Vases, and Boxes, and Cups - OH MY!

Dear Readers:

Today I will share with you another of my glamorous life experiences: cleaning.  

Now, I will fully admit, I don't do it THAT often.  I keep certain areas of the house, i.e. the guest bathroom, clean but I do tend to let other things lapse.  But, I am reaching the point where I am just tired of STUFF.  We have 3 kids + their toys EVERYWHERE.  It would be nice if the few places these items don't stray are uncluttered and not dusty…

The unfortunate thing about cleaning, and I'm sure you can all agree, is that it can be overwhelming - like, if I think about all the things/areas I want to clean, they all depend on another area being cleaned.  Then, eventually, after all the "well, in order to do ______, I have to pick up ______, and then that means ______ room needs to be straightened…" thoughts swirl around, I ultimately say f@*k it, and play with the kids instead. 

I also, insanely, tend to think that if I have the choice between putting the dishes away, or reading C3 a book, I should read them the book because those moments are important.  And I feel guilty if I don't spend all of their waking hours occupying them.  It's exhausting.

But, on the weekends, sometimes my Hubs and I trade off and get stuff done around the house.  I had two projects in mind this weekend:  I wanted to clear out all the empty vases from my china hutch, and organize/throw out/straighten our hall closet upstairs.  

These projects DID get done (yay me!) but they were interesting and I found a lot of things I completely forgot about.  (Read: things I have no idea what to do with)

Let's start with the hutch.  So, for years, when Hubs has traveled for 6-9 weeks, he would arrange to have flowers sent to me, usually at school, every 2 weeks.  This makes for a LOT of empty, clear, plain hurricane vases of all sizes.  Really, how many flower vases does one person need?  Now that we have kids and flowers really aren't a top spending priority (much to my chagrin) flowers are few and far between.  These vases found themselves crammed into every available nook in my hutch, precariously stacked, leaning to the side.  My thought was always, "Well, they're contained and out of view, and they'll be fine.  But if we have an earthquake, we're screwed."

So, yesterday, whilst C&C napped, I pulled all the vases out and weeded through the other mishmash of items I had crammed in there during a frantic, "What the hell do I do with this _____?  Oh, I'll just stick it in here."  <cue opening of hutch cabinet doors…a pause as I try to imagine HOW said item will fit…then a gentle Jenga-like maneuver to place it somewhere…followed by a crossing of the fingers as I try to close the door, praying silently the door WILL, in fact, close>

Here is what this project looked like:

As you can see, I really DO have more flower vases than FTD.  

There were tough items to decide what to do with - I have 8 small votive holders and two heart-shaped glass dishes in which to put a floating candle, all from the day my Hubs proposed.  (Original candles still included)  How do I part with that???  He PROPOSED!  Major life moment!  I also discovered our engraved cake knife and server from our wedding…that I had completely forgotten existed.  I wouldn't part with THAT, but it was a "Oh YEAH, I forgot about this…" moment.  

But I digress, back to the vases.  I selected ones to keep - a few different sizes and styles, and boxed up the rest, also finding some long-forgotten wedding gifts we will NEVER use (hey, if we haven't used them in the past 6 years, what makes you think we'll use them in the NEXT 6…?) to box up as well.  Sidebar: I did have a fleeting mental image of the bottom of the <very heavy and full> diaper box giving out as I lugged it downstairs to the garage, picturing myself at the bottom of the steps, surrounded by shards of broken glass, and, probably being yelled at by Jason for not asking him to carry it down.  Luckily, that didn't happen.  Aces.

So now, the hutch is ^slightly^ more organized, has a significantly smaller number of vases and closes without a finger-cross.  

This leads me to project #2: the hall closet.  This closet has become a dumping ground for all things medicinal, but also towels, the iron (one of my 2…ask me the last time I ironed ANYTHING), lightbulbs, cleaning products, the bag of breast pump pieces and extra tiny bottles from my futile attempt to nurse the twins…in other words, it's a dumping ground for just about everything.  

Years ago, I attempted to be 'organized,' using shoeboxes to keep like-products together.  Yeah, that had fallen by the way-side, and just become an utter mess.  (I missed my opportunity to take a 'before' picture…damn.)  Something had to change.  And it was up to me to change it.  <cue trumpet flare as I don my Super cape and stand in strong, arms-akimbo pose>

While at my mother-in-laws house the other day, I was sent searching for something in HER hall closet.  I opened the door and was greeted by the sight of probably the neatest, most organized closet in the WORLD.  The towels and sheets were all by size (as she has a few different sized beds), and all other health and beauty aid products were by type and in clear shoebox sized containers, labeled.  I was in awe.  How could I manage to adapt this amazing system to my tiny closet???  I was immediately inspired, and whilst at Costco, we got some containers for me to do a similar thing.

It took FOREVER.  First, I had to pull everything out, and organize it by type.  I had to laugh over some of the things I found - for example, I am fairly certain, though I do not have statistical proof of this, that we have more bathroom cups than ANYONE in the WORLD, and will be set for LIFE.  We will probably even had to leave them to the kids in our will - that's how many we have, and how rich in cups we are.  <cue lawyer to children, "Your parents' last will and testament contains nothing but bathroom cups..."  The kids exchange side-ways glances of disgust before confirming that they still have to split them 3 ways.  Not to worry, Readers, they'll still each be set for life.  They will never want for cups.>  It's one of those things that you're like, "Oh, we're out of bathroom cups," so you buy more without looking to see if you have some, and then eventually, you end up housing your extensive bathroom cup collection.

But again, I digress.  Once everything was separated, I began boxing (labeling to come) and after a few hours, the job was complete!  I was sooooooo proud, the closet looks SOOOO good.  We can now see exactly WHAT we have.  And I also got rid of anything expired (well, truth be told, they're in a box on the kitchen table right now - what DO you do with expired medication anyway???  Thoughts???)  The closet has been downsized and categorized.  

While I was working, I saw an old Adidas box, top on, in the closet.  I pushed it aside a few times before finally thinking, "What IS in that box anyway?"  When I pulled it out, I discovered THE most random collection of items EVER.  Observe:

"What am I looking at?" you're wondering.  I'll tell you.  This box contained, from L-Rr: 

- what can only be described as a Christmas ornament that looked like a wizard staff, with a giant crystal ball at the end (source unknown) 

- a mug from Disneyland, 2004

- various extra hardware from Ikea furniture (in the Ziplocs)

- collector postage stamps with Washington D.C. on them

- a folded swatch of fabric with a reindeer print

- seahorse patches (naturally...)

- a giant "j" luggage tag

- a White House collectible ornament from 2003

- sea-related wine glass tags

and

- a scarf Jason's dad brought me from a business trip overseas that has a Gutsav Klimt painting on it

WHAT?!  

Oh my God, I laughed so hard.  At what point in my life did I say, "Yes, these items go together, I'll put them in here"?  Actually, this was probably one of those 'catch-all' boxes I threw stuff in when I moved from my apartment to here.  C'mon, admit it, we all have these boxes stuffed somewhere in our house.  I challenge you to find yours and look to see what odd things YOU crammed inside.

Sigh.  

But the projects are done, and although from the outside, my house looks unchanged (since I did choose to start with projects that are invisible to the naked eye), I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride.  

The "After"...still messier than my M-I-L's but a HUGE improvement...

Like I said, 'tis a glamorous (yes, Fergie STILL has to help me spell that) life I lead, no?

Til next time!