1 Job Down, 1000 To Go

I have a love/hate relationship with cleaning. Once everything has been tidied up, I love it...but the cleaning part? That, I hate! And with 3 kids running around, dirtying something every 10 minutes, that means at some point I have to just bite the bullet and clean something.

My New Year's Resolution was to "Do" (The Year of "Do"). By this I mean to actually get up, get something done, to accomplish something...ANYTHING! The first task I decided to take on was a bookcase that was stuffed full. It looked like this... 

Nice, right?

Nice, right? It had books left over from my failed attempt to homeschool, workbooks I try to encourage the kids to do during summer break, more coloring books than you can count, and just about every school supply needed! The kids would feel free to take something out and then stuff it in the back or just lay it on top of the other books. It doesn't take long for things to get out of hand when this happens. 

Stacks are great! No??

So shelf by shelf, sometimes day by day, I worked on this bookcase. Throwing away coloring books that had every page colored, throwing away markers with no lids, throwing away random papers that had been shoved in the back. It just had to be done. But in my OWN way...which means to sort and stack...looking kind of like this...  one stack for coloring books, one stack for art supplies, one stack for school supplies, and one stack for workbooks that I will keep. The largest stack was of all the homeschooling books and materials that I had bought. 

My  adventure in homeschooling lasted all of 3 months before it was realized that if I didn't stop, I would risk damaging my relationship with my daughter. She is just one of those kids that really NEEDS the social aspect of school. But I still had all these books and I couldn't bear to just toss them, so I kept them....leading to this mess! (btw, if anyone is interested in any of these homeschool books, most of them have not been used, they are Abeka, and mostly for Kindergarten and younger) 

Eventually, I got every single shelf cleaned off, everything was sorted and just knowing I had the hardest part of the job behind me was a relief.  

Then, in a slightly OCD manner, I put everything that I kept back on the shelves...dividing them in groups: Reference books, workbooks, coloring books, art supplies, and school supplies. That only took up 2 1/2 shelves, so I decided that now was the time to take control of all the many books our kids have scattered around the downstairs of our house. I am usually a sucker for buying the kids a new book. A book is better than a toy, but that's just me.  So, Jonah helped me by bringing me all the books, I put them on the shelves (organized by size, no doubt!)  

Before I knew it, the job was done!  I do have a key to lock this cabinet up...preventing another disaster from happening within weeks! And this was a great way to start the year, with a finished cleaning project! I am proud of myself that I finally got this done and the next job???

Take down everything Christmas!!!

 Eh...maybe tomorrow...