A Dress! A Dress! A Dress! A Dress!

Have you ever read Green Eggs and Ham? Of course you have. My favorite line is "A train! A train! A train! A train! Could you, would you on a train?"

Ahem.

Last summer, my mom bought me this dress. Cute, right?

Unfortunately, the color washed me out terribly. I planned to just give it to Goodwill, but I couldn't let go of it! It was really cute and comfortable, but the color just wasn't for me. I went to a baby shower a few weeks ago and two girls there were wearing this same dress, but they were different colors. Then, I read on YoungHouseLove about how they dyed some slipcovers for their dining room chairs. Idea!

I decided a navy blue would be really cute, so I bought some iDye in, uh, navy blue. (PS, even if they hadn't used this on YHL, I still would have bought it. I am a sucker for cool packaging.)

It was super easy, although a bit nerve-wracking because with this particular brand of dye, you put it right into your washing machine. Eek! No worries though, it turned out perfectly!

Isn't it cute! The color is amazingly uniform throughout (these pics don't do it justice). And the best part? The stitching did not dye, which gives it a really cute detailing.

I am so happy with how it turned out! I can't wait to finally get some wear out of this dress. I am also dye-happy now. What else is in this house that I can dye!

(Note: it did get my washing machine a bit blue-y. So far it is coming off fine with Windex and I will be sure to run a few loads through of darks and jeans before trying out some whites. I'm not worried about it.)

The To-Do List

I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys how awesome to-do lists are. Likely if you are reading this blog, I am preaching to a very organized choir about how awesome to-do lists are. Lists in general, actually. There is nothing more satisfying than making that list and then crossing things right off of there. Including, writing out your chores, finishing them, but then doing other chores that weren't even on the list, adding them to the list, and then immediately crossing them off too. Ugh. So good.

(I sometimes also draw little pictures of my family and I on our dry erase board.)

Ties

I didn't know my husband had so many ties. I didn't know this because most of them were scattered everywhere in our closet: the floor, a few hangers, the floor.

Before:

And that was even AFTER I had organized the closet. Here is the before before:

*shudder* So I did a few things. One, I bought a tie rack from Target for about $5. Two, I picked up/gathered all of the ties in our closet, and three, I hung them up neatly in a spot in the closet that wasn't so high traffic. My husband doesn't wear ties very often, so I moved them from the "front" of his closet over to where they would be more out of the way and wouldn't be constantly pushed aside to get at a shirt. ORGANIZATION!

Nice. Here's hoping this works, because after I hung up all these ties, I discovered this:

That's right, we already had a tie organizer. Sigh.

Ties

I didn't know my husband had so many ties. I didn't know this because most of them were scattered everywhere in our closet: the floor, a few hangers, the floor.

Before:

And that was even AFTER I had organized the closet.

The Nightly Routine

This is a pretty typical view of my house after I've put the kids to bed. I'm definitely a work before play type of person, and I can't relax at night until three key things are done: one) the dishes and kitchen are cleaned up, two) the dining room is de-crudded, and three) the family room (living room? What's the difference?) is picked up.

(things you may not be able to see in this picture: a pair of my old high heels that Story likes to wear, a piece of the newspaper under a chair, tons of crumbs and sticky spots at Story's place at the table, and lots more toys)

(poor Simba...)

And now, I can relax! I give you, ORGANIZATION!

Oh man, it feels so good. In short, toys were picked up, the dishwasher is running, a big satisfying pile of Story's books is stacked neatly in the family (living?) room, and the coffee is prepped for the morning. And now if you will excuse me, there is a pint of Ben & Jerry's waiting for me that I told myself I couldn't have until I posted something.

Stress!

I have discovered something about this blog: if I want to post something, it means I have to work. Yeesh. The bad news is that I feel so pressured to post because I LOVE before and afters! But the good news is that I am really excited about all the things (ALL the things) in my house that need organization desperately. Have I mentioned the basement? Trust me, it will be my Everest. Look out!

Vomit.

That's what I want to do every time I go into our closet.

(my side)

(Skip's side) 

Ugh, grossest. I have a really crappy shoe organizer (ahem, "organizer") that I was too lazy to bring back after I brought it home years ago and realized that it was, in fact, a piece of junk. It was like those rope ladders that you had to climb in gym class. Remember? The ones that were tethered to the ground were easy to climb, but the ones that just hung from the ceiling and you basically had you use only your upper body to try and climb this "ladder"? And there was always the one boy in class that was really strong and kind of a hick and he could climb it super fast? No?

Well anyway, here are more pics of our disgusting master bedroom closet.

(Skip's side)

(my side)

So the other day I decided that, hey, this closet is too gross. Way too gross. I am going to buy one thing to help me organize this closet, and I think I need to start with a decent shoe organizer. I bought one from Target, and really should have gotten it in white instead, but again, was too lazy to bring it back. And also too excited to get this thing ORGANIZED!

Oh man, it feels too good! I ended up being able to fit only my shoes in the organizer, and I had no idea I had so many freaking boots, but here you go.

Things I found and got rid of:
-an entire trash bag worth of hangers from the dry cleaners and that came from the store (like when you buy pants)
-a bunch of belts that I never wore
-lots of old shoes I never wore
-gross old flip flops for taking showers when we went camping *shudder*
-two big storage containers: one didn't have anything in it except for a lid that didn't even fit it, and another one full of old clothes we hadn't touched in years
-a bag of clothes that was in progress of being filled and sent to Goodwill
-two more bags of clothes that were bagged and sent to Goodwill (along with the bag of old shoes)

I also hung up our hoodies instead of slapping them on the weird, oddly angled shelf above the clothes rack and tried grouping together nice work clothes and, well, more hoodies. You guys, for the rest of the day I felt so much lighter and would periodically go upstairs just to look at my sparkling closet.

When Skip saw it, he gave the the slow clap, and I pumped my fists in the air like a champion. Champion!!