In an attempt to have a truly exhilarating Friday night, I came after work & errands were complete with a plan to get my house in order. Well...most of my house because I'm realistic & I knew the spare bedroom & attic reorganization projects were more excitement than I could handle tonight. So on a night where my lovely daughter is not home & I'm free to do whatever I want, my plans looked like this:
1. Put on my coziest sweats.
2. Watch the season premiere of Grey's online (because I'm done with paying cable bills for a while).
3. Eat the chili I made in the Crockpot today because I need soup in the freezer & ready for these rainy days when I want to come home & have soup by the fire. I love this time of year.
4. Put the rest of that chili in jars to freeze.
5. Get this house in shape!
I can't take the clutter, the floors needing vacuumed, laundry that has been accumulating all week, my bathroom counter that looks like a jewelry showcase just got ransacked, please don't even get me started on the kitchen that Ky never completely cleans..there's always something left for me.
Doing laundry is honestly one of my favorite chores. It's easy, you can throw it in the washer & then go do something else, like watch Grey's online. Then you switch it to the dryer, start another wash, do something else to pass the time...it should be cleaning, but sadly it was not. Then the dryer stops & there is warm, cozy laundry to fold. Now comes the challenge:
PUTTING IT AWAY!!!!
Let me give you a little history on my household schematics. Ky has had the largest room in any place we lived for her entire having-her-own-room existence. The rule is that none of her toys could venture out into my territory...the rest of the house. In our current home, of nearly 4 years, she has the master bedroom. That's right...Mini Me has her own bathroom & walk-in closet. She also has a good amount of square footage on me as I actually have the smallest bedroom in the house. Another fun fact, she doesn't use her walk-in closet or her bathroom. Occasionally the bathroom gets used for important things like admiring herself in the mirror or storing dirty clothes. She uses my bathroom for, well, going to the bathroom, as do all of her guests. Yep. Pretty sweet.
Now the keep your things in your room rule has been fairly successful over the years. I have to say it has worked out. Here's what is not working out:
MY CLOSET SPACE
My closet space is why putting away laundry is such a nightmare. Our house is going through some remodels. My bedroom is the only bedroom that has been remodeled. This is another reason that it is my bedroom...so Ky doesn't destroy my awesome stepdad/landlord's work. My bedroom is small. It can barely contain my queen size bed, one small dresser & a tiny side table that is not much wider than the iHome alarm clock that is the only thing residing on this table. I don't think a king size bed would fit in there. Definitely no room for another dresser. It has a standard sized closet. A beautiful cedar lined, with shelves & drawers built into it, closet. I own a lot of clothes. Do not be alarmed at the images you are about to see...I'm a girl, I love clothes.
Notice that I have added a hanging bar to fit another row of hanging shirts...all grey or black.
Those are rolled up belts at the top. Yes, I keep my shoes in boxes whenever possible. How else do you think they stay looking like new?!? Also, please note how close those hangers are to one another...we will get to that.
This right here, this is just my shirts, jeans, belts & some shoes. There is a dresser. It has 3 drawers. They contain: socks; bras, tights, & leggings: and finally, pajamas bottoms & sweats. There are also some Rubbermaid stacking drawers behind that dresser in the bottom corner of the closet...full of pajama shorts & capris and another full of shorts & capris...to be worn in public on sunny days. The other shoes in boxes are in another closet down the hall, my spare bedroom has a closet full of dresses & things I do not wear very often. Under the bed in the spare bedroom are 2 containers of shoes not in their boxes. There is also a drawer in a vanity in my living room full of workout gear. And...last, but certainly not least, is my coat closet.
Heaven forbid anyone else need to hang their coat up because, well, it is full. All my coats, 3 hangers laden with summer scarves, more shoes & the suitcase up top, well that is full of winter scarves. Full. The other 2 suitcases, on the other side of the pile of hats, that you cannot see...they are full of purses. Got to have accessories. I know you are thinking, "Why don't you donate what you don't need?" Well, I'll tell you. I have. I do. A few years back I puled about 7 large storage totes worth out of there. Several friends got new wardrobes, my sister got a bunch of new clothes, a garage sale was staged, Goodwill donations were made. All because I had worked really hard for a couple of years & lost 33lbs. I've found the majority of those lbs. I haven't however made it back into the clothes I shrunk out of. That muscle is denser than fat so I'm still in the wardrobe I had to rebuild after that transformation. Imagine that much came out & was eventually replaced. I have tried to say I'll get rid of something whenever I make a new purchase. Yeah right! The day after I get rid of something, I am frantically needing it. So ridiculous.
Tonight I got to the hard part of doing laundry. It is folded or it is on hangers. I told myself, " You have to put the stuff that has been brought into the bedroom away before bed. It cannot go back to the couch for the night, which will turn into the weekend, then the week & pretty soon it's all back in the laundry..." So I put things away. Not the stuff on hangers. I worked today, I cooked today, I cleaned house. I am too tired to be wrestling clothes back in the closet. Laugh it up. That is no exaggeration. I wrestle the clothes into their places. I use one arm to pin the clothes to the side while I hang the item, then the other arm to situate it once it has been hung. It honestly works up a sweat. Sometimes it hurts my shoulder, to the point that I'm worried something might get strained. How embarrassing would it be to have to call one of my clients & say, "I'm so sorry, but I need to reschedule your massage because I hurt my shoulder putting my clothes away."? I mean...seriously?!?!! I did however put one thing on a hanger, a pair of jeans, onto one of the lovely velvet covered tiered hangers which I have purchased by the 4 pack for a couple of years now. I put them back on the hanger, like a responsible person does after she decided that no, she will not wear those jeans tomorrow. Then I put the hanger back into it's place among the other 5-6 hangers of jeans.
AND IT BROKE! It busted. Yep. This is the 3rd one to break on me. The last one resulted in a slight black eye. As I was returning that particular hanger, which had oh, about 20 lbs. of scarves on it, to the closet...this means I'm really working to hold it up & BAM! It breaks, no more weight translates to me hitting myself with the only part of the hanger still in my grasp, the metal hook, right under my eyebrow. Felt amazing. Luckily I avoided injury tonight. That didn't stop me from making a sound like an extremely frustrated teenage girl & then throwing the chunk of hanger left in my hand. It wasn't my proudest moment alright! I recently purchased some metal tiered hangers...I think it is in my best interest to go get about 6 more.
Don't buy those velvet covered hangers...I am pretty sure the velvet covers cardboard & they break.
Now that you know I control 4 out of 5 available closets, when I tell Ky she doesn't need any more clothes...does this make me a hypocrite?
