Dark Chocolate Visions of a Simplified Home

Lately I've been going through alot of my stuff in the house, trying to weed out and organized things that I've had for a while and stuff that is newly coming into our home.

I ask myself,"Why is it important to me to have this all organized?"

Besides making my house a chaotic mess, I have many answers in my head to support my conviction. One is the peace of mind I get from having a place to put my things. Ahhh, it's as if I ate a piece of dark chocolate. I can see it now, sitting back on my sofa, with nothing to clean up because it's all in its place. Nothing left to do but dream up projects... and...um... do them!

Hmm... I may be closer to the truth... I have a bit of a guilt complex when it comes to focusing on projects when there are dishes, laundry, cooking, shopping, cleaning to be done. I know, this is normal life in a home, but I keep trying to rebel against it. With a baby brewing, I realize my chores will only increase...
But....
I will continue my search for solace in organization and simplification.

So far, I have built all the bookshelves in the living room area that are needed, and am now ready to enter the bedrooms. First, our bedroom, then, the guest room.

The Problem/Mess #1
My guest room is mimicking a storage/closet/baby/sewing room.

The Plan
Build wardrobe in master bedroom to move my closet (and some of Jason's) into, thereby creating a place for sewing/craft supplies (all the stuff on the bed).

Thoughts
This will not entirely solve my problem, but move some stuff to a permanent place, and other stuff to a purgatory of sorts.

On the Bright Side
As these structures come to life, I find that the chaos is slowly disappearing. Maybe it's all the chocolate I've been eating... but I'm starting to see some blue skies.

Hints
When I decided to fight The Mess, I found that putting things in piles helped to make organizing more manageable. After widdling down to 6 piles, we invested in plastic storage boxes, which are easy to stack and carry.

Some Difficult Things to Weed
Clothing: I have gotten rid of many items, but still have alot (in my opinion, but I've seen worse). As I buy new clothes, I purchase more "sportive" pieces that are interchangeable, breathable, and well made. During pregnancy I have benefited from my old "big" clothes, and the thrift store. I do have a few pieces that I wear maybe once a year, but that is my choice, and I'd rather keep them than wish I had them...

Photos: Many of our photos are in digital these days, but I do have 2 huge boxes that are filled with photographs. I haven't started this project, yet, but I plan to stuff all the photos in albums unprejudiced, stick them on a shelf, then later, organize them. We'll see what actually comes about...

Knick knacks: We don't have too many, but we do have them. I often imagine leading the life of a traveler... I could only have a few bare essentials... However, we do live in house, so it is not such a big deal to have a few miscellaneous things lying around. I do want to get rid of what is not important to us, as I feel we don't have room for such things, and they actually take up precious time and space.

AquaHelix - the 1/2 Gallon per Minute Showerhead

Jason had the idea that since I love to take long hot showers, that it would in our best interest to find a low flow shower head. "Sure, I don't care. My sister and I grew up using one," I said.

Well, little did I know the search Jason was to embark on. I figured he'd find a generic nozzle, but instead, he found a unique super low flow nozzle... the AquaHelix

So, Jason ordered it directly from the inventor (even chatted with him on the phone). We got it in the mail yesterday (superfast). Jason installed it promptly (must have been easy to install), and well, took a shower. He was so curious to see if I liked it (plus we only have a couple weeks to return it if we don't like it); I took a shower next.

My commentary:
It works! And it tingles. It was strong enough for me on the low setting (I haven't tried the high setting yet, but don't think I want a stronger tingle yet). What I mean is, that there is a slight zippy stinging at first, compared to our old nozzle. What amazes me is that the AquaHelix is as small as a microphone, shoots out one stream of water, yet, because it is spiraling, looks and feels like one spray. The farther from the nozzle you stand, the lighter the feel (almost misting). It truly was strong enough to wash the soap from my hair (stonger than our old showerhead, even). And the irony for me is, I can take a nice hot shower for as long as I want, yet, because the stream is stronger and cleans off the soap quickly, I don't know if I want to shower for too long, even if it is 1/2 gallon a minute. Ha!

Jason plans to keep both nozzles hooked up with a valve to switch flow to either one. Our other nozzle is a handheld, and is really useful for washing out screens (for when I'm making t-shirts), etc... I will definitely use the AquaHelix for my showers, and look forward to getting use to this new feeling, wow!

Jason Puts Up a Wall

Our Library is on its way to completion. Jason put up a wall near the entryway just before he came down with the stomach flu, Yuck! Poor thing... So, now I just need to put together the final bookshelf for the living room to finish our library.

Other things:

J built the compost bin higher

I am sewing more and more, mostly baby stuff and maternity items

Composting Toilet is still working out great, although J did switch to the city toilet during his illness. We are about to store the peat moss in a covered trash can to protect it from rain (not necessary, just something to make me feel better--I don't like the wet peat moss at the bottom of the bag)

The Garden is going pitifully well. There is still mesclun to pick. Turnips survived without any protection, although I didn't eat too many. J pruned the fruit trees a couple weeks back. I have started my Spring/Summer garden plans. They will be nice a simple to accomodate my pregnant state. I'm thinking, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, radish, and beans, lots of marigolds and cosmos, and, if I feel up to it, some other things.

I've started started laundering my baby stuff. We are starting to implement a greywater environment, meaning, switching to greywater friendly soaps. First is the laundry detergeant. We found a recipe to base a liquid soap made from our bio-deisel supplies. We need to do a couple of experiments, but it looks easy enough.

Bio-Deisel, by the way, is going fine. Production is much slower in the wintertime, saved for warm weekends. We use 70% bio-deisel, 30% regular deisel in the winter, but we drive less too (summer we use 100% bio-D).
So, still, overall, throughout the year, we emit 10% of what we were with our old Nissan gasoline Stanza.

Well, I can't think of any other homesteading updates. I'm just taking it day by day with this pregnancy thing, and nesting when I feel like it. Housecleaning is kept to a minimum, but I am having bouts of deep cleaning too, which is always fun. "J, can I get rid of this? or J, can I build this?"

Oh, forgot to say, drying laundry outside on the clothesline still going fine. I just have to remember, watch the weather, although rain-washed baby clothes are great! (We've had our line for 2 years, now? and probably for the last year I have been using is regularly. I've only used the dryer 4 times in the past year...)