My favorite F words.

When we moved into our home, the laundry room was almost empty. The washer and dryer were in there as well as the hot water heater, water softener, and furnace, but that was about it. There was one small closet at one end of the laundry room that had shelves on side and an open area to store mops and brooms on the other side, and a double wide closet with stationary shelves at the other end of the room. There wasn't a single shelf on the wall, and in spite of the fact that the room was huge, it really lacked efficient storage space.

We stored everything from canning jars to toys to under the bed storage containers with the kids' projects and out of season clothing to gallons of paint in the closets. The shelves were too deep and were spaced too far apart to be practical. I finally got wise and took them out of the large closet at the end of the laundry room a few years ago, and it made all the difference in the world. It's where we now store all the holiday decorations packed away in plastic totes. We finally realized a year or 2 later that the smaller closet was more convenient to store the outdoor Nativity scene than under the stairs where we'd stored them for several years. It took awhile, but we finally figured it out.  

Hubster helped me put adjustable shelving up on the wall above the washer and dryer, the wall above the water softener, the wall above the dresser that I sold on Craigslist last week, and above the double tub mud sink we'd had installed. It made all the difference in the world. We finally had a place to store some of the extra kitchen appliances, the laundry and cleaning supplies and extra rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. 

I've probably gotten rid of a full 1/3 of what had been on the shelves initially, and I periodically go through and purge even more from time to time. The last time I tackled the shelves was when Mom was here a year ago helping me out, and I got rid of a lot back then, but I decided, while working in the laundry room the last few days, that I needed to purge a bit more.

About 10 years ago, we bought a new mattress set, and we got a small plastic tote with cleaning supplies specifically for the mattress. It included different cleaners that worked on various stains and deodorizers to take care of any leftover smell. We use mattress protectors that keep the mattresses clean and stain-free for the most part, so we didn't use it. We used it once after a particularly bad stomach bug, but other than that it. just. sat.  


I realized as I was dusting it last night that I would probably never use it again. I didn't need to hang onto it 'just in case' any longer. It dawned on me that the reason it was so hard to get rid of was because of that stupid little plastic tote. The sticker on the outside announced the store we had visited, and it held everything very neatly. And while I know that the tote itself only cost the company about a dollar, it made it somehow made the contents more important than the other bottles of cleaning supplies on my shelf. It made it nearly impossible for me to get rid of.


For years, I have dusted that thing and placed it right back on the shelf, because I just couldn't seem to let it go. But I am stronger now, and my thoughts are clearer, and I made the decision to get rid of it. I put the bottles of cleaner in a plastic bag for Bugster to use at her house, since she has pets. I thought it might be useful, and if it isn't, she can throw it away. I took the sticker off the outside of the tote, washed it out, stored the floor cleaning pads and replacement duster heads in it, and threw several half-empty boxes in the trash. 

While it was a small victory, it was not the only small victory I had yesterday. We had 3 bottles of the same disinfectant on the shelf, but only 1 of the bottles worked properly. Two bottles always leaked from the sprayer onto my fingers when I used them, eating into the flesh on my fingers. I could never remember which one worked, so I put on a rubber glove to protect my hand, and checked to see which bottle worked. I emptied the 2 that didn't into the one that did, put the rest of the cleaner in the refill bottle, and chucked the others in the trash. 


I came across 2 more sprayers for the gallon jugs of laundry pretreater, and threw them away, as well. I'd tossed 4 the day before and kept 2. I tend to find one that works well and use it until it wears out. I know. I know. The new bottles come with their own brand new sprayers, but they have been known to be defective. I have had to open 3 brand new sprayers before to get to one that actually worked. I hate to be caught flat footed, and I think that's why I felt I needed to hang onto all the extras at the time I'd set them aside. I certainly did not need to hang onto 8 of them, though! I'm going to have to be more conscious of that when I get a new bottle of pretreater.



I have a bit of dusting and laundry to finish up today, and I should be done with the laundry room. It's nice to know that I should never have to tear it apart to organize it again, since it is... 


Finally. Fully. Functional. 

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. 

Goodness gracious!

I am beat tonight.


I didn't sleep as well as I could have last night. I slept wrong and woke up with pain in my hip. I did what I could to stay active today, so I wouldn't feel stoved up, but I'm enjoying my heating pad for awhile before I go to bed. I'm hoping this thing will work it's way out of my lower back and hip, so I can function better tomorrow.


I was compelled to work in our closet today. It was driving me crazy. It's just a tiny little closet that measures about 4x6 or so. The clothes hang on the smaller sides of the closet, so it's technically a walk-in closet, but it's more like a 'walk in and turn around' closet. Thankfully, neither of us have many clothes, so even though it's cramped it works for us. However, the shelves don't work so well.


There's a shelve that goes in a U shape starting from the edge of the closet, down the length of the 4ft wall, across the back of the 6ft wall, and then ending up at the front edge of the closet again on the opposite 4ft wall. It helps. I mean, it does give us more space for storage, but it's also a bit of a pain. It feels like there's a lot of wasted space above the shelves, since the space goes straight up 2ft, and today I changed that.


When we replaced our refrigerator in the Fall of 2010, we had to rip out the cabinets above the refrigerator and stove, because the fridge wouldn't fit under them. We made a set of pine cubbies to hold baskets to go over the refrigerator, but they were so warped we couldn't use them there. We put them down in the workout room thinking we'd use them there, but they just didn't hold enough for them to do any good.


Hubster brought them upstairs Saturday, and they've been sitting in the hallway ever since. We weren't sure, if we were going to put them in the garage or what. Then I thought of that space above the shelf in our our closet. These would be perfect! I measured, and they would fit in there just right. So after Hubby went to work, I got them wiped down and took them into the closet to see how well they would work.


You know what's coming, don't you?


Yeah. They wouldn't fit.


Well, technically, they were the right size, but I couldn't get the thing up past the closet bar. The cubbies were too long. So I brought them back out to the living room, grabbed the circular saw, and removed the last cubby, so they'd fit. Sort of. I did remove the cubby, but the circular saw got hung up on a knot in the wood, so I had to switch to the jigsaw to finish up the last few inches. It worked like a charm, and I was able to get the cubbies put on the long shelf in the closet.


I can't get over how much better it is! No wasted space! I was able to get stuff that was being stored on the floor up on top of the cubbies, and I was able to sort the stuff that had been on the shelves into the cubbies a bit better. I took the part that I'd cut off and placed it on the shelf above my clothes. It completely takes away the empty and wasted space, and I'm thrilled. 


It spent a couple hours in the closet getting things straightened up, vacuumed out and organized. I didn't get to the rest of the bedroom. I'll work on my side in the next few days, and I'll leave Hubby's side for him to worry about. It will be nice having things cleared out again, because it's getting a bit cluttered in there again. Hubster is looking forward to being able to transfer his books and a few other things down to the workout room/library. It's so cool that he finally has his own space, and I'm so excited for him. I'm pretty happy that it's going to make it a lot easier to keep our bedroom clean without the extra stuff in there, too.


So the end of my very productive 4 day weekend comes to a close, and I need to get to bed. 


5:45a.m. comes way too early...

what's cooler than a full bookshelf?...(title by hubster)

Two full bookshelves, of course!


I felt quite a bit better when I woke up this morning, but I'm surprised I was able to function. I ended up getting 4.5 hours of sleep, which is decidedly less than the 8 hours I need. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up on it this week.

Scooter is doing well enough she'll be going back to school in the morning for the first time in weeks. I'm not looking forward to the 5:45 alarm going off in the morning. Why does school have to start so darned early, anyway?


Hubster and I worked on unpacking and sorting books in the workout room today. We unpacked and sorted 12 boxes of books. We have right at 2 boxes filled to donate, and the ones he's keeping are on the shelves, as we speak. We have 14 boxes left to sort through before we'll be finished. 


Hubster is thrilled, and I am, too. It's good to see him happy and excited about his books. Hopefully, we'll get them finished this week, if not by next weekend.


I'm going to go drag my sorry butt to bed. I can't stay awake. 

Where do I start to dehoard? Pt 4 - Too many categories.

When I first started blogging, I tried listing everything I'd gotten rid of in the side bars. I realized I was getting totally overwhelmed, and something needed to change. I had such a problem categorizing that I couldn't seem to sort things into only large categories like 'donations' or 'trash'. I would spend several minutes trying to figure out which category an action or item fit best, and before I knew it 45 minutes had gone by, and I still wasn't done recording my discards.


I would list the categories that I'd dealt with during that particular day. If I donated things, I listed them according to what the items were: toys, (subcategories being educational, just plain play toys, sentimental, or vintage toys), clothes, (with subcategories of children's, women's, men's or baby clothes), and then I even sorted the trash in my sidebars into several categories. And if I got busy and forgot a day? Yeah. That wasn't acceptable. I would sit and wrack my brain for 20 minutes trying to remember everything that I'd accomplished for the day I'd forgotten to list in the first place. 


It was completely stressing me out, so I removed the lists and decided I'd try to list what I'd gotten done every day instead. But I soon found that I was mentally trying to sort the things I'd finished each day, so I could list them in a certain order on the sidebars. It was never enough to just say I'd accomplished a lot and leave it at that. It was was stressful and so time consuming that I realized I had to stop. The sorting was getting the best of me once again, and I knew I had to delete it all. 


I find that I slip into the pattern of sorting things into too many categories quite often. It makes things incredibly difficult at times, but I've been working on changing things.


The most important thing is for me to be aware of what is happening at the time. The moment that I notice that I'm falling into the same pattern of behavior that led me down that destructive road I travel so frequently, I put on the brakes. I stop myself the moment I notice what I'm doing. 


I ask myself what I can do to categorize things into fewer groups. Which categories can I eliminate altogether? What do the smaller categories have in common with one another? Which similarities overlap? Do they overlap enough to combine them into one category and sort them that way, instead of making things harder for myself? 


When I can, I eliminate the categories completely, like I did on the sidebar with the lists of my daily accomplishments. Or like I did so long ago when I got rid of all the different colors and styles and decided to keep only the white shirt hangers and black pants hangers, so I didn't go through the tiring ritual of sorting them each time I walked by.


Being mindful of what I'm doing is definitely the most important thing I can do when I find myself struggling with a glitch in my thinking. It takes practice to recognize when I'm in that continual loop of thought that gets me nowhere, but it's worth the work I'm putting into it. 


It's getting me closer to living the life I imagined for myself. 

Catching Zs on Mother's Day Eve.

Woke up this morning with chest and head congestion. It could just be a result of having our windows open over night. I'm really hoping that I'm not getting what the rest of the family has been dealing with lately, but I'm not holding my breath. I've had a headache for the better part of the day. Shoot, I've had them the better part of the week, and I'm not one to typically get headaches. I guess I'll know before too long.

All things considered, I'm happy with what I got done today. 

I got 5 loads of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away. I got 5 totes of clean clothes packed away for further sorting once things slow down around here. They're clothes that Bugster will eventually go through to see, if she wants to use any of them for her little ones. 


And then...

Are you ready for this? 

I found MORE laundry!

Thankfully, it wasn't a huge box. It was just a plastic under the bed storage tote full of clothes I'd washed before I put them in storage years ago. The bad thing is that they smell super musty-on the verge of mildewy, even. I'm not sure what happened that they smell the way they do. I think it has to do with the basement flooding 2 years ago and then the tote going into the storage pod on the drive. It doesn't matter why they smelled so rank. They won't smell that way for long. I've got the washing machine full and soaking overnight, and I'll finish the rest up in the next day or so.


I worked downstairs today in the craft area, too. I spent a couple of hours straightening things up, so the area was more conducive to sorting boxes and actually putting things away permanently. I still have a ton to do down there, but rearranging things and picking up a bit made it possible to empty 2 boxes before stopping for the night.  

All in all, I'm satisfied with what I got done today. I feel it was a product day. I'm just finding it amazing that even when I feel like I have productive days I'm not getting nearly as much done as I did when Mom was here. She was such a tremendous help!


Still. I have to remember what my grandfather used to say about situations like this. "When you're feeling bad about not getting everything you wanted to get done in a day, you need to look around and see what you did get done." 


I got enough done, and I'll sleep well tonight.

Collecting and broken butts.

I've been busy. 

Cough.
Sort. 
Dehoard. 
Suck on inhaler.
Worry.
Cough.
Rinse. 
Repeat.

The Hubster went in for an MRI last week. He got the results on Monday. His butt is broken. Well. Not exactly, but it feels like it is. He's had horrible pain from sciatica for the last 5 weeks. He can't sit down due to excruciating pain. He tore his hamstring where it attaches to his hip. Or his butt. However you want to say it. For all intents and purposes, his butt is broken. Add the pain of a bulging disc on top of all of that, and he says ready for an amputation. Thankfully, he's just smarting off, but he really is in terrible pain. I so wish I could take it away. We're hoping he can get in for an epidural steroid injection to get some relief.  Soon.



I mentioned I've been sorting things. Sometimes it's seemed totally overwhelming, but other times, I feel totally in charge of the entire sorting process. Sorting through things made it very obvious I have a problem with decision making and with collecting things to recreate happy memories from when I was a child. 


For example, when we were little, Mom tie dyed shirts with us. It's one of my favorite memories. I have always wanted to tie dye with the girls, so I've collected Rit Dye over the years when it was on sale. I didn't realize how much I had collected until it was all in one place. I counted it this afternoon. I have 32* boxes and 13 different colors. I am not sure, if I'm going to save them and try to get them used, or if I'm going to donate them, so someone else can get the the good out of them. For now, they're sitting in a 2.5 gallon zippered plastic bag on a shelf in the laundry room.


I'll be storing school supplies on a bookshelf in the laundry room, too. I definitely have a fondness for school supplies. I'm sure it dates back to when I was a little girl. I remember loving to inhale the smell of the new crayons and theme paper. They smelled so fresh and clean and new. They smelled of the future. Of stories yet to be written. Of adventure yet to be lived. There's nothing quite like opening up a new pack of crayons, notebooks, pencils or paper. 


And while I already did give away several reams of paper as well as several boxes of crayons and pencils, I still have lots left. At last count, there were 32 packages of college ruled theme paper along with roughly 2 dozen single subject spiral notebooks on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. We only have a half dozen 3 subject notebooks, but I haven't even started counting bottles of school glue, dozens of pencils and boxes of crayons and markers we own at this point.


We'll be keeping the school supplies, but not just because of the emotions they evoke. With Hopper and Scooter still in school for a few years we'll use them. And now with them all in the same place, we'll be able to see with a glance, if we'll need to buy anything at all at the back-to-school sales. I have a feeling we'll be set, though. Besides. Notebooks and notebook paper are such cheap entertainment for the girls. It's hard to beat the hours of amusement 200 sheets of notebook paper purchased for 10 cents can buy.

*I found 3 more boxes of dye after I started composing this post a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping I don't find anymore.

Home Sweet Home

For years I have tried to get the laundry room organized. We bought this house 9.5 years ago, and I've never once succeeded. Don't get me wrong. I've come close, and I've made amazing progress at different times. 


Let me back up a minute...

The laundry room is more of a utility room. It not only contains the washer and dryer, but it houses the furnace, water softener, upright freezer and water heater as well. It's a huge room. It takes up 1/4 of the basement-about 250 sq ft. We have room to not only store the outdoor Christmas Nativity, but we also have room to store 20+ totes of Christmas and other holiday decorations. The room also contains one small chest of drawers with a hutch on top, a 9 drawer dresser to use as storage, and a double utility sink in the room that we put in a few years ago.

For the most part, the laundry room is unfinished. The previous owners put in some drywall and a couple of closets, but the drywall is only on one one wall. The other wall is concrete, and the ceiling and floor are unfinished. I did what I could by painting the room a light mint green, so it wasn't so dark and painting the furniture to match. Overall, it looks okay. But it's never been organized.


The last 3 days, Mom and I have dusted, scrubbed, sorted, purged and organized. I'm exhausted, but thrilled beyond belief. For the first time since I started Project Laundry Room 9.5 years ago, the laundry room is exactly how I wanted it all along. And while it only took 3 days with Mom's help, that's 9.5 years in hoarder years. 

I'll post pictures later, but suffice it to say, I'm delighted that so many more things have homes than did a week ago. Whether that home is the shelf above the washing machine and dryer, the small chest of drawers with the hutch on it, or the trash, I'm thrilled they've found their way home.  


Slowly, but surely, I'm finding my own way home.

Almost human.

Today I felt almost normal.

After we got the girls ready for school, but before they were out the door I'd gotten the turkey I'd been defrosting for a few days in the oven. Then I went back to bed for a little while. I am still needing a bit more sleep than typical, and I may as well catch up on it while the girls are in school. I enjoyed the nap, but I awoke from a dream about a creep from my past. I woke up shortly after he said he didn't know how I could do it with the girls. That he'd tried but couldn't. (Just for clarification, this creep was out of my life long before our girls entered the picture). He then started walking away and said, "Love ya!"

Ewww! I sat straight up in bed with that and felt like throwing up. He's not a person I ever care to see again. Ever. Even in my dreams. So I'm not sure exactly why he showed up this morning. I hope he crawls back to the rock under which he belongs. I never, ever want to go back to that time in my life. Not in time. Not in memories. Not in my mind. Not in my dreams.

Some might say I have issues.

I just say I've moved on.

I showered to start my day, got dressed, and started deboning the turkey. It hurt. The turkey was hot. I thought I was going to have blisters on my fingertips by the time I was done. So I took a few minutes and got a load of laundry started in the washer and then finished deboning the turkey. I got my biggest stock pot down, put the carcass and some celery in the pot and filled it up with water to make broth.

Then, shock of all shocks, I didn't put off cleaning the turkey roaster. I typically don't debone the turkey right away and that results in me putting off cleaning the roaster as well. They're close to the top of my list of things I hate to do. Really close. So the fact that it's all done is just...well...nice.

While the turkey carcass was brewing on the back burner, I went outside and painted the final coat of white on the table tops. I was going to do it yesterday or the day before, but both Wednesday and Thursday were windy, and I didn't want anything getting in the paint. Good thing I waited. The tops of the tables were covered in dust I had to wipe off before painting them.

When I came in, I got the girls something to eat and emptied out a couple baskets full of laundry and put the stuff put away. The laundry included clean towels. And even though I'd cleaned most of the linen closet out last week, I still had work I needed to do. The top shelf was where I tried to neatly stack all the placemats, tablecloths, doilies and napkins over the years. Except there was nothing neat about it. Anytime anything had been removed, the rest of the stuff ended up all cockeyed and disorganized and looked awful. Besides that, I had no place to put our sheets,

So everything came off the top shelf in the linen closet. It's in a laundry basket. So in some ways, I just traded baskets of stuff, because the sheets have been in a tote for the last several months. A tote in the living room. And I was ready to get it out of there! So the sheets and blankets were put on the top shelf of the linen closet, and it looks organized and nice. I'll work on sorting the placemats, doilies and napkins this weekend and getting that basket emptied and finding a permanent place for it's contents.

By the time I was done with the linen closet, the turkey broth was finished cooking. I left it to cool for awhile and then removed the bones and strained the broth. I'll skim the fat off it tomorrow after it's had a chance to harden in the refrigerator. Then I'll freeze half of it for the next time I need turkey broth. I'll be making soup in the next couple of days with the rest. The girls have brought sore throats home from school, and even though it's going to be hot this weekend soup just sounds good.

Yep. I'm feeling almost normal again.

I'm looking forward to getting some dehoarding done this weekend.

A nice little break.

Hubster and I went out on a date for the first time in months last night. Bugster watched Hopper and Scooter, so we could go out and relax and also agreed to guest blog for me. I can't tell you how incredibly grateful I am for her help! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and it was just nice to be away from everything else. I'm glad we had the time with one another, because it will be several months before we get that time again. We just need a break from reality from time to time.

I started a major project when I woke up yesterday, and it was hard to leave it for the time we were gone for fear of losing momentum. It's been years and years in the making, but it switched locations last year when the basement flooded. I'm talking about...laundry. Not just ordinary laundry. I'm talking years and years of laundry that's built up. Well. Sort of.

I have a tendency towards perfectionism. A strong leaning, even. I think it comes partly from hearing, "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all!" when I was growing up. That has been my personal mantra on so very many occasions. It's why I don't take on something new until I can see the outcome in my mind. It's why I obsess about pinatas before I make them, why I fluff our clothes in the dryer before hanging them to dry, and why I am in the mess I'm in. It's why I don't do a lot of things, and it can be maddening.

This particular project I started at least 8 to 9 years ago was laundry, but not just your everyday garden variety of laundry. This was the sort-each-piece-of-laundry-and-make-sure-it's-clean-before-packing-it-up-to-donate-or-save-but-it-must-all-be-clean-before-sorting-may-begin-kind-of-laundry. I cannot tell you how many times I have started this laundry over the years. I've washed it only to forget about it and be frustrated to find it covered in dust and have to be washed again. But this is the last time.

Hopper's bedroom became a catchall when the basement was flooded last year. For some reason, the people who packed things up and took them out to the storage pod when they were cleaning put all these baskets of laundry in Hopper's room. I'm thankful in many ways. At least they're not sitting out in the heat of the pod cooking in stains and odors, but it also means I need to take on the task of finishing it up, so Hopper can get back into her bedroom, or I have to move it again. I voted for option 1.

So I brought all of the baskets and boxes of clothes out of Hopper's room and began to sort them Saturday morning. There were 5 of the 18 gallon totes (like the ones I emptied on the porch the other day), 3 large laundry baskets of clothes, and 2 boxes. I know. It was as lot. I'm not sure why I was even surprised at the amount, but I was. Anyway, I got busy sorting, washing, and hanging the clothes out to dry on the line.

Thankfully, only some of them needed washed. About half. And most of those are still waiting for me to wash them, dry them, fold them and put them in their proper places whether the proper place is the trash, the donation pile, or the save box. It's going to take a few days, but if the weather holds up, and we don't get too much rain, I'll be able to get most of them done tomorrow and will hopefully be finished up on Tuesday.

I already sorted the ones that didn't need washed. Right now, we have right at 20 grocery bags stuffed and ready to be donated. They just need to be loaded in the car and dropped off. I figured I'll wait until the rest of the clothes are ready before loading the car, but I'm very much looking forward to getting them out of my house!

One thing that's obvious about the clothes is that they have dog dander on them. I've been sneezing and wheezing the entire time I've been working on them. I know part of the sneezing and wheezing has to do with the brilliant move one of the workers who helped clean out the basement after the flood made. They put some wet clothes in a black plastic bag, put more stuff on top of the bag, so the clothes had no way to breathe and actually dry out and no choice but to grow mold and mildew in cosmic proportions, and then put it in the bedroom. I found it yesterday.

Yeah. So *that* was a fun discovery. I'm just hoping it doesn't prevent me from going in for my surgery this week. I'd rather just get the procedure over with, but I'm not sure, if the doctor will be comfortable putting me under with my asthma acting up. I'll be taking Bendadryl again tonight before heading off to bed. I'm hoping it might help the situation.

Oh! I almost forgot! That huge bag of clothes from the porch as well as the bag of shoes? Listing them on Craigslist was the perfect answer.

They're in their new homes.

They're no longer my problem.

Best of all?

They're no longer here!

Victory, I say! Victory!

One Fish. Two Fish. Red Fish. Blue Fish. brought to you by the letter H.

For years, I've done laundry a certain way. In many ways, it's tedious. I get that. Our clothes didn't show wear very quickly, because of the way I do laundry, so it saved us a lot of money by not having to buy new clothes. My trick? For the most part I only dry sheets, towels, undies, socks and sweats in the dryer. The rest gets 'fluffed and hung'.

During a 'fluffing and hanging' episode, the clothes go straight from the washer to the dryer, and heated until the wrinkles come out. The clothes are still quite wet when they're taken out and hung on hangers to air dry. In the summertime, the hangers of clothes are hung on the clothesline to dry and to have that incredible hung-in-the-sun smell when they're brought back in.

Over the years, clothes were passed down from one daughter to the next, and they often looked like only one child had worn them when we did finally part with them. The fading was minimal, and shrinkage was almost non-existent. It saved us money on the utility bills as well as on clothing replacement costs. I felt it was my duty to save as much as I could, because my husband works so very hard to support our family. I felt it was the least I could do.

Over the last couple of years, I've let up a little. I've dried a few more loads and fluffed and hung just a little less. But one thing I haven't let up on is a little obsession I have with the hangers. They have to be sorted according to color and style.

We have big fat chunky ones we use for coats, the kind with the notches on them to hang strappy things on, regular plastic hangers, and some big chunky ones with swivel heads on them. Some with swivel heads are orange. Some are yellow. The chunky ones for coats are yellow, white, blue and green. The notched ones for hanging strappy things were bright pink, teal and white. And then we had 2 colors of light blue, dark purple and white regular plastic hangers. And they had to be sorted according to color first and style second.

So not only did I sort hangers as I took clothes off them to fold or when the clothes were removed to be worn, but I also had to sort the hangers as I got things out of the dryer and fluffed and hung them. The lightest blue held my clothes. The darker light blue and dark purple were for my husband. The bright pink, teal and white were all for the girls. But sometimes I had strappy things, but I didn't have any light blue hangers for mine, so I had to use white. And the swivel hangers were used when we ran out of hangers and still had clothes to hang.

It was all quite tiresome. It wasn't just that I felt an obligation to sort the hangers. I couldn't stop myself, if I tried. And I did try. But they were such a jumbled assortment of hangers that I always felt stressed when I saw them messed up. It was distracting and it made the laundry room look less neat, and let's face it. I need all the neatness I can get.

But at what cost?

I have no idea how much extra time I spent on sorting hangers, but over the years, I wouldn't doubt, if it added up to an entire week. At least an entire business week. A M-F 8 to 5 sort of week. I know I spent a lot of time sorting hangers.

Today, I sorted hangers in a totally different way. I sorted them to give them to a friend who has a lot of kids and never seems to have enough hangers. She doesn't have the sorting problem I seem to have. All our hangers now are white, except for the chunky coat hangers. There are still two styles of the main hangers I'll use.

But that ain't nothin' but a thing. :)