Domestic Makeover

A couple of weeks ago, I heard myself saying, "Why can't I ever find anything?" and "Nothing is where it is supposed to be!" I realized that nothing had a proper place to be so that was probably why I couldn't find anything.

I have never really Spring cleaned our house before. To be fair, we are not pack rats at all. So, we don't have 5 years of pile up over here but we do have some stuff that can go. I downloaded an e-book from Simple Mom called Spring Cleaning for Normal People and it was very inspiring. Last Monday, I realized a few of my zones had been neglected so I went through the house, doing a light cleanup and throw out of each room. That evening I downloaded the e-book and to my surprise that was the same task that the book instructed to do on the first day of Spring Cleaning. The book has a 10-day program to get the whole house down. She has you focus on one room of your house each day or two days for larger areas. Since that was last Monday my house should be totally clean now right? Wrong!

I believe I have domestic ADD. I started to work on Shannon's room first for some reason and then I kept wandering over to Chloe's room to do some stuff in there, then I would go put something away in the guest room and realize I wanted to clean out some stuff in there as well. So after nearly two weeks, I am not even close to being done but I did get a lot accomplished. Something that always frustrated me was that we keep stuff in random closets so we never know where to find anything. I was determined to only have Chloe/Athena related stuff in their closet and Shannon related stuff in his closet. I did break this rule a little bit becaue Shannon has the largest closet in the house and he doesn't really have a lot of stuff. So in the main section of the closet, I kept it strictly Shannon and I continue to store a few baby items, that we won't need for a couple more years, in there as well. And my snowboard. We finally got a shelf and bar for the guest room closet so I was able to move all of Stacey's military stuff out of Shanon's room and into the guest room. So Shannnon's room is done. I do want to get him a more grownup bedding set now that he is turnign into quite the little man. He has had the same one for four years so I think it is reasonable to get a new one.

The girls room was not very hard to tackle. We've had our eye on a bunk bed for their room for some time now and we fnally went down and ourchased it this past monday. I can't wait until it comes in. It's a twin over double so I figure the girls can sleep together in the double until Chloe feels comfortable sleeping on the top bunk. I also moved the dresser out of the closet and in the spot where the crib used to be, to make the closet roomier. In the process of cleaning the rooms out, I also found myself with 3 large storage bins of clothes and other items to be sold, tossed, given away. My friend, Pamela, is having a yard sale next friday and I already took the toddler bed, the changing table pad, the toddler bedding, and two crib mattresses over there. I hope to get all of the clothes sorted out this weekend so I can take it all over there next week. I will post some pics of the kids' rooms as soon as I get the bunk bed setup in about a week.

So, yes, I have two rooms down, and many many more to go. The decluttering is getting easier. I started to follow the mantra, "If I don't find it useful or beautiful, get rid of it". Something I have always had a hard with is getting rid of things that other people have given us as gifts. But, I just have to do it. I cannot possibly keep every nick knack that has ever entered these walls. I think the gift givers will understand . . . right?

In addition to the Spring Cleaning book, I also downloaded Simplifying Your Domestic Church and my friend Cherri recommended A Mother's Rule of Life. SYDC starts right off with gettign rid of clutter so I stopped there and started working on that. I am really enjoying MROL. She really focuses on what it all means. Being a wife, a mother, and a servant of God. This really spoke to me because I sometimes get the feeling that my sngle, childfree, friends, think my lfie must be a drag. If I just made a list of the tasks I completed on a daily basis and boiled my purpose down t those things, they would be right. "Dear diary, today I scrubbed my toilets and changed Athena's diaper. Life is good". But when I do these tnings with a greater purpose in mind, I am not only more productive but fullfilled and proud of my accomplishments. So, that book is pretty stinkin' awesome and I highly recomend it.

So that is the Spring Cleaning update. By the way, Simple Mom is beginning a Spring Cleaning series this Monday so if you want to get your own domestic church all sparkly, follow along.