THE PURGE
I’ve been absent for Joyful Mom! I’ve been Joyful in other places :-)
We have been purging the house. It didn’t actually start out as a plan. It wasn’t on the calendar. It just has sort of “happened.” Last week my daughter said “I can’t put my clothes away!!!” and I was thinking “no kidding–you never fold anything, you keep everything on the floor and then cram it into any drawer when you hear me coming up the stairs (in a non-joyful way). . . ” When finished stomping up the stairs, I looked at the amount of clothes she had I was amazed–I didn’t buy her all of these clothes . . .
Then I realized, when her older sister grows out of something . . . it goes to her drawer . . . so now she has double of everything! I dropped everything– thinking that it would be an easy chore . . . just a little sorting . . . (If you give a mom a simple chore . . . )
- Girls clothes, sorted first by one fits, secondly, by season, and then out of season clothes staying in their room just up on the shelf.
- In order to use the shelf space I needed to open boxes that were just stuck up there since we moved . . . the girls needed to make hard decisions about their treasure and the amount of American Girl doll stuff.
- They LOVE the American Girl Dolls but it isn’t fun to play when everything is all over the place so we needed a plan for where.
- Ken (the carpenter) finished “American Girl Dollville) the place under the stairs–a hang out for the girls (pictures soon) so they worked on that area.
- Girls getting American Girl Dollville organized is taking longer than they thought–they have more than what they first thought about–now we need hangers . . .
- Created a makeshift office for my husband in the guest room. That required: moving 1 dresser into the boys room, moving the other dresser over to the other wall, clearing off a table from the basement (I have a huge basement project ongoing, I write about it here and a lot more through this series of honesty), clearing out under the bed.
- The clearing out under the bed I found my Christmas pillows that I “lost” and all the flannel sheets . . .
- When I found the flannel sheets I had to put them in the linen closet–which I needed to organize first.
- After I cleared out the linen closet I had to create another box for goodwill, a pile of things to take pictures of for Joyful Mom, and lots of toiletries to go to our local homeless shelter.
- Then tackled the boys room: the dresser from the guest room replaced a rickety old dresser (that will now be used in American Girl Dollville), went through all the clothes, made piles for Goodwill, and cleared out Legos and Bionicle.
- Now I have several piles in the garage going out . . . I’m happy about that.
- In the midst of all of this I bought a desk for my daughter at a resale place that supports a pet rescue–
- When we bought the desk we needed to clear out the homeschool room,
- I had two extra desks which I found homes for . . .
- I wanted to clean and organize while we were at it . . .
the new desk is on the right, the table is a place for kids computer and a work space for a middle schooler and the turtles are in the tank. The fish are now on the desk–a work in progress!
a cleared out kitchen cupboard, which I did fill with a few cookbooks from the basement.
Our ongoing projects are to:
- Organize our master bedroom closet.
- Go through all of the kitchen cupboards–PURGE!
- Decide if we want the current homeschool room to be moved into the basement or to have the basement be a “hang out place” and a craft area for the girl and me?
- The basement project will take the longest–I’m having Ken put in some shelves, we need to ruthlessly go through everything . . . but I’m ready–the time is right. Emotionally I’m in a good spot to tackle this project.
How about you . . . do you live a life of resembling “If you give a mouse a cookie.” Do your start one thing and have it snowball into a huge project? or Do you start with one intention and then realize part way through that what you are doing doesn’t serve your purpose? I would love to hear your stories. Please tell me I’m not alone!
Linking up I should be mopping the floor, Craftastic Party, motivation monday, create with joy, Busy Mondays, mindful mothering, and with Ann, The Better Mom, Rediscovering Domesticity, Titus 2 Tuesday, Teach Me Tuesday, Titus (2)sdays, Gradituesdays, Heart and Home, Whatever Works Wednesday, Wisdom Wednesday, Show and Share Wednesday, Saturday Show and Share.