Days Four and Five

They get merged, mmmkay? I didn't have much time yesterday to spend at the computer. There were hair clients to make pretty (though all my customers are lovely to begin with) and I took the teeny girl minion to the doctor. She has strep. I promise I'll make up for it today. That said, I did accomplish some good stuff.

Now that the totes in the basement are under control, I was determined to declutter the living room. Some problem areas were the pile of the Hubbin's magazines under the lamp table, and a pretty bookshelf I have that has become the resting place for all things paper and official. Other than that, I kinda love my living room as is, and it just needed some TLC. Now the Hubbin's magazines, treasures such as Truck and Trader, American Rifleman, and numerous Cabela's ads, seem to have some kind of paper orgy and proliferated under the table. It's scandalous. A simple solution was a rectangle basket I found amongst the basement clutter. He is allowed that ONE basket. Period. I will enforce purging if the paper overfloweth.

Said basket is pictured on left. I didn't snap a pic of it's placement in the living room, but eventually you'll see it somewhere in pics.
 When I tidied the basement, I really had to show no mercy. My children go weeks without playing in their playroom, and though I recently purged it, I had not gone so far as to actually pitch or put away things removed. They had just hung out in the walkway. I'm so proud. This time I meant business. As I picked through a tote with mixed bits, pieces, papers and whatnot, I finally decided to pitch it. I grabbed a garbage bag and threw it all in there. I felt a little apprehensive, but the truth is this..
We all have overcommited to our stuff. We see a couple broken crayons on the floor and we set them on the counter to put in the crayon bucket later.We find a puzzle piece and set it on a shelf to eventually reunite with it's family. Here's the thing kids; this is what clutters up our lives. This is what ties us down. These little pieces hang over us as tasks unaccomplished.Sometimes we need to just pitch the crayons. If we are so privileged that we can leave our broken crayons scattered throughout the house, then maybe we had too many crayons. Pitching them may seem wasteful, but in the future it will remind us to take better care of what we have. We ARE overindulged, and materialistic by culture.All these material things are gumming up our emotional works, and making us feel, well... like crap. It's like overeating, but with stuff. It's not good for us.Take from this mini lecture what you will, but I think I'm onto something.

End Rant.

Before

After

Ah yes, a clear walkway. Le sigh.

Back upstairs. Watch your step, I make no guarantees about the entryway yet. That's for another post. We're walking, we're walking, and here we are. Back up into the living/dining area. And here's a picture of my lovely clutter catcher:

So how did I pay penance for this crime? Well, first let us take a moment to acknowledge the taxidermy. All hail to the deer slayer.

Okay, now that homage has been paid, let us get down to the knitty gritty. This was the hub for bills, books, papers of importance, etc etc etc. I put it off because I didn't know what to do with all of it. Well, come to find out, it was full of crap. Seriously, my childrens' classroom newsletters from LAST YEAR, a CD storage thing for a CD player that isn't even IN this room, textbooks for classes from last year, cords and instructions for electronics we don't even have anymore.. shall I go on? It took me maybe, MAYBE an hour to totally take care of all of it. ALL OF IT. Dude, this has taunted me for months. Ridiculous.

So here's a trick to deal when you have a hub full of stuff that will need to go everywhere to be put away. Sort it by room. One pile was of report cards from the kids, as well as some artwork and homework-- Scrapbook room pile. One pile was for the file cabinet downstairs. One pile was to go to my room. Bill stuff for a dresser here in the computer room. And yes, of course the GARBAGE PILE! That made this so much more manageable. Then, when faced with the pile in my room, it was itty bitty and took a minute. Same with filing. Voila!

Duuuuuuuude.


I would also like to take this moment to mention that I did in fact NOT remove the train track. The tiniest minion did that on his own accord. Well done little man, well done.

So this may not seem like a massive accomplishment, but when combined with my tidy kitchen, clean basement, and total lifting of burden, it IS huge. It feels great, and looks beautiful.

Today was a day of not much other than maintenance.  I had some hardcore running to do. So, tomorrow will bring with it a recap and a new mission:

Drawer Liners.


Bring it on.