Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now!

A couple of weeks ago, as I stuffed socks and bras into overflowing plastic carts in my closet, I grumbled to my husband, "Grrrr! We reaalllllly need MORE DRAWER SPACE in here!"

Within a couple of hours, he had taken the necessary measurements and settled into the chair in my office to plan our new closet configuration online. Who says men don't listen?

Once the plan was done, my sweetie called two of the children to accompany him to the store to fetch the required materials to commence Operation: Overhaul.

Some men go golfing. Some men go to strip clubs. My man goes to Lowe's.

My personal Bob Vila returned home 2 hours or so later, his truck bed laden with ClosetMaid boxes. My tireless husband then proceeded to empty the closet of all of our clothes, shoes, belts, boxes, medicines, etc. He said that was the easy part. By his account, my job was the hard part. Once the closet was installed (it took him half a Sunday and the better part of a Tuesday) it rested on me to put the whole shebang back together.

Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeezy.









I filled up 12 trash bags with clothes and shoes that were either too small, out of style, covered in stains or just simply hadn't been worn in a long time. It felt GOOD. The only items allowed back into the new inner sanctum were things we actually WEAR. Go figure.

See that rack of hangers below? That's just part of what came out of my closet. There is a huge basket of extras in the basement storage area. I'll use them for consigning the kids' clothes.



There are so many hangers, it's ridiculous. I don't ever want to use them all at the same time again. If I buy something new, I need to give something away. That's the only way to stay on top of the clutter.



The closet overhaul has inspired me to declutter other areas of the house, too. I did the laundry room counter on Monday.



It's easy to clean when I can use the kids as gophers. "Here, go put this in the (insert location here)." Kids will work in the summertime! Myth debunked!

I saw a tip on DIY that lead me to clean off the master bathroom counter.



I bought this $5 shoe rack at Target and hung it out of sight on the back of the bathroom door. Then I took my toiletry basics and loaded the thing down. Voila! Clean countertops.



Today while the cleaning lady was tidying up the living areas, the kids and I went to the playroom. Within an hour we could see the floor again, and all of the toys were back where they belong.

And now the kids are actually PLAYING in the PLAYROOM.



Will wonders never cease.

Don't tell them, but when they go to Alabama in July, I'm going to make some toys disappear from the playroom, too!

Shhhh..... be vewwwwwwy quiiiiiet. I'm hunting Widdle People!

Accomplishment

I shared my to do list a few blog entries ago, and I'm proud to say it's partially finished. I feel empowered!

On Wednesday, Lillian and I cleared the ledge. We left a few things in place, because there is a huge neighborhood yard sale on May 10th, and there were some things on the ledge that need to go in the sale, or in the trash can outside, or to the dump.



And then we cleaned out and organized the bottom tall cabinet (to be 100% honest, Lillian enjoyed some Goldfish and an apple juice box and verbally encouraged me while I worked, saying things like, "Wow, Mommy! You are a good cleaner girl!")

Now that cabinet holds paper towels (previously stored under the kitchen desk) and the kids' lunchbox stuff.



When my husband came home, he was inspired by my enthusiasm, and he finished emptying the upper tall cabinet.

Well, I'll say that he was more inspired by me saying, "That upper cabinet is your stuff, so you need to grab a box and clean it out," but he actually took the suggestion to heart, so I'll give him credit. He saved a few of his Nutri System entrees, because he likes them (shiver). Ick.



The Nutri System boxes are now sitting in the floor of my scrapbook room, waiting to be photographed and listed on eBay. Hopefully I'll get around to that this weekend, but I also have to help the boys clean out their closet (again) and rotate the summer clothes to the bottom racks of the kids' closets.... and then there's the laundry. Always the laundry. So if I just get the Nutri System photographed and organized, that will be a big hurdle cleared.



And, it wasn't on my original list, but I did get the countertop cleaned off this morning. It was cluttered with junk, and now it looks like this:



In other news, here's what Quinn and I worked on last night while Daddy took Camryn and Aiden to Math & Science night at their school:



I'm so very proud of him, because just 2 weeks ago he was stumbling over naming the letters. I had a conference with his 4K teacher and we talked about some things we could do to enrich his letter learning. They've worked, because now he's calling out letters he sees on signs when we're in the car, and he is copying words I write. I'm amazed at his progress, and he is so very proud of himself!

A couple of other tidbits...

Camryn's room has remained clean the entire month. She has needed some reminders, so I think we'll give her a small reward at the end of the month and encourage her to keep cleaning without reminders. Then she will get the loft bed. (The original agreement was that we would consider the bed at the end of April... there was never a guarantee...)

Aiden never ceases to amaze me with his intellect and powers of reasoning. A few days ago I was sitting with him watching something about space. Maybe Nova or Discovery channel or something (the kid DVRs everything that has anything to do with science!) The topic was way over my head (galaxies and black holes and whatnot... yawn...) but Aiden was thoroughly engrossed. I was half listening, so I got the gist of what they were saying: in billions of years our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy. Gotcha.

At one point Aiden looked at me, and I could see the gears turning. He said, "Hmmm... I bet when that happens, we'll have a lot more planets in our solar system."

You go, baby Carl Sagan. You rock that space stuff, son. I'll just sit here and pretend to know what you're talking about. (The kid got his scientific curiousity from his Daddy...that's for darn sure!)

So that's what's happening here this week. It's been a pretty good one, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da. Life goes on.

My To Do List... in Pictures!

Here's what I have on my to do list. I'm hoping that posting pictures here will shame me into getting these things DONE.

Maybe.

We'll see.



(1) This video cabinet in the den needs to be cleaned out. I did it about 6 months ago, adding those pull-out baskets, but it just got junky again. Truth be told, the kids don't watch VCR movies much anymore. We really need to invest in a DVD/VCR combo so we can copy the VCR tapes to DVDs.

Yeah.

That's why I'm putting off that job.

That's the ticket.



(2) This cabinet above my kitchen desk needs to be rid of all the baskets. They've been there since we moved in 2 years ago. I'm not using the baskets, and they could be sold on eBay for cold, hard cash. I just need to pull them down, photograph them, and list them for sale.

Sounds easy enough, huh?

It would be easier if someone would knock on my door and ask if I had any Longaberger baskets for sale. THAT would be easy, but that ain't gonna happen.

Hold on... there's a knock at the door...



(3) More stuff that needs to be put on eBay. See all that NutriSystem food? I had high hopes for that stuff, if you'll remember from my blog entry about it. I could probably lose more weight eating dog food, and it would be about as tasty. Anyhow, it's taking up precious cabinet space and it needs to go.



(4) This is the ledge in the stairwell leading to my basement. Stuff always gets piled here. Outgrown clothing, old towels, games that belong downstairs (but are hauled up to the first floor to be played), stuff we should just chuck or give to the Goodwill.... it's all there. It needs to be somewhere else. It's going to fall over soon, so this probably should be number one on my list.

So that's it. My to do list.

My "It's not getting done because it's mostly hidden behind doors" list.

Eh. More like my "I'll do it one day" list.

Meh. More like my "My kids can go through it when I'm dead and buried" list.

This, I Know, is Payback

As a child I was a stuffer.

When Mom said, "Clean your room!" I would stuff the clutter into the closet and under the bed and dresser instead of putting things back in place. I guess I had better, more important things to do with my time, like playing with Barbies or Strawberry Shortcake dolls or My Little Ponies or reading the next Nancy Drew book in the series. For whatever reason, stuffing just became my method of operation.

Mom always said one day I'd have a child just like me. Why do moms curse us that way? If mine hadn't ever said that, I might have a perfectly lovely daughter who likes to put away her things.

(Yeah, right.)

Instead I gave birth to a stuffer. She's like me in so many ways, so it shouldn't surprise me that this, too, is something we have in common.

(Note: I have since reformed my ways. I am a recovering stuffer. There is hope!)

I picked said stuffer (my 10 year-old, Camryn) up from school yesterday and she immediately revealed that she had no homework to do.

"Perfect!" I said. "We shall spend the afternoon cleaning your room, then!"

"Uh, I mean, um, I do have a little studying to do for a geography test. I neeeeeeeed to study for that, so I guess we'll have to clean my room another day."

"So sorry, chica. We'll do the room, then I'll help you study."

Silence reigned on the drive home. I'm sure I felt tiny daggers pierce my skin as she glared at me from time to time. Mere flesh wounds. I was pumped. Let's do this thang!

We started our project around 4 pm (I had to help Aiden with his homework, which was an entirely different battle...)

Three hours, two bags of garbage, five (yes, FIVE) dirty dishes, half a dozen putrid socks and one laundry basket full of empty hangers later, we were done.

The room is blissfully clean. I can actually get further than the doorjamb without getting a headache.

Bonus: I won't need to buy hangers until the year 2015, IF AT ALL.

Serendipitously, we performed our cleaning on the first of April. My husband and I have offered to buy the child a loft bed (one of her deepest desires in life) if she keeps the room clean until May 1st. We'll see how long it lasts.

I don't think I'll be shelling out the dough for the new bed in 30 days, but she may just surprise me.

And then again, I may find Jimmy Hoffa stuffed under her bed at the end of the month.

Stay tuned, folks. Stay tuned.