Cleaning Club: Looking for a Change

We've been in our house for almost seven years and I guess we're getting itchy.

Joe and I currently have the smallest bedroom in the house, which you may remember also houses the laundry room. At one point recently, Joe broke down and was all I work so hard and I sleep in the laundry room and I don't even have my own closet!

I started thinking creatively and decided that I really don't need my current office/closet/hovel. I don't need 90% of what's in there. All I really need is a surface to put a computer on and a surface to write on. That done, we could switch our bedroom with the room we use as a den and suddenly we'd have a grown-up bedroom! With a private door to the bathroom, sliding glass doors out to our own part of the deck, and beautiful view of the woods! But, most importantly, we'd NOT have a washer and dryer in our closet, we'd have a real live closet! A big one. One that can house Joe's huge stash of shoes!

It was a totally bizarro world Cleaning Club that day. The timing was weird, and for most of the time there were only three children here. Wha?! Yeah, it was weird.

The task at hand was helping me finish packing up my office/closet/hovel. I'd already packed several boxes and they were sitting, abandoned in the foyer.

We figured out where everything was going and moved several boxes to the garage and all the donated stuff Jennifer loaded up in her truck and took to donate for me (have I mentioned what a huge relief her willingness to do this is to me? I have, so pay better attention!)

We packed up the rest of the stuff in my office, dealing with where everything should go and talking me through the emotions involved in packing away so many years.

We found new places for things, got rid of stuff, and in what felt like no time my office/closet/hovel was empty (short of the giant desk that will need to be disassembled in there. See next week for Cleaning Club: The Demolition Edition!).

It was really amazing what we got done in a little over an hour. Stuff that I'd walked by over and over all week, not wanting to deal with carrying it all to the garage, and not really even knowing what to do with half of it, was cleared out and the task completed with what felt like only minimal effort.