4.14.2012

Dig dig dig dig dig

Figuratively and literally today!

The weather was spectacular all day. I celebrated by turning over my little garden plot. Dig dig dig.

Also, I opened all the windows and doors and gave the house a much-needed airing out.

Unfortunately I burned something very very badly in the kitchen last night (damn you laundry distraction!). Even after freezing us with all the windows open until bedtime, fans running full blast, scrubbing the stove top, washing the range hood screens, even taking apart the fan to clean -- even after ALL THAT WORK the inside of the cupboards even stink like smoke. I am genuinely afraid I may need to paint to seal in that burnt stench. I'll give it a few more days or even weeks (I am so glad spring is here so there is better air flow through the place).

Back to the digging.

While waiting for the "eco" shower cleaner to sink in, I pulled out everything in the linen closet and put it back in an orderly way (I love doing this BTW) and took a small pile of rags to my husband's rag bin in the garage (made him happy). A good warm up for decluttering!

Then I called my youngest into his room and told him he had to make sense of his catastrophe of a room. This didn't come out of the blue, even he has been complaining that it's too messy lately, so today was the day.

I sat with him in the middle of his room and picked up each thing to ask where it SHOULD go (not where does it FIT- that's how it got so disorganized in the first place). I know each category of toy has it's own bin.... lego, hotwheels, models, stuffies, even a miscellaneous doomahicky bin... so I got him to get out the bins so that he could easily toss each thing into the best bin for finding it next time he wants it! Revolutionary concept, I know!

At the end of it all, we found a few items that he decided weren't "worth" finding a home for, so off they went to the charity shop box. And there was a grocery bag of broken bits and paper scraps to get rid of too! Wow. Does his room ever look better now, and it didn't take nearly as long as it could have.

I felt so inspired by that success that I visited my dining linen and sorted, purged, and neatly put away in a logical order the table clothes, placemats and napkins. (I host the big family dinners, so these things are used at least 4 times a year.). In the process I found 8 placemats I no longer find "my style" and some cloth napkins that don't really go with my favourite placemats. ta-da! 20 less things in the drawers!

+++++++++++++++++

It happened again. The shower curtain was getting a bit stiff (and maybe whiffy too?) so I went to hang up the "spare" shower curtain to put the primary one in the wash basket... but I couldn't find the back-up! Where could it be? I looked in all the logical places. And didn't find it. I must have purged it already. And guess what? The world did not end! After the initial twinge of disapointment at the inconvenience of not having the spare.... I simply washed the primary one right away with a load of other stuff (there is ALWAYS other stuff with an active family of 4). Voila! clean shower curtain no fuss, and no chance for procrastination!!!!

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