the organizing loves of my life

My house still needs a lot of work, but the trees sprouting some leaves have inspired me to do a bit of spring cleaning and organizing. Oh how I love to clean and organize. Some days I fantasize about somebody coming to take my kids for an entire day so I can put on my music and work gloves and get down to business. Alas, no neighbor in shining armor has come to sweep my kids away yet, so I have to take the hour or two as I can get them. Boy am I mourning the daily nap thing. I get about 1-2 naps a week now with Vivi. Sigh. Guess they have to grow up some time, and it's wrong to give them cough syrup just to get them to sleep...or so I'm told (kidding!).

Anyway, since I've touted myself as an organization guru, I thought I should share a few of my current favorites:

What started as a bookcase has become a great place to store my food stuffs "stockpile."

Expensive kitchen organizer from the Container Store. 
When we bought this we had zero $, but it has stood the test of time and been a great investment. Wish my kitchen in this house was big enough for it.

I love my rolling laundry sorter! 
I put Nate's clean work shirts on the bar and can move it out of the way. Perfect.

These two big black metal shelves from Target have been worth their weight in gold, but luckily they were very affordable. Wait for a sale. You won't be disappointed.

Hand-me-down Ikea bookcase. This is actually on the smallish side as storage goes, but it keeps me from accumulating too many books. I read it and then set it free unless I'm sure I'll reference it again. It's very liberating.

Grocery bag organizer! I've always wanted one and now I have it. I'm much more careful now about bringing my reusable bags to the store if I know my organizer is full. No more yanking zillions of bags out of the bottom of a closet.

Plastic bins are the answer to life's "what do I do with all this tiny crap?" dilemma.

If you are not a person who's into cleaning, this next paragraph is best skipped (Note: I wasn't paid for this endorsement, I just love my mop!!). Though I don't have a picture of it, I also have a great new mop-like instrument for cleaning my kitchen tile and wood floor. If you are as into the whole reduce-reuse-recycle concept and as cheap as me, you'll appreciate this new gadget. Libman came out with a Swiffer-ish mop, BUT it has a reusable pad instead of the disposable kind and a refillable bottle for the cleaning product. I've never been a mop girl because I can't stand the thought of rubbing that old nasty sponge all over the floor just to spread that bacteria around. But I also can't stand the thought of throwing the pad away. With this one, you throw the pad in the wash EVERY TIME YOU USE IT! AWESOME!

We also have a Eureka steam mop for the once-a-week sanitizing, but I just couldn't get into the idea of plugging that thing in every day. This way, I can mop to my heart's content and then lean it against the wall when I'm done. No fuss. And it sure beats getting down on my hands and knees with a spray bottle and a rag, which was my previous modus operandi.

Update (5-14-12): We gave up our steam mop a few weeks ago to our church's rummage sale. I still use the Libman mop and still love it just as much, but when I'm feeling a deep-cleaning frenzy, I get back down on my hands and knees and scrub. There's just no better way to sanitize.