Little steps

Part of my cleaning/organizing marathon includes trying to get rid of anything we don't use anymore. Sounds totally obvious, I know, but it's like doing the dishes after dinner every night: what seems perfectly obvious and normal to normal people just doesn't occur to us, and when it does it's an inspiration.

WHY do I still have a bridesmaid dress (with matching shoes) from a wedding I was in three years ago? Storage in our home is very limited; we have two bedrooms, each with one reach-in closet. The closet in our "master bedroom" (in quoties because HA! hahahaha) is really small, maybe five feet long, so Don uses that one. The closet in the spare bedroom is a lot longer, so I've been using that one for my clothes, and one million other things. Now we have a baby coming, and I've been told you have to dress THEM in clothes, too, at least most of the time. More stuff is coming in, and yet no new closets have magically made themselves available. I don't understand this at all. To make the most of our closet, I have obtained* one of these closet organizer thingies. I hope it's as efficient as it looks, because we really can't bring in much more furniture. And have I mentioned that we're going with the cloth diapers? Oy. Hence, me getting rid of everything I don't wear, like bridesmaid dresses. A lot of it was easy, since I can't fit into any of my existing wardrobe, all I had to do is ask myself, "When I'm this size again, which will be at least a year from now, will I still want this?" "NO." Right now the organizer is still in the box. Getting Don to install it will be my reward for getting that room clean, I think, although finishing up downstairs comes first.


Speaking of downstairs, did I mention that we drove to IKEA last weekend-- about 2 1/2 hours away-- and cleaned out the rest of our renovation account for cabinets, counters, et al? I don't think the folks there are used to people buying an entire kitchen, from drawer pulls to faucets, at once. I can't wait until the apartment is totally finished, I'm just sick of dealing with it already. Honestly, we had no idea when we bought this place last summer, that we'd end up having to completely gut the kitchen and rebuild it from the wall studs on... New lumber, insulation, drywall, electric and plumbing, everything. it's really the kind of thing you want to plan on ahead of time, you know? Don has the next week off of work, and hopefully that is all it will take.





*I didn't buy it, I redeemed my "points" at work. We get them for random things like winning contests; I've been here for four years and had racked up quite a few and never used up any. Part of the changes for 2009 include no more points system: any we have we have to cash out by the end of the month. So I bought a closet system with them.