I am STILL sick. I have not been to work in so long I'm not sure I remember how to log in to my computer. It seems a lifetime ago that we were sledding down sand in Monahans and walking down into Carlsbad Caverns. A lifetime ago that I first felt sick and now still feel JUST as sick. But before we get to that- I took four doses of antibiotics, thought I felt better, and got dressed up to go out to dinner yesterday!
We'd had the date set with friends of ours forever (the parents of one of Landon's new friends) and I had so been looking forward to it. I was feeling better after a day on antibiotics and the steroid shot, so I went to yoga - felt amazing!! even all the upside downs - went to Target to buy ALL the bins (nothing makes me need to clean everything than spending three days stuck in the house), and then got a haircut. I put on a youtube video for my makeup, donned a dress I'd bought on clearance at Express a month ago, and was ready to go!
And we had a fabulous time. We went to The Capital Grille, ate and drank all the things and talked for nearly 4 hours.
Like my 9 miles of hiking on Monday, this was potentially ill-advised. I woke up this morning feeling like hell all over again. My sinuses are so inflamed I can barely breathe through my nose and the pressure in my ears and jaw feels like it needs to be hit with a hammer again. I'm going back to the doctor in the morning.
To counteract my terrible feelings, I decided to clean and reorganize every single inch of my house. Literally all of the inches. And to terrorize my family to help and clean all their square inches too.
Everyone hated me, including myself, by mid-afternoon, but you guys- you guys! We went through every single closet and bin in the whole house- including some I packed before I moved away from Houston in 2005, including even James's preshus bins of UT swimming t-shirts, EVERYTHING. Everything is now in new, matching bins of the same size and color. They are properly stacked, properly labeled, and much downsized. All my holiday stuff is beautifully organized, separated, and labeled. Our hiking gear, ski gear, kids' clothes, kids' memory bins, James and my memory bins...
As I may have mentioned a time or twenty, we don't have an attic in this house at all, no attached garage, no under-stairs closet, really no closets of any kind except some shallow bedroom ones and the one we made in the TV room when we had the wet bar taken out. This is because our would-be closet space is taken up with two hot water heaters and two HVAC units because - that's right - no attic. But it's fine, everything fits, but now it fits BETTER! And cleaner! And our vacuum can go IN A CLOSET! And our suitcases! Retrieved from the detached garage I never want to walk out to when it's late at night and I'm packing!
If my sinuses didn't feel like they're going to explode, the whole world would be my oyster right now. I even cleaned out bins under beds, bins of wedding gifts and cards, ALL the bins in our house. James took a full truck load of stuff to donate and I still feel a little high. I can't even blame it on the nighttime cold medicine yet.
And to make up for my rage-cleaning, we opened up the pool for the afternoon and ordered our favorite pizza for dinner!
I was still in my pajamas, breathing fresh air for the first time all day, and glad the kids were still smiling at me.
Not that I needed to worry too much- as Landon told me later, "Mom, it's so nice to know there's a place for all of my things!" He loves a good label.
The pool is freezing- our backyard is very shaded and there's no pool heater, but they didn't care. Cora is a fish- I haven't seen her swim lessons in months and jumped out of my seat in a panic when her "boat" she was on with Claire flipped over in the middle of the pool, but she just popped up and swam over to the edge. Water safe children! Five years of pool ownership and and extra baby and we're finally there!
I'm looking forward to a fabulous summer full of friends and splashing and cocktails and snacks. And maybe a few tours of my closets, just so they can admire the bins.
I grew up with a parent like you! I remember many Sundays coming home from church, my burly all man dad would see the Sunday paper still spread out across the coffee table and say, "This room just makes me nervous. How can you relax with this clutter?" And so would begin an afternoon of organizing, complete with old school label maker, color coding, and discussions on how best to organize the record collection.
ReplyDeleteThis made me LOL. Matching, labeled bins are my love language.
DeleteAnd luckily I don't make them go through the ringer too often, I just feel like something has settled in my soul now that everything lines up and stacks properly and is organized and easily located. If my sinuses would let me breathe, I would be breathing deeper.
i had a t-shirt blanket made out of all of my UT swimming shirts. took me 15 years to get it done. but it finally is. It's gonna be perfect for picnics and now they take up less space in my closet free home.
ReplyDeleteNice! James still has to actually touch, unfold, and refold each shirt. As a shirt. Apparently his memories literally live inside the shirts and the memories won't exist anymore if they aren't in shirt form. I don't understand this, but he doesn't understand why I need everything in matching, so we're leaving each other to our differences. (Though seriously, WHY four identical UT swimming shirts? Among the 30 other UT swimming shirts? WHYYYYY?)
DeleteI am so impressed that you got all that done while sick. And jealous too. #allthebins
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