40 Bags in 40 Days: Day 6

Day 6 - lower cabinets and 2 utensil drawers... I really didn't want to do this today. Tuesdays are "the day that shall not be named" around here. Work is always crazy on Tuesdays, you aren't even properly into the week yet, and everything is always scheduled on Tuesday... (Because people will forget over the weekend if it's Monday...Down here in God's Country, Wednesday is church night, Thursday is the second most popular activity scheduling day, but people might take Friday off and go out of town. And Friday, well, we have high school football or date night on Friday ...) 

Anyway, I digress. I opened the first drawer to find this stash. I'm thinking quilt...

Then this happened:

And this is the worst idea for a cabinet ever, disguised as a great idea. A lazy Susan - but everything falls off back in that corner. And you can't reach it unless you have go-go-Gadget arms (which, unfortunately, I don't)...this cabinet is my nemesis. And tonight, I won the battle (and maybe the war?)...

Embarrassing under the oven photos. But it is clean now!

And gosh, look at all that space:

These are both afters, forgot the before photos for the utensil drawers, but you can trust that they were awful before and this is a huge improvement. I think based on my prior 5 days of photos you probably are going to believe me...

And I had a whole bag of trash (already taken out), and bag number 9 (?) maybe for the Salvation Army. Plus a blurry action shot of Puppy. 

Tomorrow is lucky #7 (and...you know what day it is???? Ask the camel ... )

40 Bags in 40 Days: day 5 & life in general

1. I don't mind the *idea* of Dayligjt Savings where our clocks jump forward and we mysteriously lose an hour. I think it's a little antiquated since we don't have a rural farm based society...but down here we DO still have a lot of farming ... I don't mind the switch because the sun stays up until after dinner and I can see and smell spring around the corner. That said....

BITE ME, TIME CHANGE. I am tired and whiny and my kids don't want to get up an hour before the sun even lightens the sky and coincidentally they also don't want to go to bed at what feels like 7pm... More coffee. Please. 

2. I spent an hour or so making deliveries during my lunch hour yesterday:

 - big box of 37 books and cookbooks to the library

 - 2 bags to the Salvation Army of housewares, tablecloths, and decor

 - 3 things to the post office to mail to recipients of my cleaned out stuff. 

3. My pots and pans closet in the kitchen were on my to do list for clearing out yesterday. I felt exhausted (thank you daylight savings), had a crazy long day. I spent an hour plus after dinner cleaning the kitchen counters and floors up from my weekend of purging madness. Then I say down. But I did get up angst. And my manly man helped me get all that stuff out of there. 

I didn't take a bunch of photos and the ones I did are blurry but here they are: this was the counter after I started pulling stuff back out into my very clean kitchen.

 

Here are a few of the junked up shelves:

The floor was also piled up high with a slow cooker, canning supplies, brooms and mood and other junk. But alas, I didn't get a photo. Sorry!

Here are the afters:

I am sorry they are so blurry. I had my lifeproof case on my phone because I am not at all trustworthy with phones-sans-cases and it tends to get clouded around the lens area. Plus, I was totally wiped out, y'all. But - it got done and now I have 2 more bags for the Salvation Army Tomorrow! When I get to the clothes we can't hand down to friends and neighbors I will take those to Goodwill. :)

Up next: the dreaded Tupperware cabinet, junk utensil drawers, and another lower cabinet ...

40 Bags in 40 Days: days 3 & 4

Ok - sorry I didn't get a post done yesterday to update about Friday's tasks and results but today is FULL of what I hope are sorta cool before & afters. 

So, I had to grocery shop on Friday. We had a fridge-on-the-fritz that wasn't cooling and all our food spoiled. Which meant we needed new food. And to clean out the nasty (and I do mean naaaasty) food that had spoilt. The fridge was on my 40 Days list but not for Friday. Hey, sometimes y'all know you gotta go with the flow. This is what happened, clockwise from top left: yucky messy stinky fridge, emptied and sanitized fridge, super pretty clean and organized COLD fridge, and my artistic arrangement of the magnets. 

Then, on Saturday, I was making coffee (after my 8 mile long run with one of my BRFs out at Berry College) and I could not STAND the cabinet over the coffee maker one.more.minute - we shove medication, tea, coffee, koozies, and whatever else in there. And also, it would be nice to keep coffee mugs in a cabinet, you know, like, the cabinet OVER THE CoFFEE MAKER? Sooo....this is what happened there:

Voila. Mugs, coffee, tea, and vitamins. Everything you need before you are really awake enough to deal with the day:

And then, today, well, the cabinet NEXT to the coffee cabinet was kinda getting on my nerves and all... Because I was looking for AAA Batteries and as you can see in the before pic on the left, when that cabinet gets open, there is an avalanche of batteries, old papers, bills, there was a Bible and wood glue in there. In the same cabinet. With my extra checkbooks. Hey, Lent is about getting real, y'all. Remember when I told you I was the messiest, most unorganized person I know? I was not exaggerating. So - this turned out pretty awesome. 

Friday's project: day 3, was my junk closet. First, the right side...Everything ended up there. Gardening junk, the kids' cute artwork that was done on the fridge but I didn't want to throw away, my cordless drill, old Easter eggs ... Everything. But now it's all organized! I would also like to make a note here that those white baskets are awesome, I also used them in the fridge to contain the cheese and other snacky things and under the sink to wrangle the bottles and sponges into submission. Here's the best part about those baskets: they came from Dollar Tree! 

And here is the left side:

And, I am frankly a little embarrassed about this next one of the closet. But as I am being "authentic" and "honest" and all those other *ahem* "virtuous" things, especially during lent when I am searching my heart and cleaning out the clutter there, too (which includes pride and all...) here is the bottom of my junk closet. At least I can now see the floor!

So here's the haul from Friday & Saturday: 2 black 30-gallon bags of donations (kitchen items, toys, other random stuff), 3 white bags of flat out trash, the black and white plaid bag is donations for the South Broad Food Pantry, and a big stack of unused cookbooks (hello, I have Pinterest now - though I did keep the special ones that were gifts from my grandmother and others who I admire as those who have fed me well...

 

So, there you have it. A successful weekend of purging. I appreciate all your sweet comments and encouragement and making me feel like I am inspiring some of you. This is SO out of my nature and comfort zone - and that makes your kind words and reading this blog so special and important to me. Thanks, loves. 

40 Bags in 40 Days: Day 2 (under the kitchen sink)

I made it through day 2, y'all!  Day 2 of my 40 bags was great.  I started the day with dropping off over 100 books and 70-something DVDs at the Rome-Floyd Library.  

Then I stopped at WalMart (or, if you're from around here: "The Wall Marts") on the way home after work and bought a tension rod (like for a curtain), and some inexpensive plastic baskets, and rubbery shelf liner stuff.  The kids and I and opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink, which looked like this... 

BEFORE:

About 40 minutes later, we had this:

AFTER:

 And we got rid of this:

2 bags, recycling and trash:

A few notes about this area:  In the last few years (because of the big scary "C" word (cancer)) I have been much more conscious of using harmful chemicals around my house.  Yes, there are situations where bleach is necessary.  But, they are few and far between.  So, I clean with a vinegar solution, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and I do still use furniture polish.  I mop the floors with the steam mop or vinegar and water.  This means I could get rid of A LOT of the chemical based cleaners (that were 2/3 empty anyway) under my sink.  (See the trash bag on the right...), and I was able to store other things from the kitchen closet (trash bags, etc.) under the new freed up room under the sink.  YAY!  

Also, who has (or could ever, ever, EVER need) this many grocery bags?

While I was doing this, I was also making dinner.  In trying to find the random can of refried beans I just *knew* we had, I ended up cleaning a bonus cabinet that was not on the list.  I didn't get a before picture, but here is the after:

 And, in the process of cleaning out that cabinet and adding things like a never-used iced tea maker and an extra hand mixer to the donate bag, I was able to drop this bag of donations off at the Salvation Army today.  The donations guy: "Two days in a row, huh?" 

My reply: "Hopefully it will be 40 days in a row!"

I explained my situation and he said he would save a stack of receipts just for me.  And, he said he would pray for me.  Score!

Day 3 today...up next, my kitchen clutter closet/pantry/catchall...it's a huge one...

 

As always - stay tuned tomorrow for my progress!!!  And, thanks for reading.  Your encouragement has really kept me inspired (all three days, I know...) and I'll need it for the 37 more to come!

40 Bags in 40 Days: Day 1

Remember this? - this was my living area corner yesterday.  I love books.  (Obviously.)  My kids and husband love movies and video games, obviously.  But, we've read (most of) the books, seen most of the movies - and even if we were ever to want to watch/read them again - we have 5 Kindles between the 4 of us, an iPad, and netflix on each of the 3 televisions in our home.  We do not heed this stuff.  (See the original Nintendo Entertainment System circa 1987 in the bottom left corner there?  We kept it, but we stored it properly...)

My day went like this:

1.  I finished a trial calendar, so I blew off the office the rest of the day and finished a quilt for the St. Mary's School auction... (gratuitous quilt photos follow...)

Then, I took a break at lunchtime and got on Facebook and clicked a shared link to this:

40 Bags in 40 Days.

My mind started ticking away all the reasons I should... nay HAD to do this.  

(My husband is rolling his eyes right now.  I have some hairbrained ideas....)

Then I made a plan.  I printed this out:  WHBS Shared Free PDF Planner

So far it looks like this:

Then I ran a bunch of errands.  I took an injured dining chair to my dear father in law for repair, I delivered the quilt to the auction folks, I found some books I had to return to a friend (see bookcase above!), I dropped off TWO 30-gallon trash bags of donated clothes that have been kicking around the garage for a month to the Salvation Army, I went to the chiropractor (that was purely for me), I filed a Notice of Appeal I had forgotten about in the morning, and then I picked up my children from school at 4:30.  

This is where things started to get amazing.  I explained to the children I needed to go to Big Lots.  BUT, we were not going to get any treats or stuff there.  We were only going to get trash bags and a few storage tubs.  WHY???  In the car (where I swear our most precious and deep conversations occur), we talked about sacrifice and Lent and removing blocks between our physical life and our mental and spiritual life.  Then I got to the "we are getting rid of as much stuff as we can part" and I held my breath.  But to my surprise and delight, they said "Cool."  So far so good.  We got trashbags and storage containers and came home and got to work.  This is what it looked like in progress:

I sorted.  I stacked.  I purged.  I trashed.  I piled.

The numbers:  I donated 104 books, 73 DVDs, and a few other random items on the shelves.

I filled a whole trash bag of recycling of old magazines and papers.

I filled another whole trash bag of actual trash (see that white bag on the right there?)
I also found a lot of things.  

I found a treasure, or ten:

I found that some books are so nice, I get them twice...and then I get the video, too.

I found out Puppy is a great helper.

I found out (again, as I find this out daily) that with a little convincing, if I tell my husband something is really important to me, he gets on board, 100%, and encourages and helps me do what I want/need.  Here he is patiently pulling out nasty wads of clogged up dog hair from the vaccuum tube.

And then, I found the floor.  And I found some peace.

UP NEXT:  Day 2 - Under the Kitchen Sink

Are you on board?  You can still join in any time!  Leave me a comment and let me know.

I'm only a day in and it is already changing my life.  I can't wait to see what else I find.

This is Lent.

40 Bags in 40 Days: My Lenten Promise

Today's new fresh blogging start is brought to you by 1) An abundance of stuff in a small house; 2) a strong aversion to cleaning; 3) Ash Wednesday, and 4) this quote:

You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' 

You make a mistake. 

If you are not content with what you have, 

you would not be satisfied if it were doubled. 

--Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I no longer attend St. Mary's Catholic Church here in Rome (though it and its people still hold a beloved place in my heart), but that is a whole other post for a whole other (post-Lenten) day. I still LOVE and enjoy the celebration of Lent and all the nuanced and specific meanings for why Catholics (and other Christians) do what they do during Lent.  My first and most profound Lenten experiences were during the spring of 2000.  I was in law school.  I was engaged.  To a Catholic.  I had been attending St. Joseph's Catholic Church.  I decided to join the Church, officially.  Not because I was converting, but because I liked how the Mass and liturgy and the Eucharist was celebrated.  Fr. John Cuddy in his inspired wisdom was able to make me feel like I belonged there, and accepted me for whatever I believed; he patiently answered all my "Why do Catholics Do That?" questions.  I was well-raised and properly churched as the granddaughter of a (decidedly academic and brilliant) Baptist minister...who, incidentally and as a random tidbit of knowledge, wrote a book on C.H. Spurgeon (quoted above) and his son titled Lamplighter & Son. In the end, I celebrated my first communion at the Easter Vigil service that year after spending 40 days of entering the Church every day, kneeling, lighting a candle, and praying and meditating on what exactly was my purpose in life.

Of course, as a young law student at the ripe old age of 22, I couldn't have known my purpose in life.  I had no idea I would represent seven time convicted felons, or that I would defend accused child molesters.  And I am confident at 36 that I still don't *exactly* know what is my purpose. (Though I am confident that part of that purpose is defending the US Constitution, and specifically the 6th and 14th Amendments...but that is another post, too.)  What I DO know is that I have a purpose.  I know that God has a plan for me.  Or many.  My purpose in this world is dictated daily by my roles on this earth as a wife, a mother, an attorney, a friend, a daughter, granddaughter, niece, neighbor, and even sometimes my purpose is to be a kind stranger.
I spent a lot of time this weekend contemplating Lent.  We no longer regularly attend Catholic Mass, and we have a new non-denominational church that we are loving:  Cornerstone Church...  However, I couldn't decide where my unconventional Christianity fit into the celebration and preparation of Lent.  I love Lent.  It's hard, it's painful, I struggle with whatever it is I have committed to do (or not do) for 40 whole days.  Yet, when Easter comes, I am so relieved.  Not because I can go back to doing whatever it was I quit, or because I don't have to keep being so frugal or doing x, y, or z every day anymore - but truly relieved that I did it.  I committed to something that would make me better, make me serve my purpose - whatever it happened to be during those 40 days.

Today, I knew when I saw Terri's post linking to 40 Bags in 40 Days, that my purpose for this Lent was to clean up the clutter.  Yes, I am a confessed clutterbug.  This is not news to those of you who know me.  I have fought against it my ENTIRE LIFE.  And now, my children are also clutter-makers and clutter-keepers.  But my purpose is not just to live in a less-cluttered house, but to remove all the STUFF.  The STUFF that gets in the way of living.  The STUFF that has to be cleaned around, put away, dug through to find the swim goggles for practice or the instructions for replacing the garage door opener battery... all that STUFF in my life takes away time, energy and focus from living and loving and enjoying the PEOPLE in my life.  My kind and brilliant husband.  My precious and hilarious children.  My comforting and encouraging friends.  My supportive and always-there family.

So - there you have it.  My Lenten project.  I'm fasting from STUFF.  Not only do I make the pledge to a bag a day for 40 days, but I also pledge to not bring in any more STUFF that isn't necessary.

I already have an area.  I'm starting today.  Here is what it looks like:

My bookshelves & CD/DVD/Game Corner

AKA: where everything we don't use goes to die...

Check back for my progress, I am super excited; I am ridiculously nervous, but excited.  Hope to update every day or two!  And, thanks for reading.  I wish you a transformative Lenten season. 

Updates via photo-montage

Sorry it's been so long. Really, I am. But I'm here now, so quit your bellyachin' already!!! Here's a quick overview of the highlights of the last few months from when I've been missing...

(in not-chronological order...)

SNOW!!! Today is Snow day number 3. Really? In Georgia? Yep. Pretty house. Going well so far!

View from the back deck early on the first snow day.

We decorated Christmas cookies and a gingerbread house with our beloved Miss Debbie. (Miss Debbie happens to be mom to The Boyfriend...and our new neighbor. LOVE HER!)

We loved Christmas vacation. Stayed home a whole week with the kidlets. Here - dueling preschoolers on laptops. Still in PJs at 2pm. Ahhh, vacation. (You can sorta see our tree there in the background, too!)

Cole got to ride the school bus for the first time in January to his new school! West End. Actually, they aren't normal school busses, they are the huge RTD (city transport) busses, since he goes to City School. He loves the bus and catches it to school every day. Here - fun at the bus stop. Carson can't wait to ride with him come August...

Cole's kindergarten class took chartered busses to Atlanta to see the Ringling Bros. circus! We got to go down on the floor and have autographs from the performers before the show started. However, the real entertainment of the trip was that there was a real working potty on the charter bus.

More kids at the circus. (They were not particularly amused that I was taking their attention away from the action for a photo op - hence the not-real-smiley-faces.)

And, we're up to the present - Today is "dress-like-your-favorite-Dr. Suess-character" day for Cole. Note the fuzzy cat belly and huge satin bow-tie. Specially made by Mommy. I'm good, I know. Ha ha ha ha ha. He actually did love it!!! This morning he came in and gave me huge smooches and hugs and said "THANKS MOMMY!!!!" - that made it all worth it. (Not that it was really that much of an undertaking. 4 layers of quilt batting tacked to an oval of canvas and stitched to a black long-sleeved tee....with a strip of cheap leftover polyester satin fashioned into a tie and tacked onto the collar of the tee.)

So, in other news - I LOVE MY HOUSE! Love it. Had no idea that I was missing that sense of "home" that I now feel. My trial calendars are swallowing me whole....but I'm grateful for a steady job and security. I have started a group training class at the gym and loving that...part of the motivation for that is that I have TWO vacations planned for the summer already. More on that later...

The Boyfriend - I love him. He loves me. He's great, and still around.

Hmmmm, what else? How are y'all?