how quickly things get put back on it... like a matter of minutes, and it's like... "Where did that come from??"

(The razor is there because our room is completely empty, due to remodeling, and we do not have a bathroom counter (well, ok so we do.. it's only like 2-3" beyond the sink), so it's currently living in the kitchen until we get our bedroom back.

Here is the fire hazard counter I decluttered during my two week blog sebaticle. I do not have a before picture. I didn't think to take one before I started, but if you've ever visited my house, you probably know what it was like. Here is the side of the fridge before. I did manage a picture of that before I cleaned it up.

The counter and side of the fridge right after I decluttered it. It almost looks exactly the same today, except I got a laminator since then, so I laminated the routine and laminated our menu schedule planning chart thingy, so it's hanging up there too. 

 And this is my favorite organizing tool so far... the "If I accomplish only one thing" paper, not the cute kids in the photos. I found it Baca Creative. I laminated it so I could write in my #1 task for the day every day. As you can see here, I tried to put two on there. Didn't make a difference. I still only accomplished one of those.

The reason it is my favorite is because Aaron looks at it every day, and if I haven't gotten to that one thing yet, he helps me, if he can, by either doing it or making it possible for me to do it. Isn't that nice? If only I had known that all I had to do was write it down in his plain sight. ha ha.