Today marked the beginning of the first full week of my return to official-stay-at-home-motherhood. My three-day-a-week "job" as my niece's nanny officially ended last Wednesday. Congratulations to my sister-in-law, who now gets to be a real stay-at-home-mom herself! It's been about sixteen months since I've had five whole days per week to fill up with errands, chores, and blogging and I'll be honest, it's a little weird. I found myself excited to be able to finally tackle some of the big crazy projects I've been putting off but not really sure where to start. When I look around my very cramped, very cluttered house, I start making mental lists and it immediately gets overwhelming. I tend to drive myself crazy that way.
Today I finally decided to just pick something and deal with it. I know, duh, right? I started small. Here is my freezer before...
...and here it is after...
Honestly, this took all of fifteen minutes to do and now I can actually open the freezer without getting pummeled by an avalanche of questionably old meat-sicles. Also, thanks to the addition of the shelf (which used to hold our broken CD player), I now have room for ice-cube trays...ICE CUBE TRAYS! I feel like a real person again.
Among the treasures I unearthed in the great freezer excavation of 2011 were half a tube of Thin Mints (which I proceeded to consume immediately), a Claim Jumper pumpkin pie that I forgot I had (SCORE!), and twelve frozen
Amish Friendship Bread starters (yikes, I've got some baking to do). Also, shoved way in the back was a "Fridge-N-Freezer" box of Arm & Hammer baking soda. The date written on top of the box was...are you ready for this...brace yourself...11/25/06. Hmmmm, I think it's safe to say its lost any magical deodorizing powers it might have once possessed- the box reads, "For Best Results Change Every 3 Months."
Yup, just another exciting day at my house. Now, if you'll excuse me, my sock and underwear drawer needs some attention...but don't worry, I won't show you pictures of that.
4 comments:
Katie! I'm so proud of you for starting small and not getting overwhelmed by everything else. There's a wonderful Japanese concept called Kaizen, which is exactly that. Just start with the easiest thing to do, and the momentum from that will lead you to the next small thing, until the whole thing is done. Yay for clean freezers and sock drawers!
Good for you! I know what you mean about making lists and then feeling too overwhelmed to do anything on them. My mantra in daily life tends to be "just do the next thing, Em, just do the next thing."
Thanks for the encouragement guys! If you could see the inside of my house right now, you would truly know how badly I need it. =)
Good inspiration for my mess of a bedroom! I've really never seen it so bad. Good job, Katie!
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