State of the House: Project Closet

I've worked 8 of the last 10 days. Which sounds really lame for people with 9-5 jobs but is kind of a lot for me since I'm there for at least 12 hours a day. So whenever I work that long, I feel like I'm out of touch with the real world and I'm like caught in this hospital warp zone where time isn't even real and all the days just kind of run together and I don't do anything normal, I just work and sleep. I know that sounds weird, but on my first day off after that, its like emerging from a cave, like ahhh I'm finally free! I did have pretty awesome patients the last eight though which made working a million times easier. Even if I did have to order some hemorrhoid cream at 7pm, change some nasty dressings, discharge all my patients in one day, and yell at a doctor so loud that everyone in the hall heard me. Oops.

I did, however, manage to be productive in my two days off of the last ten. I cleaned and organized the bedroom and closet, which was a rather large feat. The hub is pretty impressed and I feel pretty awesome. Yeah, I'm a nerd. These are the things that make me happy.


The bedroom. I even cleaned under the bed. I put up pictures. And there is nothing on the floor. Mmmhmm.

I might get a bigger picture to put on that wall, but this will do for now.

I think the bedroom took me a whole entire hour and a half. The closet on the other hand...awful.

Before:

You can barely see the floor. The hub claims he trips on things when he goes in there.

I sorted through all the clothes in the closet and all the dressers and found tons that we haven't worn in years. Or have lots of holes. See ya old clothes. Even you, tiny jeans from high school. And pink shiny top that my mom said was too low cut. And really awesome pink chucks that my dad got me freshman year. And dress from birthday party theme day at camp. I love you all.

Check that out. Hellllllllllo Goodwill!

And after: the happy, clean closet!

There is actually room for storage on the top! Like the Christmas stuff that was still sitting the living room. Nice.

It's nothing special. But it's clean and organized. And now we can find clothes. And have space for other things. And I can feel better about myself and my cleaning project. Ha. And the only new thing I bought was a $15 rug from Target. Ahhh.

Plans for the weekend:
1. Workout (right now!)
2. Hang out with some awesome Kiewit girls tonight while our guys pretend they are in a band.
3. Hang out with my hubby
4. Car shopping tomorrow
5. Sushi tomorrow night
6. Order photos for my scrapbook

Super exciting. I know you are jealous. Have a fabulous Friday and wonderful weekend! We are almost out of the month of January! Yay!

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad!

I know, I said I was going to post about my closet cleaning that was supposed to happen yesterday. But then I worked yesterday. Because I am nice and traded someone who was sicko. (You owe me!) I however DID clean that closet today. Its pretty epic. And I will post about it. With before and after pictures. On Friday.

As for right now, I would like to post some pics for my parents. Because their birthdays are the same week. (January 21st and January 26th) And they are awesome. And my mom has a milestone birthday this year!!!! But don't worry, Mom, I'm not telling which one...(40???)

I think this pretty much sums up my dad...

And I love the pics of my mom and I at one of my wedding showers...

They helped make my beautiful and perfect wedding possible...

And they are Wii Fit pros...

I love how as I am getting older, they become more of my friends as well as my parents. And the older they get, the more fun they have! Happy Birthday Mom and Dad! I love you both!

There's no place like home...Part Two

Ahh nothing like spending your Friday night eating leftover pasta, watching Chopped, and blogging. Aren't you jealous? I know, I know. Ha.

Time for part two of the home visit!

We spent an afternoon with Zach and Audrey in Kansas City at the wonderful Boulevard Brewery. In case you didn't know, you can take a FREE tour with FREE beer samples at the end. It is super fun and the brewery is beautiful.

The room with barrels of beer was my fave! It smelled SO good!

Delightful.

We had so much fun. Just another reason to love Kansas City.

Next up: Kiewit district meeting. This where everyone in the whole district gets together. The guys have lots of meetings. The girls have fun group events, go shopping, and get gifts. This year they gave us Vera Bradley makeup bags. That's right ladies, if your man works for Kiewit you get a sweet bag. Oh you don't want to move about the country at random? But the bag is so awesome...

Anyway, we had fun seeing people that we miss from KC and going to the four course dinner parties at night. And we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center, which was pretty sweet. I didn't take lots of pics because there is no where to stash my camera in a little black dress.

I love city views so here is the morning and night views from our 30th floor room. You are looking at the Sprint Center and P&L. And somewhere towards the left is the place where we had our wedding reception. Awww. There is also one of Mat sleeping. He loves those meetings. And me and some sweet girls that are surviving TN with me, Paige and Natalya.

Our last day in KC we went to the KU vs Nebraska basketball game in the epic Allen Fieldhouse. This is one of our favorite places in the world. Caleb got four tickets for Christmas (from his awesome wife) and so he decided to take Jordan and Mat.

Check out that sweet NCAA championship trophy.

Again with the refusing to smile. Embrace it.

It was a great game and KU won! (Duh.)

Other highlights of the trip:
-snow days!
-going to Westside Family Church again...we miss it
-Mi Ranchito
-Chipotle
-seeing my beautiful Grandma Voth
-meeting Caleb's sister Audrey's middle school classes
-seeing the super cute Alana Ryan and Ashley Wills
-a late night Applebee's hangout with my brother
-just spending time with our families!

Loved this trip. I miss Kansas City and can't wait to live there again!
Have a wonderful weekend! I will be saving lives, teaching a new grad the ropes, and telling doctors what to do. Aren't you jealous?

One last photo for you to enjoy...

Rock Chalk!

Tune in Monday for the closet clean out...before and after pictures promised!

There's no place like home...

So we went home for ten days...and it was wonderful. We were pretty disappointed that we had to miss Christmas with our families but this was a great time! I kind of took a massive amount of pictures...and even missed some stuff I should have taken photos of. Oh well. But this post will come in two parts because there is just too much stuff!

Family Christmas dinner with the Bakers...we finally got to meet Tessa, Jordan's super cute girlfriend! It was her 19th birthday so we had to celebrate. And I'm pretty sure Joe hates taking pictures as much as Caleb does.

Obviously we are in love with baby George. He wants to crawl so bad!

So freaking cute. Don't you just want to kiss those cheeks??

More of us and George. Obsessed.

He loves hanging out with Grandma!

I got to see my bffs, Kerry and Cara. Kerry made a yummy dinner and we sat around and drank some wine and had some girl talk. I miss that a lot here! And I took no pictures of it...sad. But I love those girls! We didn't go ice skating like I promised Cara. It was just too dang cold! Next year, Cara, next year.

My beautiful Grandma Frank was in town too! She taught me how to make a blueberry pie for the Voth Christmas dinner. We had a blast.

Grandma is a pie making pro.

After Voth Christmas dinner, the boys all disappeared and my mom did facials for the girls. She will give you a FREE Mary Kay facial if you want one!

So fun!

Part two will be posted tomorrow night...don't fret. 

I went to the gym this morning (only because I had to go downstairs to move my car...and figured I should make the trip worthwhile). The guy that works there said "Oh hey, I haven't seen you in awhile!" Thanks gym guy. Maybe that's why I huffed and puffed my way through the tredmill and eliptical. I think I can, I think I can...

I also started the state of the house project today. (I've been working the last couple days, give me a break.) I cleaned and organized the bedroom. It took like...an hour. I even cleaned under the bed and put up pictures. So I was pretty happy with myself to get it done in such a short amount of time. Even though this is the least cluttered room of the house. It was a good way to start out the project! I also remembered why my house is cluttered and a mess. Because I work all the time. And on my days off here are the things I want to do: 1. lay in bed and watch the Today Show and drink coffee, 2. go to the gym, 3. bake things, 4. catch up on all my dvr'd shows. *Sigh* I will not give up. 

I'm working all weekend and so my sweet hubby who has been working his butt off all week can play xbox in peace. Closet cleaning time on Monday. Watch out closet!

The hub is going to a concert tomorrow night so when I get home from work I will post the rest of our fun trip! Have a beautiful weekend! And enjoy your snow days all you lucky KC people!

State of the House: New Year's Resolution 2011

Happy New Year! Yeah I know January is half way over. But I worked the whole first week of January and then went to KC for ten days since we couldn't go over the holidays. And now its back to real life, a place everyone went sixteen days ago. I will make a big, beautiful post about our wonderful trip but I need to get this in writing before it slips away...

We have had one main fight as a married couple. The state of the house. And the fact that I am messy and my hub is a neat freak. I remember this starting one whole week after we got home from the honeymoon and he asked why all my stuff was not yet put away. Umm, excuse me??  He claims he didn't know I was a messy hoarder. (Really, honey? Really?) I claim I didn't know he was a neat freak. (His house in college was not evident of this.) Over the past year, we have come to some kind of middle ground where I try a little harder and he ignores a little more.

I've been contemplating this New Year's resolution for about a month now. But I decided it needed to happen when I spent an hour on the night before our trip looking for the cd of our wedding pictures to take to my mom. I couldn't find it. Enough is enough. And then we got home and opened the door, it smelled like goldfish food. We don't own a fish. Or fish food. And we actually took out the trash before we left. Gross. So gross.

But no more, people. No more. I want a clean, neat apartment. One that I enjoy coming home to. One that my husband can live with. One that will save my marriage. (It's not really on the rocks, don't you worry. Our fights have decreased dramatically since we've been married.) Declutter-ing my apartment and maintaining an organized haven will not happen in a single day. So I have a plan. A beautiful plan that will revamp my household in one year. This is the part of organization that I love. Lists. Plans. Check off sheets. (That is why I loved planning a wedding. One massive list!) I will tackle different parts of my house monthly and add small maintenance habits monthly as well. I will also do some kind of creative project every month since I have a whole list of projects I've been wanting to do and that part is actually fun to me. (I love the word "Project"!)

My list so far:
January
-main project: Since I only have half the month to go, I need to tackle a smaller project. So project number one will be my bedroom. It is actually not bad so shouldn't take long to organize. I will also tackle the closet, where we both still have clothes from high school. They need to go.
-maintenance project: All dirty clothes go into the hampers at the end of the day instead of on the floor. Find permanent places for clean clothes to go. Not the floor of the closet. Getting rid of old clothes should help clear up more space.
-creative project: order photos for my honeymoon scrapbook.

February
-main project: The guest bedroom and closet. The guest bedroom and closet is our storage area right now. Some of the boxes in the haven't been opened in years. I want to go through all of them, get rid of stuff that needs to go, organize stuff that we need to keep. And make the guest room a place where guests can actually stay. This is important since we will have a guest coming to visit for Caleb's bday.
-maintenance project: Keep the guest room clean by finding homes for things that are less used instead of throwing them in the guest room or on the guest bed. Continue my new habits from January.
-creative project: scrapbook our honeymoon stuff. It needs to happen stat. I want this done by the end of March.

That's all I have so far. My dad, husband, and brother say it can't be done. Bring it on. In case you need to have your own state of the house project, here is where I am getting ideas and inspiration. The awesome Real Simple site...love everything they do. The Fly Lady site...she will break things down for you and give you tons of great ideas to get you started. And of course, Martha Stewart. Because she is the queen of domestication.

I know this post is void of photos and fun, but I need to write this stuff down and make it real. Check back Thursday for the post on our KC visit! Have a great week!