10 on 10 :: March 2012

10 pictures on the 10th day of the month!
{Document a snapshot of your life & find beauty among the ordinary things in your day!}
Happy Saturday!
We had a great Saturday, it started off with Kevin letting me sleep in (like he normally lets me do on Saturdays!) What I love about the weekends is fun things for breakfast, like donuts!

We normally have really lazy Saturday mornings, but we felt like being productive & take advantage of the beautiful weather and get things done around the house and yard.
Kevin mowed the lawn, I pulled out dead plants & planted a few new ones. And, I admired our tree that is in full blossom. Spring is here!
Lemons from our neighbors tree. I will be making lemon bars in the next few days. Yum.

The girls went to my older sister's house for a bit to make St. Patty's Day cookies, so Kevin and I were able to enjoy lunch poolside in our backyard. I Love paninni's!

My St. Patty's Day Banner:

Love daffodils. My mother in law gave these to me!
While the girls were at Auntie El's I decided it was time to tackle the beast that is the laundry.
This is ALL the clean laundry in our house. 5 loads of it.

After the girls got back, the game was still going on & I still had laundry to fold, so the girls played outside in the court with the neighbors.
On the left, Kevin fixing Kate'a flat tire. On the right, the girls taking a bike break to play Uno with some neighbors. Kate is now obsessed with Uno.

Hope you had a great Saturday. Ours was productive & fun. It was a good day.
Next up on our Saturday night agenda is to watch MoneyBall that we rented & play Draw Something....downloaded the app last night & I am totally hooked!
And, I am going to go set our clocks forward...I didn't know it was Daylight Savings until a few days ago...that snuck up on me this year!

Wine Bottling Weekend

On Saturday, we headed out to Lodi to help with the bottling for my brother in law's wine, McCay Cellars.

This is his third year bottling, but the first year that we have been there for it.
It was totally fascinating.
The bottling process moves quickly. Luckily, my job was to take pictures & keep the girls out of the way.

I should have taken a video of how fast all these conveyor belts were moving.
About 9,000 bottles of wine were bottled, labeled & packed into cases in less than 4 hours.

All of this takes place in the back of a Big Rig. Mobile Wine Bottlers are the easiest way to bottle wine.

Every thing happens in the truck & then the cases go down the conveyor belt, ready to be shipped.

My brother in law's friend, Kevin, helping "catch" the wine cases.

This is a true family winery!

I had fun taking pictures inside the warehouse where they store all the wine before it is pumped into the bottling truck.

The girls had fun checking out the stainless steel wine barrels, where Kate exclaimed, "Yum! Smells like grape juice!"

The last bit of the Zinfandel had to be drained out by hand because the pump couldn't get it.

It went straight into wine glasses of the people helping bottle.

Good old fashion Family fun at the Winery.

After we bottled, we headed back to the McCay house for a celebratory dinner.
My brother in law invited some fun people to the dinner, including a wine blogger and the chef from Wine & Roses.
It was a fun day & I am so glad we got to be watch the bottling process, it was really neat.
If you are a wine lover like us, it was fun to see how it all works, from vineyard to your wine glass. Cheers!

40 Bags in 40 Days {Lent 2012}: Update #1

Today is Day 10 of Lent, so I thought I would do an update on my 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge.

The first area I decided to tackle was my closet.
My closet is scary. Too many clothes & not organized.
So many clothes, I can't even hang them all on the rack.
Here is a BEFORE of the right side:
AFTER:
Clothes now in Rainbow order:
Shoes BEFORE:
AFTER:
Here is the left side of the closet BEFORE:
AFTER:

After my closet, I moved onto our Armorie/TV hutch where I keep sweaters & t-shirts.
It was such a mess & full that I couldn't shut the doors.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Then, it was time to clean out my dresser drawers.
Drawer #1 BEFORE:
AFTER:

Drawer #2 BEFORE:

AFTER:

Drawer #3 BEFORE:

AFTER:

Here are all the clothes that I got rid of:

Including this shirt, which I haven't worn in over 5 years, but I have held onto it because it was the shirt I was wearing the day I found out I was pregnant with Kate. But, I realized it was time to give it away, no reason to hold onto clothes that I don't wear anymore.

My clothes/shoes filled up 3 large bags that were given to Goodwill earlier this week.
I can't tell you how good it felt to GIVE IT AWAY!!!!

The next area I cleaned out was my car. Even though Kevin detailed my car for Christmas, I slowly let it get dirty again. I cleaned out 2 bags of stuff in my car. The bag on the left was clothes that the girls have left in my car. The right bag was trash/school papers/Sunday School papers, etc. that have been left in my car. Gross.

Next up is our downstairs hall closet. Other wise known as my dumping ground.
This closet has never been organized & I seriously just stuff things in there. Ugh.

The top shelf of that closet:

And, AFTER:

So.Much.Better! I got the plastic drawers & I am storing the girls Arts & Craft Supplies in there.
This closet didn't have any stuff to give away, but check out my trash pile....just from this closet! The black bag is full of trash & the piles in front of it are recycling. All that from 1 closet. Embarrassing.

I also cleaned out under our bed. Besides a lot of dust bunnies, I was able to fill 2 bags of things to giveaway (A down comforter, and tons of pillows/throw pillows that we haven't used in years)

So, after 10 days, here is my list as of 3.2.12

I have cleaned out 8 areas on my list (and, I added 4 more areas #'s 31-34)
I have filled up 9 bags, plus a huge recycling pile.

Next up, I am planing on working on the girls rooms & closets!

I am 1/4 of the way there.

I have tried to do 1 area each day, but to be honest, I haven't gotten much done during the week. I am just so tired after a full day of teaching 140 middle schoolers & I would rather hang out with my girls than clean. Some days, they have helped me clean out areas, but mostly they get in the way. ha! The weekends are when I get the majority of this done.
I have no problem getting rid of stuff, it is just finding the time & energy to do it!
But, I like having it broken up into different areas....it feels so good to highlight the areas I have finished. And, the Before & After pictures remind me to keep going!

I will say, once I get started on 1 section, I just want to keep going!
It has been so therapeutic & freeing to throw stuff away and/or bag stuff up to give away.
Cleaning & organizing my "stuff" has made me realize how much I have & how much excess I have. It is honestly gross how much "stuff" we have that we don't need.
Even though I gave away 3 bags of clothes, I still have drawers & a closet full of clothes and shoes.
Yuck.
Makes me sick to my stomach.

If you are doing this also, how are you doing so far?
Has it been easy? What have been your biggest challenges?

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And, If you haven't had a chance to check out the Soup recipes that were linked up to my Soup's On Linky Party, go check them out HERE. I have looked at all of them & they all look SO good. If you haven't linked up, you still have time. The linky will be open until Wednesday!