Out with the Old

One area in which Peanut and I have struggled with for oh... almost 18 years has been organization and being tidy. Once upon a time I was a crazy messy person, just ask my mother. My idea of a clean room was shoving everything I owned either under my bed or into my closet and shutting the door. Sometimes I did both. Okay, I did both quite a lot. I even went through the phase where I would put EVERYTHING on top of my bed and work to put things where they went. I will admit that a time or two I MAY have pushed everything back on the floor so that I could sleep. Hey, my sleep is very important to me.

Peanut, is much like her mother in this regard, but before I'm ready she will be out on her own trying to keep her own family from destroying her home. I only have a finite amount of time to really drive home those "when your space is clutter-free your mind is more apt to be as well" lessons. I'm sure there are health benefits to not growing science experiments in your room as well.

Side note, I once left mushrooms in my room to rot for weeks. Not from a pizza or anything, I didn't dare eat them in my youth. No, these were your found in the woods, may or may not be magical but don't try this at home kind of mushrooms. Rotting mushrooms smell most foul. Just trust me on this. My mother was furious. I haven't done that in at least 30 years though.

So after eating pizza and watching a couple of Christmas movies with Peanut I asked her if we could work on her room for an hour. Just an hour. To say she wasn't thrilled with the prospect of cleaning her room, much less with her mother, would be the understatement of the twenty first century, but agreed. We decided we would start with her dresser which was full to bursting.

This lovely 3-drawer solid wood dresser was a steal that I found at a local furniture resale shop for only $75 not long after moving to T-Town. Did I mention it's solid wood? Yeah, heavy stuff. No partical boards here. This baby was built to last. We worked for an hour deciding if she wanted to keep each item, throw it away or donate it. By the end of the hour we have a well organized dresser with room for clothes from the overflowing laundry basket- you know, whenever they get washed.

I asked her to go get a broom and dust pan, oh and since she had to go through the kitchen, why didn't take all these cups that either need to be washed or emptied and thrown away. With only an eye-roll she did as I requested. we now have a 3'x3' space with not only a dresser with drawers that close but beautiful hardwood floors too. Progress.

Tomorrow she might even clean off the top of the dresser. Now if I can just get her to keep it this way... wish me luck.