1, 2, 3......375, 376, 377........793, 794, 795....

Praising God and counting my blessings tonight. 


Mom is out of immediate danger with her heart, and the surgery has been delayed for the foreseeable future. I have been weak with relief all day and so very, very grateful. Thank you to all of you who have had us in your thoughts and prayers. They have been very much appreciated!


I spent much of the day working in the laundry room and making some decent progress. I'm hoping to finish up in there tomorrow. 


The laundry room is  huge. It's approximately 1/4 the square footage of the basement. Granted, it has the hot water heater, the furnace and the washer and dryer in it, but there is still a lot of room for storage. There's a double utility sink, an upright freezer, a small closet with our outdoor Nativity scene stored in it, a small dresser with a hutch on top, the 6ft long credenzas we just put in there over the weekend, and a couple of closets at the end of the room that contain roughly 3 dozen plastic totes of holiday decorations. 


Like I said. It's big.


I had to do some rearranging in order to get the everything in its place after bringing in the credenzas for storage. Part of the reorganizing was back near the holiday decorations where we had a bit of miscellaneous stored. The wrapping paper has been stored back there, but I haven't really simplified it in years. Last year when Mom was here helping out, Hubster brought a huge plastic tub in from the garage that had most of our wrapping paper in it. It kept the paper clean, but it was a major pain in the backside, because it stored the paper horizontally instead of vertically. 


It was one of the things I decided to tackle today. I gave myself permission to throw a lot of small scraps of paper today that I'd hung onto for little gifts. I also threw out paper I'd saved thinking I'd use it again, because it was pretty. I haven't used it in all these years, and I realized I never would, so out it went. I sorted what was left into 2  plastic wrapping paper holders using 1 for Christmas wrap, and the other for everything else. It is so nice to have it all upright and easy to see. 


When I was trying to get thing put away in the laundry room yesterday, so I could get to the washing machine to do laundry, (it was torn apart before we knew about Mom, and I had to get some semblance of order in there, so I could get clothes washed, in case we headed out of town), I had to sort through what I had left of school supplies. I'd had them stored on a small bookshelf, so I'd have access to them when we needed something, but when I started going through things again to put them in the credenza, I realized I still had way too much stuff, in spite of having gotten rid of so much already.


Since I started dehoarding, I can't even count the number of packages of theme paper I'd give away. Yet when I was rearranging things in the laundry room yesterday, I counted over 50 packages still on the shelf, because I'd put it there as I came across it while dehoarding in different areas of the house. I have to admit that I was shocked I still had that many. It was obvious to me the hoarding still had a pretty strong hold over me when I was going through the theme paper a year ago, or I wouldn't still have that much left. 


I packed up over 25 packages of 200ct  notebook paper, (I didn't actually count them), for Bugster, Bubster and Frank to use for school, so they don't have to buy any for awhile. 

Notebook paper for Bugster's family.

In fact, the stash may actually take them all the way through school. If they can't use it all, Bugster will take donate it. I also gave them a couple packages of pencils, since they're always needed for school. I did keep just under 25 packages of 150ct theme paper for us, so I ended up getting rid of well over half of what I had on the shelf. All of the school supplies fit in one area of the credenza, and I love having the perfect place for them to call home. 

What's left of our notebooks and paper. A shelf sits right above them with the rest of the school supplies like markers, pencils, crayons and glue. I love that we will know at a glance what we have, so we won't buy anymore!

I'm hoping to finish up the rest of the laundry room tomorrow. I don't have too many loads of laundry left to wash, but I do have some I need to fold or bag up for donation. It will be nice to get all of it out of there and put it where it goes. And it feels really good to be making progress once again.