productivity at its finest.

This post was intended to be about our visit to the Plains on Saturday. We had tickets to the game lined up, filled the tank, made tailgate plans with friends, but ultimately it all fell through. When our alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning I looked over at John and he.looked.rough. I figured out quickly that he was feeling rough too. With a fever, aches, sore throat, and congestion, our trip to Auburn was not looking promising. In the end, we both decided it was probably not a good idea to go cheer on the Auburn Tigers—but, boy was I disappointed.

I didn't want the day to go to waste lounging on the couch with John all day so I decided to be productive. We had a list of things that needed to be done around the condo so my goal was to knock them out. Not only did we cross off everything on the list, but we (or I should say I) accomplished a couple of "future" projects, as well. It's safe to say that I got a little really carried away.

My first goal was to clean out and organize the storage closets on our back porch. One closet is John's man closet that is home to the water heater, where we keep all of his grilling utensils, charcoal, mop, broom, recycling bin, birdseed (he has an odd infatuation with birds. Particularly the dove that lives outside our bedroom window. Note: the same one that likes to taunt the kitties), etc. The other closet contains a hodge-podge of things from luggage, furniture, and an old TV, to the many bins of Christmas decorations, boxes and boxes of the "out with the old" stuff, and a sleeping bag. I don't think it was possible to stuff one more item in there. And that, my friends, is not a good sign.

We made a trip to Home Depot, on the fine morning that it was, to pick up everything that we needed to hang a few shelves. I took everything out of both closets, swept, purged, and organized while John did the hanging. Once everything was put back in there I realized that a few hooks would be ideal. So, husband got back off the couch (poor thing) to screw those in. They made all the difference. I ended up taking the TV and furniture out of the other closet and put them into our air conditioned storage unit down in the parking garage. Was this a sight to see. I'll spare you the details, but just envision myself and a broken bellman cart loaded to the brim attempting to make it from point A to point B (no bueno). P.S. Don't judge me on the "befores." It's totally unlike me to let these closets get that bad!!! I am mortified.

Man closet BEFORE.

Cleared out and in the process of putting up the shelving.

AFTER!

Miscellaneous closet BEFORE. Seriously y'all?!

AFTER!

Once the outdoor closets were done, I decided to take it indoors. My first stop—the laundry closet. Not laundry room, but closet. This space was in the most need of shelving. I was using the top of the stackables to house the detergent, softeners, bleach, stain removers, garment bags, iron, plus a handful of other necessities. The closet is also home to my beloved Dyson, steam mop, and ironing board. John got off the couch, again, to hang some shelves in there (I promise you, I'm a good wife and took good care of him while he was on the couch). I put my organization skills to work and loaded up the shelves. When I stepped back and looked at the finish project I was grinning from ear to ear. Who knew?

I am so embarrassed.

One last BEFORE.

Sick hubby hard at work.

AFTER!

Gotta love organization.

I tackled the front closet next. This is our coat closet, as well as Coco and Goose's bathroom. Gross, I know. But, there wasn't anywhere else to put the litterbox where we could keep it concealed. Like the other closets, I removed everything, cleaned, and re-organized. There were a lot of things that made its way to the trash. John drilled hooks for the tennis racket and a couple of seasonal wreaths and added a few hooks to the new shelf to keep the dust pan and pooper-scooper off the floor. The new entry closet=perfection. Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures, but here is the after:

Can't even see the litterbox anymore...

Lastly, it was time to clean. I started with the back porch. We picked up some mums while we were at Home Depot and after upgrading the flower pots, potting soil was everywhere along with all the debris that I swept out of the closets. So, we cleared the porched, swept, and finished up by hosing down the brick, sudsing up and scrubbing the table and chairs, and spraying down the windows/doors. When it all dried, everything was put back into place and then I windexed each window pane to erase the water spots. The finishing touch? Hanging an old birdhouse given to me by my parents.

An old pulley that we found. I'm hoping to turn it into a light fixture...eventually.

Orange mums (not yet bloomed).

Our doormat (thanks Les!)

Yellow mums.

The ferns are still hanging on.

I performed my usual cleaning routine indoors—dusted, vacuumed and steam mopped. The condo looked great and I felt a huge sense of accomplishment. It was an extremely productive day, but I was exhausted!

The productivity of the weekend didn't stop there. We made yet another trip to Home Depot on Sunday. Stay tuned for the result of that fun project! I hope that everyone had a great weekend and WAR EAGLE!!!