Weekend Cleaning Project

The weekend was busy, filled with deep cleaning and laundry. Hunny started off the morning with mowing the yard and trimming the weeds. I coordinated the kids into tackling the tidy ups around the main parts of the house, and then took a trash bag in to the little girls' room.

The little girls' room hasn't been worked on by me for a few weeks, and it always amazes me how much trash and broken toys accumulates. I started pulling trash and dishes out of the mess. Hunny joined me and I lined boxes and drawers up on the bed, and we started sorting groups of toys into them. Soon the floor had been found from the bedroom door to the dresser in the far corner.

After all the floor was found, I sent the full bucket of little boy toys off to his room to be put away. I pulled 2 buckets of his toys out of their room! I packed away a full box of baby toys, a full bin of stuffed animals, a back pack full of dressup. Most of the bins and boxes went neatly into the closet, where they would keep mess from drifting back in.

Once the bed was cleared back off and stripped, we turned the dresser and rerouted the wires for the electronics, and then we turned the bed too. This gave the room a lot more space for the little girls to play each day. We made the beds with fresh sheets and pillowcases, and set up an empty laundry basket.

By the end of the day, the room looked amazing! The girls were excited to be able to see all of their toys, and promptly started exploring. =)

I love the first few days after a major clean, when we can all easily see where things go, and it is easy to see what is not a part of the room. For the first few days, even the 2 year old tries to help put things away neatly, and the 6 year old enjoys her space.

Major cleaning sprees like this take their toll on me though. I spent all of Sunday in bed, barely able to move, let alone able to chase little people. I am blessed to have an amazing hunny, and outstanding children that take up the slack when I am (rarely) out of commission. Today my back is a tiny bit better, but it is not yet back to nomal.

I do sprees like this on the kids rooms about once every couple months. This spree was more to condense and cull the trash and broken toys out. I wil continue this mission on each of the kids rooms an then all the living spaces too. My goal is to reduce our material goods by 50% over the next 12 months. I hope to have at least one yard sale and put the proceeds towards self suffiency.

But that is a whole different topic, for another day.