I sure enjoyed all your comments about how awesomely organized I am. Perhaps I should just keep it to myself that THIS is my “coats and backpacks and boots” organizational system:
And that THIS is my “bathroom drawer” organizational system:
And speaking of not being entirely with-it, last week I was in a big panic because WE HAVE NO BREAD OMG WHAT WILL WE DO?? and it seriously didn’t occur to me until today that we have a BREAD MACHINE. We can make bread RIGHT HERE ON THE PREMISES. (We only use our bread machine as a (1) counter-space reducer and (2) pizza dough maker.)
And speaking now of pizza (are you enjoying these smooth, well-organized segues?), I had a little diet crisis yesterday. I took Rob to a doctor appointment and afterward I let him choose a treat from the vending machine. And I was doing FINE, just hanging out and watching him choose something, feeling proud of myself for being so patient as the minutes ticked by. Until I saw the strawberry Pop-Tarts. The kind with sprinkles. Oh how I love Pop-Tarts! And 80 cents later (what a rip!), I had the package open and was eating half a Pop-Tart in the elevator. And part of me was saying, “OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? PUT THAT DOWN!! OMG ARE YOU CRAZY?,” and a louder part of me was saying, “MMMMMMMmmmmmmm!”
After half a Pop-Tart, I was calmed down enough to start thinking that really I should toss the rest out. I didn’t feel like I HAD to have it anymore, so I shouldn’t eat it. But…the WASTE! And it would be so yummy! AND THEN: I dropped the package into a puddle. Not on purpose, completely by accident. I stood there staring at it, unbelieving—surely it could still be saved? Surely the 5-minute rule means the water was not filling the package? I was in denial, but soon had to admit that the Pop-Tarts were gone, really gone. THAT made the decision, didn’t it? It was like losing 60 cents, right there. But today, looking back, would I pay 60 cents to NOT have eaten 1.5 Pop-Tarts? Yes. So: good deal.
Then I further played with fire by stopping at a drive-through on the way home for Rob to get lunch. And I let him get more than he’d be able to eat, already in the back of my mind planning to eat the extra, so as not to waste it. (Really, it would only be the Financially Sensible thing to do.) And the smell of the chicken nuggets nearly DROVE ME WILD in the car on the way home. And then he did, in fact, eat all of it, so I had soup.
80 cents for 2 PopTarts is a steal– they’re $1 at my office vending machine! Not that I’d know from purchasing said Tarts then swigging them down with a $1 can of Diet Coke. What? Not me. Nope.
Your bag/shoe organizing system mirrors mine. People with organized mudrooms? My jealousy makes me hate them…and then I drop into a shame spiral which only goes away with PopTart inhalation. Sigh.
GOOD LUCK avoiding the evil aromas of chicken nuggets, etc.
Hey, you stole my method of bathroom drawer organization!
Your bathroom drawer looks just like mine, except that mine has little flecks from broken eyeshadows covering everything. I hate that damn drawer.
1/2 a Pop Tart? You did good! I still allow myself treats, but then I’ll just eat half a candy bar or whatever so I don’t feel like sobbing in the corner.
Your bathroom drawer looks just like mine. I finally got a little white tray just to put my makeup and other small items in and it’s improved everything 100%. Although it looks like everything in your drawer is HUGE.
1/2 a Pop Tart? You did good! I still allow myself treats, but then I’ll just eat half a candy bar or whatever so I don’t feel like sobbing in the corner.
Your bathroom drawer looks just like mine. I finally got a little white tray just to put my makeup and other small items in and it’s improved everything 100%. Although it looks like everything in your drawer is HUGE.
1/2 a Pop Tart? You did good! I still allow myself treats, but then I’ll just eat half a candy bar or whatever so I don’t feel like sobbing in the corner.
Your bathroom drawer looks just like mine. I finally got a little white tray just to put my makeup and other small items in and it’s improved everything 100%. Although it looks like everything in your drawer is HUGE.
Here is the way I am re: The Sunk Cost Policy and food:
If I can’t get myself to accept that the $.80 is a sunk cost, whether I eat the food or not, which of course it is, THEN I like to think about how the food is “wasted” either way. If I throw it away uneaten? WASTED. If I eat it and it gets stored as ass fat and/or eliminated in some other unsavory fashion? WASTED.
You totally deserve a medal.
Because I read The Secret again last night to try to focus on the good stuff – I have this insight (ha, that’s overstating a bit).
I would say that your real intention of losing weight put the forces together that dropped the poptart and allowed all those chicken nuggets to be eaten. So actually, you’re attracting exactly what you really really want. That’s impressive.
I totally understand your pop-tart love. I myself have a wicked addiction to pink frosted donuts with sprinkles.
As Homer Simpson would say, “Donuts,gahhhh….”
I am always TRYING to implement an organizational system in the bathroom drawers. The problem is that they have yet to invent a self sustaining organizing system. I would have to keep PUTTING THINGS BACK WHERE THEY BELONG.
I like the brown sugar pop tarts without frosting. The without frosting makes them practically health food, right?
And you do deserve a medal for chicken nugget avoidance. When I get them for Harper she only eats two!
I also wonder if it is sad that me with my ONE child found your post inspiring yesterday. Because my housework rarely gets done (see also: blog addiction).
You made my day by making me laugh! I am the same way with that chicken nugget smell in the car- and my son gets the 10 pc ones (before anyone thinks crazy thoughts-it’s ok, he’s 18) I end up begging him for JUST ONE!!!!I’ll send you a medal, Swistle!
Good job on the pop tart. It was fate stepping to say NO MORE!
Oh and you totally deserve a medal!
Good job on the pop tart. It was fate stepping to say NO MORE!
Oh and you totally deserve a medal!
Good job on the pop tart. It was fate stepping to say NO MORE!
Oh and you totally deserve a medal!
Thank you! Today’s photos have restored my faith that you ARE indeed like the rest of us. That photo looks exactly like the floor of my laundry/mudroom (I hesitate to call it that since it barely fits the washer and dryer let alone one person let alone all the shoes and crap stored there).
Seriously, I have just one (1 on the way) and found yesterday’s post very helpful.
You deserve at least 2 medals.
Your bathroom drawer photo makes me sad because I USED TO HAVE THAT EXACT COMB and I left it in a hotel room and I have not been able to find it anywhere since so I had to replace it with a vastly inferior comb that is not nearly as pretty and that makes me really sad.
1. the lone pink boot in the photo makes me happy.
2. cass totally beat me to my “the secret” allusion. i’m going to continue to think of your tiny “OMG put those down” voice as finally mustering up a tiny imaginary hand and slapping those poptarts into the puddle. you go, tiny-voice hand!
i knew there was another thing!
3. i too have that comb and it was purchased in 1987 and i still LOVE it! best thing for thick tangles any day.
I love the cat sitting on someone’s winter coat!
My dream house has an actual mud room with little cubbies for each of the children where there outside clothing and backpacks will be neatly stored. My real house employs your system.
… that would be “their” outside clothing, not “there”. gah.
Oh, diet crisis. I’m so good at RATIONALIZING why I need to eat something. I’m trying so hard lately to eat more sensibly and to exercise everyday ETC, but I am just so GOOD at talking myself into junk food.
We have no drawers in our bathroom so we have bins(!) Bins full of crap that no one ever uses but then no one ever throws out “just in case”.
You definitely deserve a medal!
Strawberry PopTarts with sprinkles are the best! In fact, they are the only kind I like so I find them nearly impossible to resist. I buy the “healthy” all-natural, sans hydrogenated oils version at Trader Joe’s or our local co-op, so while I’m grocery shopping I’m like “sure, why not?”.
Then I get home and remember that no actual human children live at my house, only two grown adults and a dog whose diet I monitor more strictly than my own.
I can’t believe I just admitted that.
Hey it’s ok to have half a pop tart every now and again. If it stops you from eating an entire bag of doritos and not the fun size either (not that I’ve ever ummm done that, er) then it’s a fine thing to do. But yeah it was definitely fate that dropped it in the puddle. Consider yourself lucky.
Doesn’t everyone’s drawer look like that? I think if I found anyone with a NEAT bathroom junk drawer (not that I look in other people’s bathrooms, no, no one does that, right? um, yeah) I would mess it up just BECAUSE.
That is hilarious about the pop tart. I sure love me a pop tart, or two, or four. The cinnamon-brown sugar ones are my favoritest.
Good job with all the sticking with the plan!
I have THAT EXACT SAME coats, boots, backpacks organizational system!!!
See – diet success! You rock!!
I ate a candy bar for breakfast on Wednesday. I went into the deli for coffee and came out with coffee and a candy bar. I don’t believe will power exists.
I like how you utilize the cat as supervisor for the coats/boots/backpacks organizational system.
While pregnant with the twins I was inhaling the organic version of pop tarts, sans frosting (because bleah!). I could very easily convince my hormone deranged self that all natural pop tart = “healthy”. Besides! I was pregnant with TWINS! I NEEDED the calories.
Totally justified.
Now that they are externalized twins, however, I have to stay away from that aisle in Wild Oats. Nummm!
Good job on the diet! Medals for you!
The medal is on its way, and I’m with Karly on the bathroom drawer thing.
My bathroom drawer looks like that too. But mine is half the size, therefore, from time to time I squeeze that much stuff in there.
Too bad about the poptart. I would have done the same thing…feel regretful, then not wanting to waste it. But hey, no fast food for you. That’s good. I’m sure it would have been easy for you to get something for yourself, but you restrained. Good.
Lol! Dieting’s fun, huh?
What does the cat have in it’s mouth? Something black. A shoelace? A toy?
That’s a super pretty cat by the way.
You are a stronger woman than I. I brought a nice ham sandwich and some pretzels for nice healthy lunch. And then was told that they were selling fish sandwiches today for Lent and suddenly feeling my Catholicness take hold, was filled with the Divine need for fried cod with tartar sauce and lets throw some fries on there too, don’t forget the ranch!
NOM NOM NOM NOM…and then my heart exploded and i died.
Oh, I can relate tot he pop-tarts. I had not had one for at least five years… until this pregnancy came along!
It’s so funny that you said that about the pop tarts, because they will kill my diet EVERY TIME. I love the Wild Blueberry ones, which are zero percent blueberry and one hundred percent sugar, and I could eat them all day long, toasted or no.
Damn pop tarts.
Good Lord I don’t know how you did it! I would have totally caved especially at the drive thru!
WAY TO GO!
Mary- It’s her little metal name tag, dangling off her collar. The angle makes it look like she’s finishing up a delicious eel or something.
Honey, here’s what you passed up in that chicken nugget:
Chicken breasts with rib meat, Water, Salt, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Flavors, Chicken Fat, Propylene Glycol, Water, Sunflower Oil, Artificial Flavors, Sodium Lactate, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Chicken Broth, Polysorbate 60, Polysorbate 80, Sodium Hydroxide, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Sodium Phosphate, Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean & Cottonseed Oil, Papain, Chicken Powder, & Thiamine Hydrochloride, Flavoring. Breaded with: Bleached Wheat Flour, Enriched Wheat Flour (Enriched with Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Salt, Spice, Dextrose, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate) Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Extractives of Paprika, Soybean Oil, set in Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil. Battered with: Water, Bleached Wheat Flour, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Spices, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Soybean Oil, Onion Powder, Dextrin, Extractives of Paprika, Yellow 6, Red 40 Lake, Natural & Artificial Flavor (Including Butter Flavor), Lactic Acid, Not more than 2% Sodium Silico Aluminate added to prevent caking. Predusted With: Wheat Flour, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Wheat Gluten, Spice, Extractives of Paprika, Soybean Oil, Onion Powder, Not More Than 2% Silicon Dioxide Added to Prevent Caking. Contains: Wheat.
Num! You did the right thing — and lest the matron appear self-righteous, my PopTart of choice is brown sugar cinnamon.
No, you guys have it all wrong… Chocolate Fudge PopTarts, microwaved separately at 11 seconds each, served with a COLD glass of milk. DEEEEElicious. The milk makes it practically healthy!!! …I learned nothing in college.