Long week

You know when you think something is a good idea and in the end it probably was a good idea but requires a lot more work than you thought it would? That happened to us Sunday. Taylor got this idea that for Family Night we should hang up our pictures. [When we moved in to our BRAND NEW house we were reluctant to put any holes in the walls at all. Typically in our five homes before now we had every wall covered. Here our walls are sparse.] The pictures were mostly stored in the closet under our stairs. As I made efforts to retrieve them, the bright idea occurred to me that if that closet were cleaned out I could put the cats in there and reclaim my bathroom. (That alone has made it worth it.)

So out came the frames. Out came the food storage. Out came my decoration that were out of season. Out came half-finished crafts. Out came the kleenex boxes, egg cartons, shoe boxes, and other items I've saved for a rainy day to use to make projects with the kids. And they all ended up in my kitchen. Some of the frames were hung. A lot of them, actually. The dwindling food storage (which once was so large and so lovely, and truly has lasted us a year as planned) fit in the pantry for the most part. We swept it out and transferred the cats. Yeah! On Monday I mopped and sanitized the bathroom, so now if you come over you can use the bathroom again. Yeah!

However, Taylor spent the day on Monday hunting with my dad and brother, and the rest of the week at work, so the brunt of finishing the giant project landed on me. It seriously looked like we had just moved in. Boxes and trash and treasures were everywhere. I tried. I really tried to deal with it. And each day there has been improvement. Today it was mostly better. Then I got a wild hair to clean out the toy room and store away toys in preparation for the upcoming holidays. Seriously that was a 4-5 hour project with two kids who found "treasure" after "treasure" with which they refused to part.

I got that done, then there was the issue of the box of toys that was in the garage---the box that we once dumped everything in because we were having a bunch of people over and didn't have time to clean. It also contained a bunch of mismatched toys that were hand-me-downs from someone in the ward. It has been in the garage for months. Maybe four months or more. I insanely dumped it out in my front room. 90 minutes later we had sorted trash, to keep, and to give away items and mostly put them away.

Then I got news that my glass shelves for my china cabinet were in. Which means that to make room for it I had to clean out Claire's little toy cupboard in preparation for the move from the kitchen to her room. This hadn't been done since we moved in. Yikes! Every little piece of plastic dinnerware is now being washed and sanitized in the dishwasher and the cupboard is ready for its new home away from my kitchen.

Now with the project mostly done I'm at a stand-still. Little pieces of toys are scattered throughout our living area. There is a medium-sized laundry basket full of crap waiting to be sorted and stored upstairs. And Taylor will be home in ten minutes. I'll be glad to have him help finish what he suggested we start last Sunday.

Not that you need to know any of this. Just know that if you come over in the next few days (which a lot of you will be coming over) and notice how clean my house is----you can know what actually went into making it that way.

And look forward to pictures of the cabinet! I can't wait for it!