A Year of Blogging: May 10, 2011

May 10 was 'Clean Up Your Room Day'. The inner child in me screams "NO!" when I hear that phrase. And yes, I heard it a lot as a child. My mother may keep everything very neat and tidy, but she gave birth to two children who have slightly lower standards. I like things very organized- everything in their place. But I often don't take the time to put everything back in its' place. Once I slip, then it's an easy slide into total disregard. For example, I have a huge walk-in closet. It is over the garage, just like my bedroom. It is also on a corner of the house, so there are two outside walls. These walls are not insulated. Which means, in the winter, my closet is like a meat-locker. And in the summer, it's a sauna. The previous owners did me a huge favor by installing one of those closet systems. When we moved in, Erich gave me the master bedroom. He felt I needed the closet space since I'm female. Ok, I know, it's a very sexist thing, but he was so right! I walked in and found a closet that you could actually put a twin bed in, and still have plenty of room. Even better, it was all designed. Along one wall is a bar hung high enough to hold my dresses and pantsuits without dragging them on the ground. Along the back wall, which is the biggest, are double hung bars- one on the top and one on the bottom. Plenty of room to hang shirts on the top, and jeans/shorts/ and capris (folded in half and hung neatly) from the bottom. On the wall next to the door is a shoe rack! It doesn't hold all my shoes, but it holds I think 20 pair (I know this seems like a lot. I'm actually not a typical woman, I don't have a shoe thing. Most of those pairs are rather dull shoes. If I find one I like, I buy it in other colors. So I have two pair of navy dress shoes, two of black, one brown, several pairs of the same sandal in various colors, way more Nikes than I can wear, and four pairs of Crocs. Not exactly 'Sex in the City' material!). There are also parts of the closet that don't have anything, and there's some shelving above the dress bar. And my favorite part- in the middle of the biggest wall is a floor to ceiling divider. It has three compartments. Perfect for storing sweaters! We painted the closet a black raspberry ice cream color, and it is my dream closet. Of course, my dream closet is stuffed to the gills. When I cleaned it earlier this spring, I took six bags of clothes out for goodwill, and you can't tell the difference. The problem is, while this is my dream closet, most of the year, it is too unpleasant to be in there for more than a few seconds. Either you sweat bullets or icicles form on your extremities. So I pick my clothes, and dash out. When I put away the clothes, the sweaters get piled on the floor. I don't want to take the time to stack them neatly back into the organizer. By the end of winter (and the end of summer) all of that seasons' sweaters are on the closet floor. Several times a year I have to get in and sort through everything, put everything back where it belongs, and reclaim the floor space in my closet. There are different ways to clean your room. You can take a swiffer duster, run it over all the bookcases, your desk, and your dresser, and vacuum the carpet. You can move all the Gone with the Wind figurines off your bookcase, use a real dust cloth and polish, and clean the book case thoroughly. This also includes moving and dusting books. If you're doing this, you move everything off the dresser and desk too. You still have to vacuum, but after rearranging all the knick-knacks and hair accessories, vacuuming seems like a breeze. And then you can clean your closet while you're cleaning your room. Since I was little, whenever I clean my closet, I haul everything out. The clothes all get piled on the bed. I start with a clean slate, and then put everything back where it should go. I carefully hang everything on the hangers, and organize the clothes by type and by color. My mom always wondered why it took me so long. Then she'd come upstairs and find me surrounded by piles- trash, donate, and keep. I still do it. The downside to this is that I can't go to bed until I have finished cleaning my closet. This is also the plus side- it motivates me to finish it so that I can go to bed! When I'm done, everything is nice and organized- at least for a couple of weeks. I do need to dust my room again. It may have to wait a while, I've been in a lot of pain lately and cleaning isn't really high on my priority list. Since I'm a bit stubborn, I wouldn't have cleaned my room today anyway. I don't like being told what to do!