Big plans . . . not enough time!
Well . . . have you ever been to a buffet and piled your plate sky high with food, and then half-way through eating that mountain you realize “your eyes were bigger than your stomach”?
Well . . . my plans were bigger than the time we had! 🙂
But we did make progress, and it feels good! My 9 year old thought it was “AWESOME!” and he asked if we would do it to his room to! He was loving it that there was “less stuff”! Who knew he would love it? This – coming from a kid who HATES to clean his room, tries to shove everything under his bed, in the closet, etc. 🙂
So – here’s what we accomplished:
Day 2: The Playroom
*Set up baskets and bags for “Sell”, “Donate” and “Trash”.
I just wanted to donate everything we were not keeping, but my hubby wants to have a yard sale “like on those organization shows”. I’ve done enough yard sales in my life – that I’m kind of over them (hosting them, not shopping at them). But . . . if he wants to do it – we’ll have one. I just don’t think we’ll have as much stuff as he thinks we’ll have – and we definitely won’t make as much as he thinks we will (people in this area just don’t pay much at yard/garage sales). But we’ll see. 🙂
*Filed paperwork
I had files and papers sitting in a basket and pile, with the plan of scanning them into my computer. But they’ve sat there for years! {I’m embarrassed to share that with you!} So – time to just file them for now! That project will have to wait for another day. This took awhile (and my filing cabinet is now in need of a severe purging!), but it feels soooo good to have all those things put away (and some thrown away)!
*Switched the 2 computers around.
I let my computer-geek hubby handle this!
We have 5 kids always vying for time on the computer. A few years ago the boys got tired of our slow and ancient computer (and sharing I think), so they saved up their money to buy a faster one (which they’ve almost ruined several times by downloading viruses and spyware! But that’s another story). However, we found that with the “fast” or “good” computer by the kitchen door, and the monitor screen facing away from the kitchen, we did not really know what they were doing on the computer (and they could quickly close or switch from what they were doing by the time it took for us to step into the playroom to look). This is not ok for us. We’ve always said that they have to be out in the open when on the internet, etc – for their safety and accountability. However, they were still getting on and downloading games and music that was not allowed, or playing games when they were supposed to be doing homework. We’ve put passwords, removed administrative rights, etc – but they would still be tempted to do things they know they shouldn’t.
So . . . thus the switch of computer places! (no one ever wants to play a game on the “old” computer – because it’s sooooo slow! So I’m not too concerned with where it’s at.)
*Thoroughly cleaned the ledge, walls and doors.
The white beadboard was pretty dirty, had black marks and dusty (hmm . . . I asked my 9 year old how the ledge could be so dusty if he said he dusted it on Sat? He said with a smile – “hmm . . . dusting? What’s that?” :).
Can I just say . . . I LOVE my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser! 🙂
I thought we were going to have to repaint . . . but with some elbow grease, a rag and my Magic Eraser – I was able to get rid of most of the smudges, dirt, dust and more!
My hubby asked to take down the pictures on the wall. We have 4 magnetic strips that gave us places to hang up the kids artwork (one for each child – when we only had 4 kids). However, they are all getting older, and the artwork that was up there had been there for quite awhile. I may end up taking down the strips at some point . . . maybe put them in the kids rooms for them to use.
*Got rid of games and organized the game shelf.
As you can see – we kept only a few games (don’t worry – we have a LOT more in a closet upstairs. That will be for another day.). We got rid of all our preschool games, and my kids helped me decide which ones they wanted to keep. We also moved over the TV (though I might move it back over some – as it’s blocking the pics on the wall. I don’t like this monster TV -but it was given to us for free and is better than the tiny 13 or 15 inch we used to have – so how can you complain?) and threw away the DVD/VCR that we realized was totally broken (how long had it sat there like that?!).
*Got rid of & organized the movies.
I let the kids decide. We probably could get rid of more – but for now, we probably let go of at least 10 of them.I moved some out of a basket and put them on the shelf. One day we’ll get rid of the shelves all together (they were put up when the kids were little so they wouldn’t open up and dump out all the movies every day!).
*Organized and cleaned the kitchen set, food and shopping toys.
Wow – we had some dirty plates, cash register and more! My daughter loves to take the shopping cart outside with all the food and play out on the lawn (have picnics, etc). These things definitely were in need of some cleaning!
*Went through the shoe basket
Threw out some old ones, saved one pair for my youngest and put a pair in the sell basket.
What we didn’t get to:
Everything else! 🙂 The closet shelves were not touched and the mountain of scrapbooking supplies under one of the desks is still sitting there. I realized a long time ago that I was more of a “scrapbook supply collector” instead of a “scrapbooker”! I definitely need to purge that stuff and only keep a minimal amount of things to finish off some baby books one day (maybe).
Before and After:
Day 3: Finish playroom (?hopefully)
I do have several errands, grocery shopping, a b-day party that my youngest is going to, etc today . . . so I’m not sure how much we’ll get done out there. I may, instead, send my hubby to clean out his closet and dresser drawers or something. 🙂 I’ll have to let you know tomorrow!
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