Dream Jobs

Lately, work has been killing my free time! Sorry for being so MIA.

Although I love my job and it would take a lot to get me to leave it, I sometimes think about what I would do if I could have any job in the world.

I came up with five dream jobs that I'd love to have...

1. Professional Organizer

Source

I live for organizing. The Container Store is pretty much my heaven. When I was young I'd help my friends clean out their closets.

I'd love to help people organize their homes and lives for a living.


2. Winemaker


It's no secret that I love wine -- tasting it, buying it, drinking it. I love visiting vineyards -- seeing the grapes, the barrel rooms, the tasting rooms. I just think it would be so fun to own a vineyard and make our own wine.

3. Restaurateur


I'm also a foodie. I'd love to come up with fun restaurant idea, pick the menus, and entertain patrons. I know owning a restaurant is a tough and risky business but if I could make it work, I'd love it. Plus this is something that I think the Mr. and I would love doing together.

4. Party Planner

Source

I had SO much fun planning my wedding. I make inspiration boards and help people come up with party and wedding ideas. There are just endless amazing ideas out there for parties.


5. CEO/Leader/Owner of a Small Business


I know, this one is vague. But I think it would be amazing to start some kind of small business with friends or associates. I'm not talking about starting the next Facebook or something, but owning some kind of small business where we can make a living, have fun, and do something meaningful.


Now tell me, what are YOUR dream jobs?

Closet Organization

One of my spring cleaning projects was to tackle my closet.

My dream is to have a big, beautiful walk-in closet like this:

(Originally posted by Blue-Eyed Bride here)

But this what our closets look like:


By no means ideal, but pretty good for an 1,100 sq ft. condo.

I'm a pretty organized person, but there were a few things bothering me about closet and I felt like my closet was constantly a mess. So I decided to do a bit of reorganizing.

Here a look at the before and after...

(click to enlarge)

So what did I do? Just three small things...

First, see the pile crap and a white board in the lower right-hand corner of the "before" photo. Those are my shoes on a small, dysfunctional shoe rack. So I knew the first thing I had to tackle were my shoes.

I purchased an "Over-the-Door Shoe Rack" at Bed Bath and Beyond. And got my shoes up off the floor. Check it out...


Much better! And room for more shoes. Yippee! (Oh and shout out to the Mr. for helping me install it!)


Second, I did a clothing purge. The kind where you try on all of your "iffy" outfits, ya know, the ones you never wear but think you will, and have an honest discussion with yourself about if you'll ever really wear it. The purge yielded a couple of bags of clothing to donate to Goodwill. (Yay tax write-off!)


Third, I purchased some cloth containers/bins at Bed Bath & Beyond to hold the sweaters and purses that I was storing on the top shelves that would always come tumbling down and hit me in the head.

By putting items in containers you give them a "home" that they can return to, it keeps them together, and makes them easy to find.


(Note: I actually still need to purchase a couple more bins to really contain everything)


So lets recap. Three small things got my closet in shape.
1. Functional shoe rack
2. Clothing purge
3. Containerize, containerize, containerize (everything needs a "home")

One more time just for kicks... the before and after...


What do you do to organize your closet and keep it organized?

"Spring" Cleaning

Being that it is almost the first day of summer, I squeezed in my spring cleaning this week just in time!

I went through all of our medicines, cosmetics, and toiletries to see what was old, not being used, or expired. And WOW! The amount of expired medicines in our bathroom was almost comical. The worst offenders? A Vicks VapoRub and a Neosporin that expired in 2001! 2001! That means that the Mr. or I had carted those from our hometowns to college and STILL had them.

Here's a glimpse of some of the cosmetics I that I trashed becuase they were expired:


Also in my cleaning I managed to knock a box of cheerios off of the shelf and they went everywhere! Good thing my Dyson was near by to vacuum those puppies up! Look how funny they look in the Dyson:


The Mr. did a little Spring cleaning of his own and purchased himself a new pair of Rainbows Sandals. Here is a picture of the old pair vs. the new pair:


Isn't that that contrast crazy? Rainbows are meant to conform to your feet so the leathers is meant to wear down. Such as stark difference!

Did you get your Spring cleaning done this year?

Wedding Memories: Shadow Box Solution

As many of my fellow Newlyweds know, after your wedding you end up with a lot of wedding crap memorabilia left sitting around or stored in your house/apartment. And if you're like me, you may have worked really hard on some Wedding DIY Projects. So you don't want to just toss all of the stuff or shove it in your Mom's attic, BUT you don't want your house to be some odd tribute to your wedding (a la Miss Havisham).

So I came up with what I think is a good middle-ground solution. I created a Wedding shadow box which now hangs in our Guest Bathroom (not too prominent of a place, but still visible). Check it out:


(sorry this picture is a bit crappy, I had to take it without flash since the box is glass. If you look close you can see my ghostly reflection... creepy)

So I've contained the memorabilia to one corner of the house, my newest goal is making sure our house is not overrun with wedding pictures. In a few weeks I promise to give you a house tour like Mrs. Mojito to show how I've displayed photos, etc.

I still have some boxes of wedding memories that I'm going to clean out over my Christmas break (that starts tomorrow)!

What creative solutions do you girls have for storing or displaying memories for your wedding? (Or is it all in the back of your closet?)

Party in My Pantry

We finally got the long-awaited kitchen pantry installed in our condo! I love it! It makes our kitchen so much more organized and makes it much easier to buy food and stock up (which could actually lead me to cook more).

Here's the story of the pantry ...

In the the kitchen area of our condo there was a coat closest. I'll give you a minute to process that... A COAT closet in kitchen area of Southern California condo. I don't even wear A coat in Long Beach, let alone enough coats to necessitate a coat CLOSET.

The useless coat closet:


So we hired a carpenter to put in shelving to convert it into a pantry.

His finished product:


And then I stocked the pantry and added spice racks.

Our FINISHED Pantry:


So to recap our food when from being housed like this:


To this:


Talk about an easy improvement! And my Mom said a pantry raised the value of our home as well!

So now that I have a pantry to store my kitchen goods, I want to have items "on hand" for meals, so that I basically just have to buy fruits/veggies/dairy on a weekly basis. What items are your "must stock" items? Items that you always have on hand in your pantry or kitchen cupboard?