Last night when I was getting ready for bed, Mike asked what I had been working on that night, and it was hard to give him a specific answer. I've just been working through the stuff.
My usual habit is to have a dark garbage bag for "giveaways," a white plastic bag for garbage, and a brown paper sack for paper to recycle. This weekend is the school rummage sale, so a number of bags have been donated there. (And note: I am not planning to attend! Mike will be at a writer's conference this weekend, and the only way I might hit the rummage sale is without kids in tow. But with the kids along, all we would end up with would be RUMMAGE! So it's going only one way and not coming back.)
It's really astonishing how much time all this organizing can take when you've never had a sense of good organization in a room. For example, I've looked through old greeting cards and have a bag of them to keep--I've recycled a whole lot of them as well. I pile the children's best artwork in a pile. I stack photos in a pile (yes, they've been strewn all over the place!); same with bookmarks. Anything that belongs to Mike or that needs to be filed, I put in his corner of stuff. He's been gradually going through it, but the piles continue to expand.
I've organized most of my art supplies, the fairly large supply of gifts to keep on hand, the cards, the books, the office supplies, the photo frames, the stuff to hang on the walls, the gift bags and wrapping paper, the CDs (well, the ones we are keeping--are in a bag), and the supply of stationery. I've put toys into a bin for the family room. I have another bin for Kieran's art supplies. (We have several bins around the house--this, too, needs organization!)
One of the things I discovered last night is that we have a plethora of greeting cards and stationery. Plus one of my favorite things to do is to make cards, but I don't often take the time to do so. (I'm hoping that by organizing my art supplies into the plastic-drawer bins, it will make this easier in the future.)
I also love to make gifts--such as these margarita candles I made for Mother's Day.
When I listed one of eight things I would like to do (in my other blog), I listed "making more of my own gifts" as one of my things. I would love to do more of this kind of thing.
Gift giving and card writing is important to both Mike and me. (When I was a young girl, I collected stationery--each box was numbered, and at one point I have more than 100 varieties...but how often do I write letters any more? I still have some legacy stationery, though I got rid of a bunch last night.)
We tend to overpurchase when it comes to both gifts and cards. Mike is positively addicted to thank you cards! I've suggested that he use some of the other cards we have in plentiful supply, but he likes them to be small so he doesn't have to write as much! (My husband is King of the Thank You Cards. And the Queen, by the way, lives in Boise, Idaho.) I'm determined to, one day, make him a stack of 100!
We have enough other types of greeting cards to last us at least a year, and as I've written previously, I have a box of gifts for kids and another for adults. I am a perennial bargain hunter, so I see things that would be good for gifts on sale--and then they stack up. Of course, that doesn't stop me from going out and buying the perfect gift for someone if I feel the whim or the need!
So that's all for now. One of these days I really will finish cleaning and organizing the study and get back to Regina Leeds' book! I'm determined!
It does sound like you are making progress, as slow as it may be. Good work. My basement is my hardest room. Which happens to be the focus of May. I have my storage, my toys and my laundry all in one large over powering room. But we are making huge progress there, as DH is helping too. I have pictures to post soon.
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