After 2 months of sheer exhaustion, 6 months of a pea sized bladder, 2 months of swollen feet and ankles turned tree trunks and 2 months of aches the thing I've been looking forward to has arrived.
It's long awaited arrival came unannounced, no fan fare, no trumpets trumpeting but it's arrival was beautiful. Nesting arrived. It would have just been an itch to clean but I warded off sleepiness and only took one nap today! Since I've been preggo I take two naps on Saturdays and two naps on Sundays. In the first trimester I spent most of the weekends sleeping - more time was spent asleep than awake. Ah, the joys of pregnancy.
It hit me very late on Saturday while Ryan was asleep and I was enjoying my icy foot soak too much to go to bed. I watched a Law & Order re-run and an old Oprah. I didn't watch Oprah this year but still had TiVo record it. Too many celebrities for my taste. After scanning the list of O re-runs I saw one that looked decent - the host of Clean Sweep was on. They showed us a home that was filled with clutter, top to bottom and they cleaned it out in one weekend. Our house is nothing like theirs but our closets are like little sadistic little demons, but what demon isn't sadistic? They call out to me from behind closed doors, "I'm a mess and there's nothing you can do about it."
Today I faced the big box of stuff that accumulated when I would 'clean' before company came over. You know, the box of stuff. You sweep, clean the kitchen, take care of the clothes that have been folded on the kitchen table for a week and before you know it - it's time for your guests to arrive. All of the little things need someplace to go and you have no time to make 8 trips to the basement, 4 to the foyer, 5 to the bedroom and so on. What to do? Gather up all the scattered items and put them in a box to 'take care' after the company leaves.
It's been a year and a half in this house. When this horrible practice started we were in the construction phase so the stuff in the boxes (2 boxes) is quite an assortment. Spackle, pens, stationary, photos, magazines. Gag. It's no wonder I've put it off. But no more!
I threw away, recycled actually, a year's worth of Real Simple and Realtor magazines. That felt good. I was never going to read them again. I cleaned out the linen/game/cleaners/catch all storage closet and made it into games/linens/toiletries. Woo-hoo. Goodwill is going to get a big box of linens and the landfill is going to get a ton of expired medicine. Ryan can not get a head ache or fall ill because we have no medicine for him. I even threw out old cosmetics that I don't use. Break through! My sister-in-law Jenny would be so proud of the progress I made.
When I was done throwing away stuff and putting it into Goodwill piles I was still itching to make a dent in our Pile 'O Stuff so I went to one last closet - the closet in the baby's room. There was my treasure trove of purses. If you know me you know I have a weak spot for purses. It is actually a surprising addiction because if you know me you also know I'm not a fashionista, not a girly girl. Growing up I despised the purse. I vowed I would never use one.
Then on one fateful day at the Vancouver mall, in a shoe store where I was buying a pair of shoes for some special event I spied a sales bin. In that sales bin was the purse that bit me and gave me the purse bug. It was a super cool black 50's (or earlier) style purse with a small handle and hard sides. The style has a name but I can't think of it. I used that purse for many years but the strap finally broke and was not repairable. It was such a cool purse that even guys would comment on it. (In hindsight they were probably trying to hit on me but I was so in love with my purse that I didn't think it unnatural that a straight guy would like it). It was with heavy heart I threw my much beloved purse away (many, many years after it broke, of course).
Now when we go on vacation I commemorate our trip not with a silver spoon or a T-shirt with the name of the place we visited on it but rather with a purse. In Maui I bought a coconut purse - it is a coconut sawed in half, lined with a Hawaiian print cloth and has a zipper and long strap. Great for luaus. In Tulsa (not a place to commemorate visiting but a great excuse to buy a purse), I bought a super cute and super feisty leopard print number. Vegas, Mexico, the Caribbean and Italy. I have a purse to remember each trip by.
So it came as a great shock to Ryan when I came out of the baby's room loaded with purses I no longer used. It was time to say goodbye and let move on to new shoulders. He is very concerned about me getting rid of them; he wants me to be absolutely certain I want to get rid of them because as he said, "Purses are your thing." It makes him sad to see me part with something I like so much. I'm only getting rid of one souvenir purse - bye bye leopard print from Tulsa. It was actually a good trip. I got to see my brother graduate from bible college, went to the Roy Rogers museum, another religious university (super ugly school, I'm not a fan of 60's/70's style architecture) and a really depressing museum of Christian martrys. The purse was from his school and I have no attachment to that school so sayonara!
Oh, boy, it's 5:30 am. I'm getting drowsy again. I woke up at 3:00 with "Sloopy" the oldies song blaring in my head. I couldn't find the off switch so I crawled out of bed and cleaned the kitchen, ate a nectarine and cut up strawberries to surprise Ryan with for his cereal in the morning. I'm hungry again. I'll grab another little something to eat and go back to bed for a couple of hours.
6 comments:
April,
Please tell the Nesting Fairy to visit Vancouver! She needs to come and spell her magic on me also! I just do things cuz I have to do them when it comes to organizing. Mostly I moved the stuff into boxes and marked them and placed them into the garage. Now we have a baby's room empty, but Matt put up the Pack'N'Play and the Swing the very next day. Shoooot....I worked hard for an empty room, and now it is geting filled all over again with other stuff, like baby stuff, and closet organizer. More work, please Nesting come to me too!
Did you get rid of the gold/yellow purse also?
Crina
You remember that gold purse? It's in the Goodwill pile as it is quite dirty and has lost its shape.
I don't think nesting means you want to clean - it means you feel compelled to do so. I kind of panic when I think about all that has to be done before baby arrives.
I have the same feeling, but I can't call it "nesting". I guess I'll call it "late spring cleaning". But Matthew's done most of it since he really wanted to get our 4 suit cases unpacked. It's hard to throw things away, but it usually you forget about them pretty easily and the clutter-free environment. I'll be doing a lot of this throughout the year since we are planning on moving eventually...have to show a clean, clutter-free condo...
Good job getting all that done April! Are you working on a baby's room at all?
All of this work is leading us to a place that will allow us to work on the baby's room. It has been full of stuff we put in there from the basement so we could finish it.
Smart move to pare down your belongings now.
Did you ever finish the basement?
The basement is nearing completion. It's almost completely framed out. We're hiring a contractor friend of Ryan's to come and finish framing & dry wall. That leaves a little electrical for Ryan and flooring & paint. Then there are installing doors. That's going to be a pain since we got them at a salvage place to match the style of doors we have upstairs (ancient solid wood doors). Maybe we'll do doors later. So long as the bathroom and bedroom have doors we should be good.
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