Category: Wendy

I’ve decided that if the Easter Bunny hung around to chit-chat, he would ask you to kindly eat all that candy and then fill the basket full of stuff you don’t need and take it to Goodwill.

Prior to celebrating the holiday, I attacked the black holes beneath the kitchen sinks. We have a regular sink and a small prep sink. Both cabinets, although tiny, seem to be magnets for crap of all kinds. What is not too apparent in the photos is approximately half a bottle of dish soap that spilled on the middle shelf and we managed to ignore for more time than I care to admit. But trust me—it was super gross.

I swear, we are really not complete slobs. You all have areas like this in your house, right?

Right?

Today holds a busy schedule, so I knew my purge had to be quick.

The kids’ bookshelf has been making me crazy. I finally conceded that no one is reading the board books anymore (sniff) and that many of the crummy paperbacks could be relegated to a shelf in the basement for casual reading. I purged a few books that no one reads and trashed all the half-finished activity books that no one will ever touch again.

I know this looks like a quickie, but somehow it managed to take me a full 90 minutes.

Let’s all agree we’re not going to discuss the state of the rest of the house, the laundry, or the amount of take-out we’re eating as I tackle these projects. Thank you.

When I started back to work last fall, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do everything I did before. Many things have taken a hit, but nothing more than the state of the house.

Piles have accumulated. Things are shoved into random corners with the hopes I’ll deal with them as soon as I get a chance. (Retirement?) Returns aren’t being made.

As I contemplated spring break, and ten days off school, I briefly thought of scooping us up and heading out of town. But then I realized what I really needed was to feel at home in my home again. I needed to feel relaxed as I walked from one room to another instead of cringing from being surrounded by to-dos.

The only way to accomplish this was to roll up my sleeves and dig in.

I made a list of the nooks that bothered me most. I’m not kidding myself—I can’t correct seven months of neglect in ten days, but I can make a dent in it. My goal is to tackle one thing each day. I’m not going to beat myself up if I can’t do it, but it’s always good to aim high, right?

Today was the mudroom, which is often the barometer of my mental health. It is the room that has been making me craziest, so I thought it best to tackle that one first. Three hours later, I stood amongst sparkling cleanliness.

I came up with the idea to document this week with photos after I had already started cleaning, so my “before” photo is nowhere near as alarming as it should have been.

I was so thrilled about this one clean space that I sort of wanted to shove the couch in there and hole up for the rest of vacation.

The cleanliness lasted for exactly six and a half hours.

There is now a huge pile of pillows and blankets on the floor, covered in vomit and waiting for the washer to finish running the sanitize cycle on a load of sheets and pajamas. Ellery threw up all over her bed shortly after she fell asleep.

So help me, please do not let Spring Break PurgeFest 2012 turn into Spring Break PukeFest 2012.