So for those of you who know me, you know I aspire to have a clean house but my wishes and reality don't always line up.
Today Matt is at a Sunday school golf tourney with the guys, and I'm going to see just how much I can get accomplished (with periodic breaks - I AM in the about-to-pop-pregnant mode, here) before he gets home.
Note: I'm going to work on the post in pieces as I take breaks, so I apologize in advance if it's somewhat disjointed.
First on the list, hit the "hot spots" (thank you FlyLady for the terminology). For those of you not in the know, "hot spots" are the flat surfaces around your house where you dump things. In my house, there are many of them, including the butcher block in the kitchen, the dining room table, the cabinet in the dining room, our love seat (which is currently covered in Matt's clean and folded clothes that he assures me he'll put away later on today), the desk, and our night stands. I've tacked the butcher block and moved to our bedroom to tackle the night stands. Matt's didn't take very long, but mine has taken more than a half hour because I'm actually going through things and getting rid of junk.
And apparently I feel the need to harbor all of this JUNK right next to my bed on my night stand. Ug. Must. stop. the. pattern. I want my bedroom to feel like a retreat....not something we need to retreat FROM! So I'm actually taking an aside from the hot spots and have decided to focus on our bedroom.....I have cleaned off our nightstands, GONE THROUGH the STUFF that was on (and around) my nightstand (and shockingly, this took the l-o-n-g-e-s-t amount of time), pulled the miscellaneous stuff from underneath the bed, and cleaned the TV stand (which also functions nicely as a hot spot). I now have magazines and papers from way too long ago thrown away, coupons clipped and organized in their rightful place, and clean floors (and by clean I mean uncluttered, not vacuumed - I haven't made it that far yet).
Nice!
And here is question for the masses (or the 3 people that actually read this blog) - what do you do with the kiddo keepsakes? I mean what do you really DO with them? The mother's day cards, the cute notes and drawings, etc. Do you put them in a box, do you take a picture of them, what??? Please tell me your secrets, because my kids are incredibly loving and make things for me that I truly do not know what to do with. Help!
I'm now putting away the lingering clean clothes from the room...then I believe I WILL vacuum to complete the transformation. I am resisting the urge to pull EVERYTHING out of the closet floor (isn't it amazing how much stuff happens to fall to the floor of your closet and goes unnoticed???) because I don't know if I will have enough time to go through it all before Matt gets home, and I would like him to see what appears to be a finalized project. Resist I must.
But perhaps later....
And the stuff under the sink in our bathroom is calling me to go through it as well.....
Melissa is just turning 2, so I don't think I've collected as much as you have, but here is what we are currently doing: I've hung some string on one wall and use clothespins to display her art. I take pictures of everything, then take it down and replace it with her new art. We go through what I have just taken down and pick a few that are special, and throw away the rest. For the ones I keep, I write why they were kept (her favorite animal right now is a caterpillar 6/28/10, etc.). I've got a bin under our bed that I'm putting everything that we keep in. And for now, all cards are being kept. Hope that helps!
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