Sunday, December 30, 2012

Not an R Kelly song

Today we spent the day cleaning out the entire place, and deep-cleaning all the shelves and closets before putting any stuff back. Where the hell did we get all this shit? Seriously, it's like stuff just waddles in during the middle of the night and hops into the cabinets while we're sleeping.

To be honest, I blame Josh. He's stolen so much stuff from his parents' house that there's almost no more space in the kitchen unless we start storing things on the counters. I made a list of everything we had from their kitchen that Josh had brought here, and emailed it to Laurie with a note apologizing and asking when a good time to return everything was.  Really, I want to keep almost all of it, but this feels wrong. Tomorrow I'm going to use the waffle-maker one last time.

Alex got almost all clothing for Christmas, and wanted to donate what she calls all her little kid clothes. We spent almost an hour with her trying on everything she owns. We both have a lot of sewing to do. We seriously are going to have to just line up a whole bunch of movies and just spend the whole day watching and mending and letting hems out.

I made Josh go through all his stuff too, and make a pile to donate and a pile to go store at his parents' house. We wiped down the shelves in the closets with vinegar, let them dry, then put all the stuff we're keeping back in there. All our summer stuff is in a box on the floor.

Josh told me today that he'd read this thing about habits of poor people and I don't fit the mold or something. According to him, I am supposed to have a very hard time letting go of things, and am supposed to be more on the hoarder-y side than the minimalist side. But Aunt Elaine was hoarder-y and I hated it. Not only was she that way, but she forced us to be that way too. I love clean spaces. I love seeing a clean counter that has nothing but one bowl of fruit, or one vase of flowers or something. It makes so much sense to me.

It makes me so happy to open a closet or cabinet door and see everything super-organized and laid out all perfectly. Lame way to spend the day, but kind of worth it.

3 comments:

Chris said...

Well done. Today is my cleaning day, and I can only hope I manage to get rid of the stuff I've hoarded this past year.

Have a great new year, Sam.

Lil'Sis said...

Tomorrow is my day and I'm really looking forward to it, thanks for the inspiration!

Nina said...

Totally not a lame way to spend the day. I'm not hoarder-y like your Aunt Elaine, but I'm also not minimalist like you...still your way makes more sense to me. Happy New Year Sam. :)