The Big Cleanout

The official cleanout has begun!

First I have been cleaning my office. Ugh! At times, you would think a bomb has gone off in there. When I work from home, I have to get it straighted out or I'd go nuts! I haven't been very good at keeping up with filing old bills and such. I had to create new folders for all our adoption paperwork and 2006 taxes. Yep - it's tax time. I can't complain as we owe very little money this year once I started itemizing our deductions. Hopefully we will have a new dependent to claim! Usually I am very quick to start filing, but since we owe money this year, I will probably let it sit a little longer.

I also started rearranging the books on the library shelves to make room for some of my scrapbook materials. It is all contained very well, it just happens to be in the baby's room closet with all my craft things. I really don't have anywhere else to put it. On the shelves, it doesn't look too bad and since I can get to all the paper and stickers easily, I might actually use all this stuff more. For the rest of my craft stuff and sewing machine, I think it's going to stay in the baby's closet. Actually we have an empty closet in the work out room but Harley's box is in there so it's not like we can put other stuff in there.

I put away the washed and folded baby clothes that we have ready to go in the dresser. This felt like a huge accomplishment to me. I liked them sitting out on the bed so I could look at them but I don't want Harley laying on it either. I'm also gathering the other items we have and they will go in the dresser too once the last drawer is cleaned out. I'm dreading looking underneath the guest bed. I'm going to have to - the bed has to be moved over to make room for the crib. I know for sure my wedding dress and 2 violins are under there. Who knows what else I will find, including stray dog toys that have rolled under there that Biscuit couldn't reach. I don't want to go through the stack of magazines that I have in there either. Why in the world do I keep them? More importantly, why can I not throw them in the recycle bin??

I'm going to have to get serious about cleaning out that room and keeping the stuff we really want. I'm going to have to do it, but it's going to take a while.There is no reason why 2 people can't live with all their stuff in a 4 bedroom house. I saw Oprah yesterday on designing for small spaces. If they can do it, so can I. Maybe I have too much junk.... It's much more important to me that our child has a safe and inviting space to call their own. We cannot use that room as a catch-all for stuff anymore!

Oh - I remembered what is under the bed! All the stuff that I had up on my walls as a girl! It will be fun to go through that and hang up some of those for the baby. I have a lot of "J" items.... maybe I should think of "J" names so it all still applies!?