For someone who just returned from vacation, I am really tired. By 10 a.m. I could go back to bed. And yet, there’s laundry to put away, dishes in the sink, phone calls to make, blog posts to write, muddy footprints to vacuum, and that suitcase isn’t going to empty itself. So this was not the week for a big project, but instead for what I think of as “maintenance projects.” Not exactly groundbreaking reorganization or redecoration, just those things you have to do so you don’t drown in piles of stuff. And by stuff, I mean newspapers and magazines.

But first, another cup of coffee.

Since I started couponing in a semi-serious way, we now get the newspaper. We don’t read all that much of it; I would rather read it online. Here’s Wednesday’s paper scattered in the kitchen, after I’ve gone through the Dining section and all the grocery ads.

Here in the living room is the pile of unread (and some unopened) papers from the weekend. My husband gets the Sunday New York Times, which he does read, but somehow he didn’t get to it over the weekend while he was sole breadwinner AND parent-in-charge. He does most of his reading on his train commute. I keep trying to read during Mr. Nine’s karate class (assuming I don’t have Mr. Four on my lap), but the sensei is forever interrupting me with, “Now Moms and Dads, watch your children while they do x, y, z…” On the mail center next to the front door is a stack of mail waiting to be sorted. On the hall table are piles of library books, a stack of forwarded mail for the snowbird grandparents, and a basket full of random things that we empty from our pockets and pick up off the floor. And here are the magazines. I never think we get that many until I start the sorting process. To be fair, a few of these are hand-me-down magazines–we tend to exchange magazines with family and friends. And three or four of our subscriptions were completely free (my favorite kind). But free or not, they seem to pile up. And this bunch doesn’t even include the food magazines that I file somewhat regularly in the kitchen. I weeded out a bunch of old issues to recycle and a bunch to pass on, and then arranged the rest chronologically. And then I put them away in the living room, where once in a great while I read a magazine and have a cup of tea. The hall table is clear. I bagged up the mail and found a spot for it in the closet. I still need to go through the rest of the basket, but I did pull out all the magazines that had been hiding in there. And I dusted! Mail has been sorted. Now if you’ll excuse me, now that I’ve found the latest issue of Newsweek, I’m going to go read it over breakfast.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time to report on my William Morris progress! I intended to finish the details in the bedroom: make pillow covers, install closet door knobs, and hang pictures. Alas, I did none of those things (except wash the pillow fabric so it’s ready to sew). Instead, I tackled some other small jobs on my list, so I do feel as if I accomplished something.

In the kitchen, I continued to purge and tidy up several areas. I sorted through the silverware drawer and removed all the baby utensils and medicine cups and spoons. The baby stuff is in the donation bin in the basement, and the medicine cups and spoons are now in the new medicine bin above the refrigerator, right where I need them.

I did a little more purging of the drawer with the kids’ plastic dishes. Goodbye to baby plates that nobody uses, mismatched cups and lids, extra valves and straws for cups we don’t have anymore.

Finally, I got up on a stool and cleared everything out of the corner cabinet. It’s where we store our glass and ceramic baking dishes and platters, as well as bread and treats (whatever bits of chocolate or candy may be open). If we have a tin of freshly baked cookies, it lives here, too. We acquired a few new dishes over the holidays, and there were plenty of empty cookie tins and stray chocolate boxes hiding in the corners. I also found a couple pieces that we never use (a ceramic muffin tin and a stone cookie mold). I returned all the cookie tins and unused baking pieces to the basement, tossed the garbage, and found a better way to stack the baking dishes. This week’s loaf of bread is in a basket. Much tidier!

My biggest project in the past week was to fix the shower curtain in the kids’ bath. When we removed the shower doors a couple of years ago and replaced them with a curtain rod, we mounted it fairly close to the ceiling. We’ve been using an extra long shower curtain liner, but I had never added a more decorative curtain. Extra long curtains are expensive, and I had a perfectly good, though too short, white waffle weave curtain. Speaking of waffling, I went for months without deciding on some kind of fabric to extend the curtain. But last week when I picked up the special order bedroom pillow fabric from Joann’s, I passed by this new fabric (on sale!) from Lisette, and decided to grab it.

I only bought a yard, and I needed to add about 15 inches to my curtain, so I had to piece the fabric. It was a little challenging to match the pattern and I almost didn’t have enough fabric, but in the end it turned out just right. If you’re interested, I followed this tutorial I found for adding a strip of fabric to curtain panels.

Now I’m even more motivated to repaint the bathroom. The existing color (Toasted Pine Nut from Sherwin Williams) is the color we have in our kitchen, where I still love it. I used it in the bathroom as a kind of test to see if I liked the color, but since I’ve added all the turquoise accessories, it just doesn’t go. I’ve decided I prefer cool colors in the bathroom, anyway. I’m thinking a soft gray…what do you think?

Next week’s goal is finishing that bedroom. I refuse to add anything else to my to-list until I finish those things. It’s too easy to distract myself! Every time I walk into the kids’ rooms I itch to tackle their closets. Soon…