Labor Day Project

We had a pretty uneventful Labor Day weekend at our house. I had thought about heading to the coast, but in the end decided to just stay home and relax, and that's pretty much what happened!

On Monday, I decided to tackle a small project that's been on my mind for a WHILE now: my desk in our office. It had really gotten out of hand:

Yikes. Actually, this is not as bad as it has been in the past. Since I completed my Master's degree in 2011, my desk has been used as a dumping ground for all types of stuff (as you can see!). Anything I didn't have the time or energy to deal with got thrown onto my desk for me to handle "later." Since I graduated, I've been going through phases with this desk. I'll clean and organize it really well, keep it that way for a month or two, then it goes right back to the mess you see here.

My plan to stop that cycle (cause let's be real, I'm never gonna be good about immediately putting things away rather than just dumpin them on that handy flat surface!) is to get rid of the desk. I'll still need the storage for important papers and what-not, but I think a small bookcase can accomplish the same thing. We'll see what happens. Its not a huge goal on my list right now.

In the meantime, I decided to clean my desk (again). It took me about an hour, but I was so pleased with the results!

Ahhh, much better. The only thing left on there are my laptops (neither of which I use very often at all), a Mary Kay magazine (the current one - I throw out all the old ones now), and those 2 shoe boxes (which I'll explain in a minute). I was amazed at how much junk I was able to throw away!

I didn't do any organization of the drawers. Believe it or not, they're pretty tidy. Not perfect by any means, but I know where everything is in there. Not that I use most of it anymore, but still. There are, however, a ton of papers in both of the bottom (deeper) drawers that really need to be organized and filed better. At some point I'll come up with a system for that - probably when/if we ever get rid of this bulky desk.

My plan is to decorate those shoe boxes so they look prettier. But for now, they work so they're fine. The bottom box is full of craft stuff for C - coloring books, colored pencils, stickers, Modge Podge, etc.

I realize at some point I'll have accumulated enough craft stuff to warrant a much bigger storage solution, but for now this is fine. Its nice to have everything rounded up in one spot!

The other shoe box now houses my hair bow-making supplies: ribbon, scissors, wire, etc.

Such a big improvement over the grocery bag I was keepin this stuff in! I think I'm doin pretty well on the ribbon front, too. I've been making hair bows for C for several months now, and this is all the ribbon I've bought! I thought once I learned how to do it I'd go crazy, but I just don't feel the need to have a bunch of patterned bows for her. I like hers to be solid and simple.

So that's it! It was a simple project for the holiday, but it makes a huge impact on the office as a whole. Now I gotta do the same thing to my Mary Kay space on the other side of the closet..

I didn't take a picture cause its disgraceful to the Mary Kay brand (lol). My husband had a gorgeous shelf custom-built for my MK stuff, but something fell over and knocked a lot of stuff around, and I've been too lazy to fix it. It looks awful! One day I'd love to completely redo the office - get rid of my desk, get DH a new, nicer looking desk, pretty up the filing cabinet, get some curtains, etc. But the space is so unimportant to me that its not even on my list of house-related things to do (though maybe because its such a long list...haha!). ( :