The last lap. It’s done. Finally. And it’s a good thing, too, because the section of the office that we’d designated for the outbox was starting to take over the room:

Here’s the rundown of where everything went:

Housewares and clothes: Ranging from sweaters and belts to towels and decorative baskets, the items in the three boxes on the left went to the Raleigh GCF Donation Center & Store (Goodwill, for my Virginia readers). The box of housewares to the right is holding items that I’m tentatively saving for my sister-in-law, who recently moved into her first apartment. If she doesn’t want them, they’ll also go to GCF.

Shoes and fabric scraps: The shoes were too worn out to best re-sold in a GCF store, and the fabric scraps were too small to be reused in any of my projects for the foreseeable future. These items went to Clothes the Loop, The North Face’s textile recycling program.

E-waste and plastic bags: Empty ink cartridges. Batteries. An old computer case fan. A whole lot of plastic bags. Although there are probably a handful of different places that can handle these kinds of items, including municipal household waste disposal centers, I find it’s easiest to drop them off at Best Buy’s recycling station, which is always right inside the front doors.

In case you’re wondering, the box on the far left is full of sentimental stuff that I’m not sure what to do with yet. It’ll probably linger in the outbox a while longer. If I come up with a creative solution for dealing with it, I’ll let you know, since I know that sentimental items are always a sticking point when you’re trying pare unneeded/unwanted items.

Rounding the corner and the finish line of the January Cure is in sight. I feel like I’ve been dropping off here toward the end, so I’m glad the official activities are nearly over so I can start scheduling things at my own pace.

Since talking about cleaning the bathrooms is boring, I thought I’d share a few ideas I’ve had for decorating the master bath. (If I had my way, we’d be painting it this weekend, but alas, the home improvement fund is rather lean after the pantry installation earlier this month.) We’ve sort of gone about things backward, since we bought new towels, a bathmat, a soap dispenser, and a toothbrush holder about nine months ago, but the walls are still beige and we could use an étagère. Here are a few ways we could fix that.

1 – Light Pewter // 2 – Peace and Happiness // 3 – HJÄLMAREN // 4 – VITTSJÖ // 5 – Chevron Shower Curtain // 6 – Cabana Strip Shower Curtain // 7 – Paisley Shower Curtain  // 8 – Hampton Links Shower Curtain

The first paint color is the lightest shade on the same card as our bedroom paint color and, despite how it looks on screen, it’s actually grey, not tan. After true white, it’s the easiest choice. I’ve been thinking it could also be fun to bring in something a little different in the form of a pinky lavender like the one shown above, but I’m a lot less sure how I feel about it. I’m afraid I’ll get bored of it too quickly, and I don’t know if it will jive with whatever accent color we eventually pick for the master bedroom. But I’m kind of intrigued by the idea of creating a palette that’s a little warmer, a little softer, and a little more sophisticated than I may have originally imagined.

For an étagère, I keep coming back to this relaxed, leaning style. I don’t think it’s terribly practical as a bookshelf—not when you have as many books as I do, anyway—but for rolled towels and a basket of toiletries I think it could be perfect. For something with a little more shelf real estate, there’s the more traditional option on the right. I’d like to think the glass shelves would keep it from feeling too heavy in the small space of the bathroom. I’m even entertaining the idea of spray painting it in a metallic like Censational Girl or Bethany Seawright from Apartment Therapy’s Design Diary, who was inspired by Just Bella.

Finally, the shower curtain. I’m actually quite fond of the white one we have, because it’s made out of this lovely dense cotton gauze with a waffle weave. But the first time I washed it (in cold water) and dried it (on low), it shrank horribly. Now it doesn’t really stretch from one end of the shower to the other, and it drives me a little crazy. Okay, a lot crazy. So for fun, I looked at a few patterned curtains to replace it. The first is supposed to be grey and white; it seems to match the paint swatch well, but I’m a little afraid it’s closer to beige and cream, so I’d need to see it in person. The slightly painterly chevrons are a lot less structured than I usually go for in a pattern, as evidenced by my other three choices. The cabana stripe feels classic, as does the links pattern, though the latter may be a little overpowering and better as a bedspread rather than a curtain. I couldn’t resist throwing in a paisley, though I’d probably need a different shade of grey walls to pull it off. But the touch of yellow would be cheery in a space that gets no natural light.

It was nice to get a couple of ideas down, even if they might change, because it’s allowed me to see trends in what I gravitate toward in a way that mindless online browsing doesn’t. Do you collect inspiration in moodboards, or dive right into your designs? Have you ever been surprised by the patterns that emerge?

In previous years, this assignment was dedicated to digitizing files, which I had been dreading and looking forward to in equal measure. When Justin and I first got married, I was obsessed with keeping hard copies of everything—bills, receipts for paid bills, rental agreements, amendments to same, every version of every insurance policy document—because I was mortally afraid that I’d pay a bill online, the transaction wouldn’t be completed, and then collections would come to knock down my door and repossess my furniture. Money was tight, and I was afraid that one wrong move would ruin our credit forever.

The result looks something like this:

As it turns out, we managed just fine. A few minor slip-ups were easily corrected, and nothing money-related we did online ever failed catastrophically. And yet, the paper remains. Sorting through everything, digitizing, labeling, and filing the important stuff—and then shredding everything when I’m done—is going to be a monumental task.

Luckily, the assignment says to spend only 30 minutes focused on improving one area. Since digitizing will definitely take more than one evening, I decided that I had a more pressing issue to address: the fact that I haven’t back up anything in an appalling long time.

I started by ripping two CDs that I received for Christmas to my computer. Then I pulled out our external hard drive, wiped all of the outdated information saved on it, and promptly copied over my documents, pictures, and music. It certainly doesn’t capture everything, but it does provide a stop-gap for my most important data.

When I have a solid weekend that I can dedicate to it, I plan to do the following:

1. Research options to backup my computer and Justin’s to the same device, automatically.
2. Research cloud storage options for additional protection.
3. Digitize all physical files, preserving the ones that are smart to have in hard copy and shredding the rest.
4. Review documents and photos; purge anything that is no longer needed/wanted and improve the organization of everything that remains.
5. Check smartphones for photos or information that should be backed up on a less lose-able/less drop-able device.
6. Fine tune our home network to better share information across devices.
7. Clean everything inside and out: wipe down keyboards and mice, blow out cases, replace old fans, run disk defragmenter, etc.

I’m sure I’ve missed something, but it seems like a solid start anyway. What things do you do to protect your data and stay organized at the same time?