Getting Pruned, or, The Silver Lining

Unfortunate occurrence #1: the car wreck. I missed my red minivan. It was gone for two weeks. (It's back as of Friday-hooray! But it was making funny noises, so it goes back in tomorrow-boo.)

The silver lining: Since we're kind of homebodies anyway, it wasn't the biggest deal in the world to be without a car. I got a few things done around the house, like fix a sprinkler drip line, and weed a lot, and clean a bit, and replace light bulbs, etc. I half-heartedly attempted to potty train Ivy, who is totally okay with using the potty before baths. But when I tried to get her to go, say, in the morning, she sat there, and yell-cried at me, giving me this look of utter contempt. Maybe I need to show her the Tinkerbell undies that I got. (Ivy loves "Tee-beh".)

In the meantime unfortunate occurrence #2 happened: our air conditioner leaked. Kind of a bit, onto our basement floor and onto bottoms of boxes.


(You can't really see it on this picture very well; it's just the still-wet cement two days after getting it all sopped up. Who knew cement stayed wet for so long?)
The silver lining: Fortunately, I've kept our cat's food and all that near there; if I hadn't, who knows how long it would have been before discovering the awesome wetness, and who knows how much further it would have spread.

Because I was stuck at home, my schedule was wide open to have the fixer guys come. And they fixed one part of it for a small fortune. Then, it leaked again the next day, and the guy came and fixed another part of it for another small fortune. I think it's good to go now.

But the leak turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It forced me to pull out all our boxes and go through things. And because I'm a minimalist, it was way super awesome to get rid of a bunch of stuff that we haven't used in a long time.



I also pulled out a bunch of books and put them out on our bookshelves. They had been in boxes because little hands kept bending them. But those little hands have grown up a bit, so now I feel safe pulling all those books out again.


And also, because I love to organize, it was awesome to put a bunch of things back in place and all together. I can Tetris the crap out of anything. And since I got my car back, I was able to haul off a bunch of stuff to D.I. and to the dump. I feel lighter!

Which is ironic, because I just read this scripture the other day: Helaman 15:3-...yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them. I looked "chasten" up in the dictionary, and it says "... to prune of excess, pretense, or falsity, refine; to cause to be more humble or restrained; subdue." So, monetarily, we've been chastened in the last couple of weeks. But maybe it's because I needed to get pruned of some of my excess.

*sigh* I love blessings in disguise.

Spring Break Projects

You know how I said I don't have any hobbies? Well, I can think of one. A big one. I like to organize. Okay, so it's not a really cool hobby, per se, but...it's totally me. And I own it.

I'm a nerdy organizer!!

Oh, and I'm also a minimalist. Big time.

Toss that crap out!

Anyway.

I don't know if it's the nasty weather. Or the extra time that I've had this week with not running kids around to activities, or teaching piano lessons, or helping with homework. Or the fact that it's just Spring Break, and my brain thought, "Hey! Spring! Spring = Cleaning!" But something has got me going on projects.

I wiped down my stair well, and both of my halls. I organized my pantry today. I cleaned out both of my hall closets. I made a run to the dump and to D.I.

So refreshing!

But part of my downstairs hall closet held a bunch of disorganized pictures. Seriously, it could keep me up at night. I think I've mentioned about 5,000 times how much I've been wanting to digitally scrapbook. This isn't just one project, though. It's scanning stuff from the last two years to add to the digital pictures. It's scanning my baby pictures, and my kids' "professional" yearly pictures. It's...just so much.

Here's a picture. Tip of the iceberg, my friends.


But, I figure I have a good 8 hours coming my way this weekend. If I just sit and listen to conference, I fall asleep (it's those soothing apostle voices!). If I sit and listen and scan pictures, I'll get double the awesomeness in the same amount of time. And then hopefully I can keep the momentum going until the dang thing is done. (Another thing about me: I hate having partial projects laying around. I like to focus on one thing at a time, and get 'er done.)

To my pictures and my scanner, I have one thing to say. And I will say it using a quote from "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs": See this contact? This represents you. See my eye? My eye represents my eye. As in, I've got my eye (sticks in contact) on you.

Bring it on, mountain of pictures.

Bring it on!

Stick a Freaking Fork in Me...

...I'm DONE!!

I finished spring cleaning my entire house!

{ much applause and cheering }

About five days ago I didn't want to see my bucket of soapy water ever again. The whole process was like working out to the advanced Taebo tape: how you hate it a lot a lot in the middle of it, but after you're done, and you're sitting on the couch all out of breath and sweaty, you're glad you did it. And seriously, I'm sore today, because it was like I worked out every day for at least an hour for the last two weeks (yesterday was like 7 hours), getting up and down off of counters and stools and chairs, and pulling stuff out and putting it back.

I was surprised by how many cobwebs were in the corners that I couldn't see until I got up near the ceilings.

I was surprised by how much dirt I dumped out in the soapy water, just from wiping my walls.

I was surprised by how much stuff I found to D.I. or to dump, especially since I'm such a minimalist. But when things are all hidden away, you don't have to think about them or face the "do I use it?" questions.

I am not surprised by the calm I feel now, even though I have the hugest pile of laundry to fold since it's been ignored for the better part of a week. But that's kind of part of my routine anyway.

I'm also not surprised by the new list of things that I want to do: the projects (recaulking, repainting, etc.), the other cleaning (like the garage, the storage room, etc.), and the organizational stuff (scanning Pete's mission pics, updating my address book, etc.).

But anyway, here are a few more before and after shots. The difference in some of the areas may not be as obvious by looking at them, but the feeling is so different!

The pantry before (somewhat chaotic), then after (glass jars moved away from Ivy's grasping level, and stuff clumped together a little better):

The "office" before (so dusty and cluttery!):


The "office" after (I breathe better just looking at it!):


My medicine cabinet before (the whole half-used bottles thing):


Medicine cabinet after (so pretty!):


Under my bathroom sink before (not organized):


Under the sink after (so easy to find stuff!):


So if any of you have the desire to spring clean, I guarantee that even if you do just one room, you'll feel so good! Oh, and Mary has extended her deadline to two weeks from today, so if you still want to participate through her blog then join in! She's having giveaways and a girl's night out and all sorts of stuff. And hey, even if I don't win anything, I still have a clean house! YAY!

And now, when I go to do the normal cleaning in my house, it will be so easy peasy lemon squeezy compared to what I've just done.

Aiye Em Soooe Smarrt

Minimalism is kind of my thing. Less is more. I definitely need to stitch that on a pillow. But then I'd probably get rid of the pillow, because it would be taking up room and cluttering some surface somewhere.

Mind you, don't come over to my house right now. You would laugh in my face at how much crap I have laying about, and then I'd be a hypocrite in your eyes, and then I'd have to erase your memory MIB style. So, just take my minimalism stance as the truth and we'll all be happier.

Anyway, most of the stuff that's been driving me crazy right now is the toys. The massive amount, the can't even walk in my basement without stepping over, on, or around a toy. So I decided to get rid of some of them. My brilliant idea was to take some of the lesser-used toys and sell them on Amazon. Then I could take that money made and put it toward something that we would use. See? Brilliant!

So I put a toy up for sale, priced it at $15. Amazon gives you another $6 to cover shipping, and when your item sells they take $4 as their little cut. So my profit should be $17. Simple math.

Said toy sold. Hurray! I rushed down to the shipping store to send it off. After they packed it up in bubble wrap and packing peanuts, I gave them the address (someone in New Jersey) and they rang me up.

"It will be $20." Huh? "Is that the cheapest form of delivery?" "The delivery is $13, the packing material is $7." My brilliant, money-making plan got dim really fast. (And? Thanks a lot, stinking Amazon, for painting the picture of $6 shipping!)

So, not only am I out a toy, I'm out $3. Merry Christmas, New Jersey stranger! From here on out, I'll stick to my usual D.I. routine. It'll be better for me in the long run, anyway, because then my obituary can read "philanthropist minimalist" instead of "cluttered entrepreneur". (But I think I'm still going to cry myself to sleep on my stitched pillow.)

My Wedding Dress

I loved my wedding dress. It was so gorgeous. Wait, that's an understatement. In comparison, it made Cinderella's ball gown look like she was still in rags. When I tried it on I just stared at it and caressed it. I had never felt so beautiful in my life as I did on my wedding day.

BUT...it was time to let it go. It was sitting in my closet, its beauty being wasted. So I decided to sell it on craigslist. I got a call last week, and Kari found it for her sister Jocelyn. They came over on Saturday to see it and try it on. Jocelyn loved it as much as I did. SOLD! I'm utterly giddy. Now I just need to figure out what to spend the money on.