Hey Chicagoans! Are you and your closet ready for Winter?

I’m coming to you live from my ice cold living room. I am fully decked out in wool sweater, wool socks, and completely wrapped up in a blanket. (Think human burrito.) It feels like the cold weather hit us out of nowhere and I am one of those stubborn people who hates to turn their heat on before November. (I get it from my mother by the way.)

Anyways, every fall and spring, I do some major closet organizing. This is not limited to just the coat closet. I do my closet that I share with my husband, the kids’ closets, and our coat closet. We are pretty limited on closet space (as most people are here in Chicago) so we can’t just keep everything in there. I follow the following steps pretty closely but feel free to change it up a little bit to suit your lifestyle.

It’s good to have helpers!

1) Pull out all the clothes and throw them on the bed. I like to sort through all of my clothes and if I haven’t worn it in the last year it gets donated. This is a little more important for my kids stuff. They grow so quickly that there are always clothes that are too small in their closet. So, it’s October and I won’t be needing my shorts and tank tops for the cold a$$ winter months. I like to store these items in big flat sterilite bins that stack nicely in our basement storage. I choose the clear ones because then you can see whats in each tub. I put all the summer clothes that I am keeping into the bins. Clothes that we have outgrown or don’t wear anymore get donated to local organizations that are in need. (email me if you are looking for donation centers!)

2) Hang up all of your sweaters and warm winter clothes! I am a little crazy about having matching hangers but ultimately its nice to just have thick plastic hangers that can support the weight of a heavy sweater. I like to sort the clothes by type and by color but I know not everyone is as crazy as me.

3) We have two adults and two kids in this house and in the winter that means we have about a hundred mittens, hats, and scarves floating around. I like these collapsible soft boxes because in the summer I can hide them away when we don’t need them. In the winter I can pull them out again and fill them with all of our winter accessories.

4) At the end of winter, I get our heavy coats dry cleaned. (And they need it.) So now in October, I remove them from their plastic bag and carry up these monstrous, but necessary, coats to hang in the upstairs coat closet.

So if you take anything away from this, please remember the following three things:

• Donate! Don’t Toss! - It’s getting cold here in Chicago and there are many people in need of warm clothes: help them out! If you have coats to donate but don’t know where to take them, email me and we’ll help you out!

• Organize your life - The feeling of opening a newly organized closet is wonderful. Especially when the clothes are sorted by color. :)

• Think warm - The cold icy air came a little sooner than expected so its time to get out your warm winter accessories and coats.

If you have any questions or need help tackling your closets, please don’t hesitate to email me at courtney@puromundum.com. Organizing is my jam and I’m always happy to help!

It’s all about the Metal Water Bottles!

Klean Kanteen? Yeti? Hydro Flask? Swell? In my quest to limit our plastic use at home, I’ve been on the lookout for the best metal water bottle for our lifestyle. I’ve tried out a few different brands, asked my friends what they like and finally, the toughest critics, I let my kids give it a whirl.

Overall, the big winner for me is Klean Kanteen. It is best suited for our day to day needs. It comes with a variety of different caps. The sports cap is great if you’re going to the gym. It has a sippy cup lid that is perfect for my two year old son. I also like that it comes in so many different sizes. I have the 40 ounce size to sip on during the day and the 27 ounce for when I go to the gym. It is also extremely durable. My kids really put them to the test and they have survived.

Another one that I really liked was the Yeti. If you are only looking for a bottle that will keep your water cold all day, the Yeti is excellent. I tried the Yeti 26 ounce rambler bottle. It is a decent size and really keeps the cold in. My only complaint is that if you are moving at all it is very difficult to drink out of the wide mouth. I’m not the most coordinated person on the planet so I can only drink out of it if I am sitting, unless I want water all over my shirt.

Now when I asked a lot of my friends what their favorites were, I had an overwhelmingly positive response to Hydroflask. It is not my personal favorite because it also features a wider mouth and I have that spilling problem. It does, however, keep your water cold for hours and it comes in lots of fun colors.

The last water bottle that I played around with was the Swell bottle. In terms of aesthetics, this bottle is number one. It is sleek and comes in all kinds of colors and patterns. In terms of price, I'm not the biggest fan. The smallest, cheapest one is going to run you about $35. With two kids its not the most affordable option.

So let’s wrap this up. Klean Kanteen might be my favorite (and no, they didn’t give me any free bottles for this blog unfortunately) but ultimately switching to a metal water bottle and ditching the one time use plastic bottles is such a great decision that it really doesn’t matter which one you choose. It’s an easy switch to make that has long lasting effects on the environment. According to the Environmental Working Group, Americans consume roughly 8.6 billion gallons of bottled water annually and only one in five bottles is recycled. With over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris floating in the ocean we have to do better. Go out and get whichever reusable bottle you love best and do your part. :)

Author: Courtney Bellmann