Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Unknown Treasures

Today I hit a milestone: I finished the first floor of the house! I have gone through the laundry room, the back hallway, the pantry, the kitchen (ALL the cabinets included), the dining room, two desks, the living room, the front closet, the guest room and bathroom, the boys' room, the master bedroom, and the bathroom. Granted, Austin's stuff is left for him, and that'll take him a couple days, but I've done everything else! I found some more interesting things along the way, too.

I didn't realize we had a Dirt Devil hand vacuum steam cleaner. If I had, I wouldn't have put it away with liquid inside and it wouldn't have come out of the closet with mold in it. I got it with bleach, though.

I managed to find some missing puzzle pieces from wooden puzzles that Elijah likes to "put together" and by "put together" I mean "dump the pieces on the floor then kick them all over the house." So the puzzles are up on a high shelf until I figure out a better way to hide them until it's time to play with them.

I found more tape. Packing tape this time, so now I can tape big stuff.

I found 13 unused boxes from U-Haul. Unused meaning they're not folded into boxes yet.

I found the ice scraper I really needed back in February. I'm not even going to lie and say I wish there was some ice to scrape because I don't. I'm loving the weather right now.

I found my ditty bag that I'd misplaced back in December and gave up on finding in January and replaced in it's entirety in February. So I'm doubly prepared to travel!

I found about a dozen little pouches of kitty treats and a sandwich baggie of catnip. Marco doesn't know, no one tell him.

It's amazing how much space I have in certain areas of the house now that I've cleared out stuff, or at least better organized it. The big box of stuff to get rid of is actually much smaller than I thought. Maybe I'm keeping too much, maybe my mom took more than I realized (that's probably it) or maybe I'm just organizing it better. Who knows. I have drawers in my desks with NOTHING in them. It's crazy. I have empty spaces on my closet shelves. Well, the front closet anyway. The back hallway...it's so clear it's crazy. I moved the cat food and water so we can use the hallway better and Elijah LOVES walking to the back door and looking out. He does it about once or twice an hour. He taps the window and says "Go?" and looks so hopeful I feel mean saying no. So sometimes I indulge him and we go outside and he walks around and picks things up to lick. He hasn't gotten sick yet so I guess that's ok.

The biggest spaces are still ahead of me: the garage (I have no idea what else to call it) and the upstairs/attic. Tomorrow I tackle upstairs. I've got a mountain of stuff to carry up there to put away and organize along with the gobs of stuff already up there. I have a feeling my give away box is going to grow exponentially.

As sick as Asher has been this week, he definitely has time to poke his head into whatever space I'm in and ask me what I'm doing. He doesn't want me to give away his toys because obviously he needs them all. So I have to be sneaky. I did notice that at some point when I wasn't paying attention he and his brother got into a box of stuff to go upstairs and scattered it around the house.

I think I'll hit the end of this much sooner than anticipated and that rocks. SO hard. Maybe I'll be done by May! I haven't had to buy anything for storage because I have the Mount Everest of boxes in the garage and can usually find what I need.

So if you've been hemming and hawing about organizing and decluttering and getting rid of the crap, just do it. It won't take nearly as long as you think it will. Commit to one space a day. Maybe one room, if you can do that much. Go through, get rid of things you don't use or want or like and make space...and leave the space empty. It's nice to have empty spaces around. Feels open.

Good luck!

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