Cleaning Results

The hall closet cleaning carried over to cleaning off the baker's rack, which carried over to cleaning out the pantry. Why? Well, stored in the hall closet was the box of Tom's Grandma's china that his parents sent us back in October. We stuck it in the closet because it was packed so well, and at the time we weren't sure whether we were staying or moving. We're still not sure, but I decided that Grandma's china doesn't belong in the back of the closet, it belongs out - so how pretty would it be displayed on the baker's rack? However, in order to make room for it, I needed to clean of the other items we already had there. Then, in order to find a home for all those things that were displaced by the china I had to clean out the pantry. That took most of the afternoon yesterday. I still have a couple of things I need to find a home for, but its taking shape. The cleaning domino effect continues.

Another result of cleaning out the closet - Zach and Maddie have found a new place to play. Tom came home the day we cleaned it out to find them playing in the closet - they had on their swimming goggles and snorkels and were pretending they were underwater explorers! How fun! Yesterday they did all their school work in the closet, then spent time in there with flashlights making shadow puppets on the wall.

You know, in the last year, we have gotten rid of enough "stuff" to fill another house. The more we get rid of, the more we realize we need to get rid of! I guess its an ongoing process. That would be the "keeping" part of "housekeeping". You don't "housekept", so its not something you do once and then you're done. Its ongoing (hence the "ing" at the end of the word). And you can't put it off to do later, that would be future tense, as in, "I will housekeep." Someday, my children will housekeep, so they can use future tense, but for all of us who already have a house, or an apartment, or an RV, or a boat, or a space of some sort that we're responsible for, we can't use the future tense - that would be procrastination. Kind of like what I'm doing right now as the laundry sits in the dryer waiting for me to come fold it. I need to get that done, but its lunchtime, and I'm hungry and need to feed the munchkins, so laundry will get put off just a little longer, then on to finish cleaning out the pantry. See? Ongoing. Housekeep-ing.