Finally Friday

It is finally Friday and we are heading into another busy, busy weekend. We have Pinewood Derby races tomorrow and Home Group on Saturday night. We are watching "Fireproof" at HG so I am looking forward to that.
I didn't get to all my goals yesterday and here is the reason. I started working, yes, "working" my way through The House That Cleans Itself (HTCI). I really like it but I am not putting everything into practice. I am using this book as a Reference book and making lots of notes in it and highlighting all kinds of things. I already have some systems at work (even though they are fairly new they are working) and I'm not willing to change that. However, there are other areas (so many other areas) that need work.
So I learned that yesterday my Home Base Zone is my kitchen. The kitchen's cleaniliness is not only important to me in my home, it is also important to me in other people's home. Especially if I am eating what you cook in your kitchen. If your kitchen is nasty, I'm not going to eat what you cook. So I decided to tackle that and yes, it is shiny and clean. The Home Base Zone or HBZ is the place in your home that when it is dirty you feel irritation and stress and when it is clean and organized you feel satisfaction. That for me is more than one area but the one that I feel the most strongly about is my kitchen. So because of this I had already organized and cleaned out everything. So it only took me about 30 minutes to deep clean and re-organize a little bit. The pics I took are fuzzy but you get the idea. (The wooden thing on the stove is a recipe holder that Zane made.) And the books that you see in the corner are library books (cookbooks) that are actually going back soon.Hopefully soon, we can get the phone off the counter too and hang it on the wall somewhere.
This is definitely are trouble spot. The island is a clutter catcher. One day we hope to install a stove with a grill so maybe that will eliminate this problem a little bit.

I also finished my laundry room. In our old house we had a huge laundry room at the back of the house where we piled tons of junk. In this house, we have a tiny laundry room (especially with our HE dryer and washer) that is right in the door we use all the time. I decided some time ago that I would make this the Laundry room/Mud room. I have always wanted a mud room.
So I had Jim build this little bench (which is really a shelf). Underneath are places for laundry baskets that will hold dirty (and sometimes clean) clothes. On top, each child has a basket for shoes. Each basket is labeled with name and picture of child (pictures for the littles that don't know how to read yet.) I am heading to IKEA in a couple of weeks and already have metal hooks picked out for hanging above the baskets for book bags and diaper bags and things like that. In the middle compartment underneath, I have two red buckets with gloves, mittens, and hats. I labeled these with removable labels so they can be re-labeled in the spring and summer to be used for something else. We hung a low rack with pegs to be used for coats so that everyone can grab their own coat when we are headed out the door.
I still have a small bench (the yellow thing next to the washer) so they can sit and put on shoes. The shelf behind it used to be filled to the top with papers and junk that I need to sort through. It now holds my laundry supplies. The cabinet that hangs on the wall is a medicine cabinet in one side and the other two parts hold extra cleaning supplies. On top of this shelf is extra laundry baskets and the cleaning supplies that I use to clean now.
I love it now. It is so much more usable than it has been and the kids are actually using it too. So if they can remember to use it then I have accomplished what I set out to do. I will post more of the things we are working on later.