I couldn't take it anymore. It was stressing me out. It was stressing my husband out. And when he gets stressed I overcompensate by pretending I am not stressed, which is STRESSFUL. It is a vicious cycle. We were snapping and nagging at each other. So I put it out there. Lets take 2 days (I would rather a whole week but I can't swing it with work till after Christmas) and purge. We will both stay home and work all day. Go through bins and get rid of junky old toys. Get rid of all the extra suffies. Put all the DVDs and video games back in their cases. Shred/recycle old papers. Organize our filing system. Work towards and agree on an ongoing action plan to keep things in order after we are done.
Well day 1 is done and it was great. We focused on the basement. After we were done we had all the toys organized, 4 medium sized garbage bags full of crap, one large box of toys to donate (already gone) and another box of toys for me to organize for the consignment shop. It feels good. I am able to relax tonight. Usually I am jumpy in the evenings. I want to relax but I feel guilty and stressed out. It isn't relaxing to be surrounded by a mess of toys. Now, I can breath. I watched a movie without feeling bad about it. The kids took toys out to play with but since things are organized we were able to put everything away in a matter of minutes. LOVE IT.
Tomorrow we tackle the main floor living room, dining room, entry and if we have time the basement storage area. I definitely see another two days off out my future. We needed this. For our sanity.
2 comments:
Matt and I started taking a week almost 3 years ago when Brandon started daycare. His first week was a week off for us and we stayed home and did housework. Our house was spit spot clean and shiny for months afterward. We have planned a week of our vacation time for that purpose once a year since and we always fill up the time with projects and purging that keep us from getting too stressed about the backlog through the rest of the year.
I don't know how anyone does it without taking some dedicated time off work. There just aren't enough hours in the day unless you hire outside help or figure out some way to make your kids minions that help out every night and weekends too. :)
So? I'm curious to hear how day two went. THIS kind of stuff is just good for the soul. Jay gets all worried whenever I start to purge. I'm ruthless!
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