The new wall sheeting and ceiling are installed so we are now going forwards with the project.

This shows the recess in the wall of the shower which will hold bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel.  I first saw the idea in B & B accommodation.  It makes so much sense to me.  Any shelf or soap holder built into the tiles is a hazard that you can bump yourself on and the hanging shower caddies gather soap scum or rust.  The tiled recess will simply be cleaned with the rest of the tiles and I love the simple, streamlined look of it.

Finally, I would like to thank all of you who took up the challenge of introducing yourselves.  I will respond to each of your comments and look forward to lots of discussion in the future.

Then there are those of you who are not followers – please consider subscribing.  To subscribe you can just click the button ‘Sign Me Up’ on the right hand side of the blog.

The best part of the blog is being able to have a conversation with you about topics that are raised and share ideas.

So, my challenge for you today is to post a short comment and introduce yourself.  Information you could share may be:

• How you found this blog
• Your location (in general terms)
• Ideas for future posts
• Your interests

I look forward to hearing from you and creating a dynamic community where we can learn and share.

What are you waiting for?  Just click on ‘Leave a Comment’.

After my post the other day, titled ‘Gone From the Office’, Angasagain asked, “How long do you keep bills and bank statements for? Some of my filing sleeves are bulging but I’m not sure how ruthless I should be.”

The first thing to remember is that there are legal requirements regarding documents relating to tax returns.  In Australia, you need to keep all taxation papers and relevant documents, such as bank statements, for 5 years after the completion of the tax year.  This may be different in other countries so it is important to check the local laws.

I have set up the suspension files in the filing cabinet with one for each year.  At the moment we have:

Current year 2011-2012

5 previous years

2010-2011
2009-2010
2008-2009
2007-2008
2006-2007

When the next tax return is done, I will discard (shredded) the 2006-2007, add 2011-2012 to the previous years and create a new “Current year” which will be 2012-2013.  This is based on the principle of 1 in, 1 out.  If you do not do this regularly you are likely to find that you have 20 years worth of tax returns bulging out of the filing cabinet.

In conjunction with the annual cull of tax stuff I also get rid of the relevant year of bank statements.  Remember to shred all documents carefully to protect your security.

For all other paperwork, I find the best method is to ask yourself why you are keeping it and what possible scenario could arise where you would need to refer to it.

Household bills – we usually keep for 1 – 2 years so that we can compare them with the same period of the previous year.  I do not keep a record of how much we spend on particular bills over an entire year but some people do.

Product warranties, instructions and receipts are kept for the life of the item.  I would suggest setting up a 6 monthly schedule to review all of these documents and discard any that are no longer relevant.

In order to reduce the amount of paper, we choose to receive whatever bills possible via email and save them in the electronic format.  We only print them if required.

Being a good gatekeeper is essential.  Stop that paper before it gets in the door.  Consider putting a ‘NO JUNK MAIL’ sticker on your mailbox.  What will you miss?  Store catalogues advertising stuff that you didn’t even know you needed?  Flyers advertising services that you do not require?  If you seriously want to follow what grocery specials are available, I believe these can be accessed online although I personally have not done this.

Everyone’s requirements will be different.  This may depend on whether you are renting or have a mortgage, are studying, employed or receiving Centrelink benefits.  The most important thing is to review all paperwork critically when it arrives in your home and decide:

Do I need to receive this information?
Do I need to retain this information?

Please tell me how you go about deciding what documents come into your home and more importantly what gets to stay and for how long.

A batch of pastry used to make 12 mini meat pies

and 3 meal-sized pies (pastry tops only)

Trifle – using leftover sponge from when I made a Dorothy the Dinosaur cake 6 months ago.

Zucchini and carrot quiche – to use up some of the eggs we have in abundance.

Banana cake – more eggs

Lemon Delicious – eggs and lemons

It makes good economic sense do do a batch of baking while the oven is turned on.

I also made refried beans in the slow-cooker, lasagne sheets (more eggs),  spreadable butter, chopped up chillies to dehydrate them and picked 2 kg of cherry tomatoes from the neighbour’s garden.  They are now frozen waiting for me to have time to make tomato sauce.

The freezers are full and we have plenty of food for the days when I don’t have the time or energy to cook a meal from scratch.  Do you do a big cook-up in one go?

Hope you have had a great weekend.

We debated which way to come home and decided to take a drive along the Mary Valley from Eumundi, through Kenilworth and Conondale and back to Maleny.

Kenilworth is the home of a cheese factory which has excellent products.  We called in and sampled some of the specialty cheeses.  These are lovely for a particular occasion but we really did not need any at the moment.

However, I did buy a 2.5kg block of matured cheddar cheese.  We got a discount (not sure why) and it worked out an $10/kg.  That is about the same price as I usually pay at Aldi and considerably cheaper than standard cheese in the supermarket.  This is a rich, full-flavoured cheese made from local milk in an independent factory which is about 30km from our home.  Also, by buying a larger quantity there is less packaging than buying 500g blocks.

I used my food processor to grate half of the block and here it is in containers, ready to go in the freezer.  I had a little put aside which will be used in the lasagne I am about to make.

The remainder has been cut into blocks, wrapped and frozen.  I have kept some cereal bags and use them to separate items when freezing.  They can be re-washed and re-used many times.  Here is one flattened out and ready to use.

The cheese is wrapped in the cereal bag and sealed in a container to go in the freezer.

As the title says, this product ticks all of the boxes:

Locally made
Lcoally produced ingredients
Minimal packaging
Close to home – so minimal transport costs
Independently owned

What are you able to source that is produced close to where you live?

Here are some ‘before’ photos.

The drawers

Drawer 2

Drawer 3

I systematically went through everything and ended up with 4 piles – rubbish, recycling, rehoming and keeping.

Here is the rubbish pile – even I could not seriously keep 3 tubes of sunscreen that expired at least 5 years ago!

The recycling – although it is not a lot, I did salvage what I could to be recycled.

The rehoming pile is pretty small – extra deodorant which should be in the stockpile box, exercise band which is going with the other exercise equipment and a medicine glass (I do not need 3) which Belle may want.

The rest is packed in a crate which will probably live in the office for the duration of the renovation.

When the new vanity is installed I will look critically at the storage of some items and revamp it.  Some of the small white baskets are cracked so I will look for alternatives.  I will wait until I see the exact dimensions of the drawers.

It does not need to be as radical as renovating a bathroom but when you are decluttering it is definitely worth removing everything from its location so that you can look at it all with fresh eyes rather than just seeing each item. where it is normally stored.

I have seen all sorts of systems that different people have but none really seemed to suit this household.  That is the important thing – make sure your system suits your needs.  Do not expect that just because it works for others that it will work for you.

Yesterday I decided to use a binder with plastic sleeves in it and label each sleeve starting with 1st through to 31st for each day of the month.  There is also a sleeve at the back labelled next month and some spares if I need them.

Here is the folder and so far I have put the tickets for a dinner we are attending on Friday night in the relevant sleeve.  There will be other things as they turn up.  This is not a permanent filing system but a dynamic container for paperwork that we will need to access in the coming days and weeks.

I am hopeful that this will eliminate the various bits of paper lying around on the desk and kitchen bench.

The other thing we have contained is all of the fittings for the bathroom renovation.  They are all tucked away in an alcove ready for the work to start.  The plan is for it to commence next week.  How fortuitous that I am away for 3 nights for work!  It will not be too much of an inconvenience as we have a second toilet near the laundry as well as a fairly basic bathroom downstairs.

I am really looking forward to having it all done.  I will post more photos once the action begins.

I am doing some paid work at home tomorrow but also have a long list of things to do.  It is essential that I write a list to ensure nothing gets forgotten and also to do things in the most efficient manner.

Things I need to do include:

Put out rubbish and recycling bins for collection

Pick cherry tomatoes at neighbour’s place

Pick up parcels from the Post Office
Deposit a cheque
Take poster to the picture framers and choose a frame
Drop off stuff to the op shop
Go to the Co-op to buy tamari, peanut paste, shower gel and face wash
Go to the IGA to buy bacon and salami
Pick up seeds that I have ordered
Meet friends for coffee and to swap/share our produce

The list in italics all needs to be done in Maleny which is a 16km round trip so I make sure that I bundle everything together and get it all done in one trip.

Now I am off to set up a new bit of household organisation.  More on that tomorrow.

First, I tossed a pile of ‘scrap’ paper which I use for writing shopping lists, menu plans and so on.  I realised that there was no way it would ever be used up so into the recycling it went.  I still have a small pile of used A4 paper for using in the printer as well as 6 notepads.  They are more user-friendly than what I recycled which included blank pages from diaries back as far as 2006.

Next I did a quick sweep through the filing cabinet.  It is far from finished but I did cull a lot of stuff.  2 books to the op shop bag, then the cards, piles of old catalogues, fliers and brochures (mostly gardening) from 5 – 10 years ago went into the recycling.  I am not sure how they managed to escape previous culling sessions but it just goes to prove that just because you have decluttered an area once that it is done for all time.  Things tend to creep back in as well as our needs and interests constantly evolving.

2 plastic sleeves have gone back into the stash of sleeves, 1 bulldog clip and 2 Post-it notepads will go to work (I use them there but not at home).

I intend to move something out of my home everyday this week.

Till next time.