Still alive!

Hi everyone! I know, I know, it's been a month since there has been any sign of life here on my blog. Life has just been crazy. I'm hoping to start again soon, I've been doing a lot of things that have definitely been blog worthy but I've just been too busy to share. I hope you understand and I hope to see you soon.

Update: 1000 pageviews!!!!

     Hey Guys! Last night I reached 1000 page views in about a month and a half! Thank you so much for checking my blog out! I hope that you have enjoyed it! Keep coming back to see what other ideas you can get when it comes to organizing or decorating! I have some awesome ideas for posts coming up so keep checking back! If you have any ideas or things you would like to see, please, please, please, leave me comment below! Until then, stay OrganizedForReal!

Dollar Store Haul- 11/1/12

      Today I thought I would post my first Dollar Store Haul! In our town we have a great dollar store! Of course everything is a dollar or less but the merchandise is also always changing! So today I was going to the dollar store with a goal in mind but while I was there I wanted to check things out since I hadn't been there for a long time. 
     When I went I knew that I wanted to get 2 mugs and 6 picture frames. The picture frames are for one of my best friends wedding reception on Saturday. The 2 mugs were for making personalized mugs for part of their gift. Look for that post soon.
     When I came home and took everything out of the bags this is what I came home with! And all for a little more than 20 dollars!!!

Awesome!

Here are the picture frames that I got for the reception, they all have a mirrored frame. We are going to put their engagement pictures in them and then after the reception, they can keep them!

Then, in this picture, you can see the 2 mugs I got as well as a basket, a scarf, a wolf, and 2 chocolate bars. How does this make a wedding gift? Well, you'll just have to wait to read that post won't you? It is awesome!

I also got 3 different sizes of containers to use for organizing, I'm not use what I am going to do with all of them but I will let you know when I use them.

Then I also found a recipe organizer and cable flags. Keep a look out for posts about these in the near future!

     Then I got something that my husband had ask for the night before when we made spaghetti. We had to get rid of our old pasta spoon and we have both missed it. Then finally I got something for myself. Our dollar store always has cute jewelry and many times it is the same jewelry that you would see in Target! But honestly, aren't those cute earrings??? Love them!

     So how you ever gone to the dollar store and found some awesome stuff? Please share your stories with me! I'd love to hear them! Then we can learn how to HaulForReal!!!

Tip of The Day: Cleaning With Friends

     Do you ever know that you need to clean but you have no desire? Do you ever feel like if you just had someone to help you that you could get motivated? I think we have all been there haven't we?I've been meaning to write this post for a while but time has just escaped me. This happened to me one day while we were still at our old house. There was so much to do but I had zero motivation.I was texting one of my girlfriends, Brittney, and she was having the same problem. So I suddenly got the idea, "Why don't we just clean together?" Well, the problem with that is that we live a state apart so that was out of the question but then I thought, "Why don't we just clean our own houses at the same time?" That way we would know that we weren't the only ones doing it.     
    So I told Brittney my idea. The rules were:
1.) For 1 hour, we have to clean as much as we can as fast as we can!
2.) No sitting down!
3.) No texting each other until the hour was over!
     She thought that it was a great idea so off we went! I was amazed at how much I got done! I got all the laundry ready to wash, started a load, did all the dishes, and picked up the whole house! It was great! 
     Then we texted for a little bit and I said that we should do a second hour. I decided that for the second hour we had to do something that we had been putting off. For Brittney it was folding the huge pile of laundry. For me, it was writing a card and wrapping a gift for my brother-in-laws graduation party that day! So off we went again! And we both accomplished our goal after that hour!
     So next time that you are not feeling motivated but know that you need to get something done, text one of your girlfriends and set a time limit to get as much done as you can! You'll be amazed at how much you will get done! And maybe after that you can have a girls night to celebrate!
Try this and your house will be clean and OrganizedForReal!!!

Shout Out: Speed Dial

So this weekend a friend of mine showed me a really cool app for Google Chrome. Google Chrome is my favorite web browser and I don't like to use anything else. He showed me an awesome app called Speed Dial. (link here) This app allows you to make your browser page look like this!

You get to totally customize how this looks.

The options page looks like this. 

     The top two drop down menu's allow you to choose the number of rows and columns that you want. The bar below that allows you to choose distance between buttons. Then you can choose the background image or background color. It was so much fun to set up!

     To set a button simple click on it and it will bring up a set dial menu like this. 

The "Title" allows you to put a title above each picture but I choose not to do this in order to make it look cleaner. The "URL" is where you put the website that you want to link to. Then you can find a picture online to set as the image for the button. Choose something that will make it obvious as to what that button is. For example, use a logo for the website like I did with Hulu and YouTube. 

I absolutely love using this. It makes my web surfing so much easier. I never forget any of the things that I regularly check and it is so much easier than using the bookmarks. Give this a try and your internet will be OrganizedForReal!

Update: Condo after pictures!

   So after Saturday and Sunday of unpacking this is what our first home looks like! We have done a lot since then but there will be more posts to come on that!

Our living room before...

And after! The living room turned out great! Since this picture we have curtains up and hopefully soon we can start putting pictures on the walls!

Here are our computers (mine on the left, Graham's on the right). Graham spent 2 hours putting my desk together! Thank you hunny! I love it!

Another view of the living room facing our front door.

Here's my awesome kitchen. It's the smallest kitchen that I've ever had but I still make amazing food in it! The electric stove hasn't treated me too badly! I tried to set something (not the food) on fire but that's a story for another time!

And remember that boring, ugly bathroom?

 Isn't it pretty now?

Like I said we still have a lot of work to do but it's our home! Stay tuned for more tips and tricks that I am using and you can be OrganizedForReal!

Update: Unpacking

     So now, I had to figure out how to unpack all this stuff! Luckily we had all weekend to work on it. And I had the help of Graham and his mom, Mary was sooooo much help! 

She'd probably kill me for putting this picture on here but it's the only picture I took of her helping! Sorry Mary!

Mary rocked the kitchen! She said that she didn't really do anything but she helped so much! She worked and worked on the rack in the toaster oven (I don't think I had ever cleaned it because I thought it was beyond help when it was at Graham's apartment) until it shined!!! She unpacked basically all the kitchen for me. Soon I will start posting about some of the cool organizing ideas that I am using in the condo including the kitchen!

Graham worked hard on moving things around in the living room so that I could clean before we set things up since I didn't get a chance to clean before we moved. 

We didn't even lose any of the legs for the couches!!! Yeah!!!!

See? A lot more stuff went into the guest bedroom as we went!

Look! We have closets!!! I am so excited about that! From this picture it looks like Graham was going to get half of the closet but I hadn't hung any of my stuff up yet! He has about a sixth of it now. What can I say? I have a lot of clothes! I also can't wait to share what I did with my shoes with you!

Time to put clothes in the dressers! Can't wait until we have the other dressers for the guest bedroom so then we can put all our clothes away, I still have some in baskets. 

That's all the pictures I have for unpacking, tomorrow you get to see the final reveal! We still have a lot to do but it will give you an idea of how we have the condo set up!