Clean up, Clean up, Everybody, Everywhere

Does this ever happen to you?

Since I went out of town for a few days, things have gotten a little out of hand. I fell behind on the laundry. I still haven’t unpacked my bag (from about a week ago!). I have stacks of pictures that I printed through snapfish but haven’t mailed to people like I’ve been meaning to. Junk mail stacks were piling up. I haven’t gotten my tax stuff together. And now it’s almost March already!

So, today, I told myself, “Do what needs to be done.” That’s one of my happiness commandments, which I stole from Gretchen Rubin (the brilliant author of the book The Happiness Project). I conquered two areas in my kitchen that had been bugging me for weeks, and made them beautiful.

First, the hooks where we hang Flanna’s lunchbox and backpack. Somehow all of the coolers and lunchboxes and backpacks we own had gotten hung in that spot, which I was trying to designate for stuff we use on a daily basis. And also (I’m a little embarrassed to admit) there were 2 cans of bug spray and sunscreen from SUMMER that were still sitting atop the shelf. Yup. From summer. Anyway, I goodwilled 5 bags that we never use, and stored the rest where our spare bags are supposed to go. And, voila! A space that doesn’t stress me out as I walk past it!

Then I focused on my mail bin. The bottom bin is for bills, which my husband takes care of, so they obviously stay neat. The top bin is for stuff I need to either file or respond to. Guess I hadn’t filed or responded in, oh, about 5 months. I’d been thinking I needed to look through this stuff but kept waiting until I had “time” to do it. Turns out, it only took me about 10 minutes to sort through everything and then file it in the 3 files it all needed to go into. I had really overestimated the amount of time that project was going to take, which I guess is why I had waited so long to do it. Now, I have room to grow again. Hopefully I won’t wait 5 months to sort through it again!

I’m still behind on laundry. But, those two tiny spaces now bring me a little bit of happiness when I walk into my kitchen. It’s a nice start.



What little nagging projects have you been waiting to tackle?