I’ve been spring cleaning for… a while. I feel like saying “a month” is exaggerating, but at the same time, that horrifically sounds accurate.

I’ve been spring cleaning for a while.

Actually, I must have been cleaning for so long that spring totally passed me by. It’s true. When did spring end? I don’t know. All the sudden it’s summer. I feel cheated. But I love summer.

So I’ve been summer cleaning.

I’m one of those people who accumulate. I wouldn’t say “pack rat,” more that I’m a collector.

I collect clothes, and books, and clothes.

My problem on the clothes side is that I’ve been the same size since middle school. I don’t grow out of things and thus don’t have to give them away.

I’m also very creative with my clothes (if you don’t believe me check out my post “Wearing A Leotard To Church” on my fashion blog), if something does get small, or awkward, or too girly, I don’t throw it away, I change it into something else. If it’s big, I make it smaller. If it’s frumpy, I cut it up.

I have a problem.

Somehow, having a job has opened up a whole world of clothes possibilities for me. I guess my paranoia has been broken and now I know getting rid of clothes doesn’t mean I’m limiting my wardrobe, it means I’m making room for more. Do I sound like a shopaholic?

It wasn’t easy to get started. I got a grocery bag and went slow. I would grab a top and stare at it for sixty seconds, telling myself I never wear it, then I’d hear “well, I’d wear it with this outfit…” then I’d think “hey that sounds cute, I should try that!” and back the top would go, folded in my drawer.

But I was getting annoyed. I knew I wasn’t making any progress, and I had had it. I started chucking things I really didn’t like into the bag, and I felt better. It was clearing up my dresser, so I felt even more relieved.

I really made headway when I decided I was getting rid of anything that made me look young. Or things I wore a lot when I was young so it made me feel like I was back in middle school (great, I just realized I’m taking a dress back.. this post is having a negative impact on me, ha). With that new mindset, things were flying into trash bags. I filled up two trash bags and my original grocery bag.

I quickly felt like that was enough. I didn’t want to stay up at night, kicking myself for getting rid of something. If you’re looking for advice, though. The best way to spring clean is to do it fast. Chances are, you’ll stumble across things you forgot you had, because you never wear them, get rid of them fast, and you’ll forget you had them, and forget you got rid of them, because you never wore them.

I moved on to books. I have a lot of books in my room. My room is too small for a bookshelf, so I had them lining the wall, under my window, lining the wall beside my nightstand, boarding my chair, stacked up in the closet, lining the foot of my bed, and finally creeping up the side of my bed. I’d knock those over in my middle of the night if my foot slipped and fell from the mattress.

Books are painful to get rid of. I didn’t even know people did get rid of books. That was unheard of to me. But I wanted the space, so… I got a box and got busy.

Some books hadn’t been moved in so long, there were indents in the carpet.

Books are easier to get rid of in the sense that you know what age group they fall under. I got one box done. The second was harder. Chris was recruited into helping us move the heavy boxes and organize the inside. I only had the strength enough to toss books I didn’t want into the boxes. If I had to go through them again to organize, I would most definitely take them all back. So I had Chris do it for me. Then he helped me fill the other one by quickly taking the books from my hand, before I thought twice, and sticking them in the box. Thanks Chris!

This Saturday is the annual Homeschool curriculum book sale. I help my mom sell her old school books (all in perfect condition because my mom was very adamant about us taking care of our books when I was in school). At the sale, I’ll be selling my books too. I obviously didn’t think this through.

I’ll me taking an empty box with me for the books that are coming back home..

The final push to clean my room was helped by the carpet man.

Yup. Carpet man.

He came at the indecent hour of eight o’ clock in the morning on a Friday. Luckily I was up beforehand or else – oh – it would’ve gotten ugly. I was still cranky, don’t get me wrong.

Twenty minutes after his arrival, he assessed my room and the wrinkles in my carpet and said everything but the chair had to be taken out so he could stretch the carpet.

I didn’t like the carpet man very much.

He was there for two or three hours. And within that time, we moved everything to our front porch. Or in the case of the big stuff, drug it to a different room and back. In hindsight, it’s amazing how we were able to take everything out of the house and put it all back in one day.

I come from a hard working family.

The carpet guy went to work. He did the living room, the master bedroom, my bedroom, and my little brother’s bedroom, one right after another. When he was gone, we had to take everything back, which meant I had stacks and stacks of books and junk now on the front porch instead of in my room.

My mom said that’s the best way to clean, take everything OUT then only put back what you want. This was my chance. So thanks to the carpet man, I truly got my room in order. And I inherited these little drawers to organize my makeup and hair stuff.

My mom had labeled them with “pens, pencils, glue, etc” for when we were growing up and needed something for school. The labels were so old, they peeled off happily.

And finally. Finally, my room is not only “cleaned” but it’s organized too.

 

Look, the floor!

I am happy.