Presidential Purge

Things were really starting to pile up around here. It seemed that everywhere I went there was a stash of things to be "put away" or "dealt with later" and I was beginning to wonder when that elusive "later" would be. Then I had an idea. Over a long holiday weekend Robert could take the kids and visit his parents and I could stay home and go through all the junk and put things back together around this house. I had the idea in September after we visited Russ and Joan as a family. But is was not until this past President's Day weekend that we were able to make it work. The calendar was finally clear, Robert had time off and even though this particular President's Day weekend was also Valentine's Day weekend, plans were made and I sent my family off with a box that said, "Do Not Open Until February 14th!" across it in red letters.

I had done some organizational shopping before hand so I was armed with plastic storage containers and a shoe organizer when my family pulled away at 8:30 Friday night. I had a plan and wanted to make sure that every minute they were away was well used. I hurried through the bedrooms and bath upstairs. They were already in pretty good shape and just needed a little straightening. The living room was also pretty easy. Next came the pantry, laundry room and kitchen, a much bigger job that kept me up until 12:30 or so. I sorted things into piles: garbage, donate or put away. And when the put away bin got full I would stop and go find homes for all the things in that bin. If I couldn't find a place for something, I really made myself decide if it was worth keeping or not.

On Saturday, I was ready to tackle the basement which was the scariest place of all. A few weeks earlier we had gotten rid of an old family friend, our couch and love seat, and the kids had scattered all kinds of junk around down there to fill the void. We had also torn Gable's room apart to paint and redo his ceiling and never gotten around to putting everything back in place. And then there was the storage room (YIKES!) and the craft table that was really more of a "let's pile junk here" table. Oh, and let's not forget all the Christmas stuff that was taken down and then piled in a corner waiting to be organized and packed away. I had my work cut out for me and I ended up spending the rest of the weekend down there. At first I worked in total silence. I tried turning on the radio but found that I was enjoying the quiet way more than having background noise. Later, I turned on the TV and watched a few movies. I had a great weekend and I think Robert is awesome for letting me have that time alone.

Some highlights of the weekend:
*Going to a gardening class and really starting to understand how to fertilize.
*Running errands alone. Getting in and out of stores at lightening speed and parking further out because I didn't have kids to drag in with me.
*A yummy salad from the Target deli for lunch.
*Turning off the radio and being able to hear myself think.
*Alisha bringing over food from Thai Chili Gardens and diet Cranberry Limeades from Sonic for dinner, having her tell me she didn't like my post about not having a sister because I have her, using her Escalade to haul all the junk away and hanging out at Target. :)
*Sleeping in on Sunday morning, even though I missed Sacrament meeting.
*The kindness of dinner and games with the Clarks Sunday night.
*Watching Northanger Abbey on PBS.
*The "Everything has a place and everything in it's place" kind of feeling.
*Big hugs and cute valentine pictures from my family when they came home.

I learned two things this weekend. First, I am very attached to my kids. Robert goes away all the time, but I have rarely spent time away from the kids in all my 12 and a half years of motherhood. I almost changed my mind and told them to stay at the thought of sending my whole world away in a navy blue mini van. I even cried when they pulled away. I just love them all so much. Second, and very contradictory to the first, I love being alone. It was so nice to find that I can function outside of the wife and mother mode and to reconnect if only for a short time, with who I was before they all came along.

Here's the pile of stuff that went to Savers. So far, no one is missing anything.

And here is the garbage pile. I actually had about 5 other bags of garbage and emptied 7 cardboard boxes that I was able to get rid of too. I am amazed at how much crap we had hanging around and feel so much lighter now that it's gone!