I believe this is my third year during 40 bags in 40 days during Lent. This is by far the best year for actually getting rid of stuff. So many times throughout the year I think, "Oh, I'll totally get rid of this during Lent." Then I either forget or change my mind. Thankfully my motivation to get things out of the house has stayed strong this Lenten season.
I've been doing so much purging I haven't really been counting but here is what I have done that I can recall.
4 bags (my bag is a paper bag) to charity
4 bags of garbage
1 box spring mattress
4 more bags for charity to be dropped off today
1 duvet to be sent to my friend
1 bag of clothes for my nephew
In the garage I have a number of items but we are waiting for warmer weather (if it ever blesses us).
So in the garage I have,
1 car seat
1 double sit/stand stroller
2 bikes
1 framed picture
3 Ikea mirrors
I know we have more in the garage as our third stall is full of nonsense we just need to get rid of once it's warmer outside. But another exciting part of this adventure is the cleaning and organizing I've been doing. Purging is a gateway drug to organizing for me. Get read it's about to get awesome in here!
While browsing on a few of my favorite organizing/cleaning blogs I became inspired to clean a few appliances around the house. I have tried everything on our oven door. I can clean the oven no problem but nothing could clean the door. On a whim I mixed up my tried and true solution of baking soda, original Dawn, and enough vinegar to make a paste. Then I thought I would try a spinerette that Mr. Sloth ordered from Norwex. He uses it on his cast iron pans so I never really use it. Oh. My. Goodness. I am in love. I am head over heels in love with this spinerette. Look at the results !
Before
After
Mind. Blown.
So then I thought what else can this do....hmmm. Turns out it's great amazing wonderful MIRACULOUS for hard water stains. We literally have the highest hard water that is allowed. For years I have felt like less of a homemaker because I just couldn't get rid of hard water stains no matter how hard I tried or what research I did. Vinegar. Nope. Lemon juice. Nope. Salt. Nope. Limeaway. Nope. But this spinerette. Be still my beating heart.
I apologize. I didn't take any pictures because I was on a scrubbing bender. I did all the faucets in the house (five of them), all the drain plugs and then....and then I did the shower doors. My cleaning nemesis. I felt like David conquering Goliath with one small stone. "VICTORY IS MINE!!"
O.K. Enough of my cleaning love story. On to other projects. If you desire a front load washer and dryer I encourage you just do your research. I won't go into the details but the washer has some problems. If you recall we have really hard water, hence the stains below. Iheartorganizing has instructions for cleaning appliances. This is also where I learned about "washing soda". Turns out, little science lesson here, when baking soda is heated it releases carbon dioxide. Which of course is what make cookies rise, ah-ha! It also changes the chemical make up of the baking soda. If you put baking soda in with your clothes it acts as a fabric softener, but if you add washing soda it acts as a WATER softener. Ah-ha! You can follow her instructions if you want but basically it involves running the washer a few times with combinations of vinegar and washing soda then wiping it down.
Before
After
Ta-da!
Next while I was purging through my kitchen, I decided to go through and reorganizing the spice drawer as I was throwing out old spices.
Before
After
I even had a rare splash of creativity and decided to add a decrative bowl to hold our garlic.
Here are two bonus pictures for you! I needed to take Demands picture for a First Communion project. For the first time EVER she looked at the camera!! Yeah!!
If I want Rooster to go down for a nap peacefully I usually lay down with him. I'm usually asleep first but I wake up and sneak out to get some afternoon school work done while he's still asleep. I woke up and found he had fallen asleep like this. Isn't he cute? It's not the first time he's fallen asleep like this either, just like his grandpa.
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