Thawing Out.

It's been a busy and fulfilling few weeks since I last posted.  This past weekend, the conference that I have been planning finally happened, and it went very well.  It was held at La Salle University, which is why I was chosen to help plan, and the university really went out of its way to impress the attendees, or at least my friends.  We had a lovely reception in the campus art museum, which some of my art history friends really enjoyed.  Everyones presentations went off without a hitch, and we all had a great time.  I also won an award for the best graduate student paper.  Winning at La Salle was really special, and I'm flattered by the recognition.

Me and Dr. Bronner, one of my profs at PSH, as well as the namesake of the award.

Planning the conference, plus preparing my own presentation, and assisting with some other research at school really took it out of me.  When I got home on Saturday, I took a three hour nap.  I could barely stay awake the rest of the day.  On Sunday, my parents offered to host us for dinner and babysit so Jason and I could see The Grand Budapest Hotel.  I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan, and I've been looking forward to this movie.  It was perfect timing.  The snow and sleet here really bummed us out, but we had a chicken and mashed potato dinner with strawberry shortcake for a touch of summer.

Today, I finally got back to 40 Days, 40 Bags.  I did clean out the cars and did a little organizing here and there in the last few weeks.  In cleaning out the closet, our bedroom, the bathroom, and the cars, we threw out at least 8 bags.  I have another pile to take to Goodwill, but I'm waiting to do that in a larger trip.  Today I tackled the pantry.  I'm almost always embarrassed by the food waste in our house, and the pantry reminded me of it.  I got rid of one trash bag, and I took another bag of candy and little treats to school for our sadly empty snack bucket.  I have to grocery shop today, but the list is pretty short, and mainly just staples that we ran out of in the last week.

On Wednesday, I think I'm going to start on the attic.  I don't know how much we'll throw out, but it needs to be organized.  We also have a lot of blank walls, and the photos upstairs will definitely help eliminate those.  Finally, the books are all kinds of out of place.  I need a better solution for E's books in the family room, and I need to gift some to friends at school.

We started potty training over spring break, and while we had a few initial set backs, we are now staying dry during the day with some consistency.  We haven't tackled night training yet, since sleep is the highest priority in our house for the next month or so.  

I hope spring is finally arriving to where ever you are.  It's definitely doing wonders for my mood.

- M.

40 Days, 40 Bags: The Beginning

Of all the years for Easter to be late, this was not the ideal one.  I kept looking at March 5 on my calendar as if it was actually the first day of spring, rather than Ash Wednesday.  The weather has been warmer too, so it all came together nicely in the end.

As I said in my last post, I got rid of three bags before the 5th, mainly because the time was right.  My sister was here, and she could take the bags with her right away.  Here is what my "schedule" looked like:

March 5: My clothing (seemed like an obvious choice)

March 6: School office.  I share an office with four other women, so I really just took home things that no longer needed to be there, and I cleaned out my drawer.  A few clever (and free) organizing tricks later, I'm really making use of my small space.

March 7, 8, & 9: I was so behind on basic house cleaning (the time right before midterms is REALLY stressful), so I dedicated three days to catching up.  I did laundry, vacuumed, cleaned furniture, mopped, and got rid of the stuff that was cluttering up the major dumping spaces.

March 10: Bathroom. I replaced the shower liner, purchased a shower rack, and reorganized the whole set up.  It looks like a whole new space!

I'm finishing up my bedroom and our small closet tomorrow, and possibly the windows.  It's supposed to be really nice tomorrow, but snow later in the week, so maybe I'll save the deep clean of the windows for another day.

The house already looks 1000% better, and I can concentrate again.

- M.

Willing Spring to Arrive.

With the impending storm (this is getting old), I had to do something to make it seem like spring.  Even though March 5th is really the beginning of Lent, I started my 40 Days, 40 Bags spring cleaning / purging today.

My sister spent the day with us (my parents heat went out, and it won't be fixed until at least Monday), so she and I went to the mall.  I bought a few essentials (dress pants, a dress for a wedding), but when I got up to my closet, I realized how full it was and how few things I wore.  I already had a big bag of things from my dresser, and decided to let my sister go shopping in my closet.  She took home two huge shopping bags, and I still filled another shopping bag to go to charity.  I re-organized my closet (well, as much as I could), and cleaned up my drawers.

So, 3 bags down, 37 more to go.  I have a feeling I'm actually going to hit 40 bags this year.  Our house needs to be purged in the worst way.  Last year, we had just moved the year before, and I had done a very effective purge before the move.  This year, we just need to organize and streamline.

It makes it feel like spring is just around the corner.

- M.