Just a Little Purge

Let me preface this post by saying, this is not Young House Love. My house is my house and it will never be in a decorating magazine.  A few weeks ago I got this hair brained scheme to take a week long break from homeschool lessons and use that time to clean out the entire upstairs.  Two things were happening. One I was exhausted and needed a break from homeschool and two I was tired of the constant mess upstairs caused by clutter. I’m not sure why I thought in some way this should constitute as a break. Even my toes are exhausted at this point.  So late last week we actually started pulling things out of closets, going through all the clothes, emptying every single shelf and sorting until our fingers bled (ok so that’s a little dramatic). Here’s a little detail I forgot: Our kids have the run of the upstairs by themselves. I’ll pause for a minute to let you imagine the horror. My craft room/ guest room is upstairs but I can’t craft up there unless all the kids are upstairs as well which leads to more mess.  It was bad and it got worse before it got better.  But 6 bags of trash / broken toys / stained beyond repair clothing and 4 bags of donations later, the upstairs is clean and organized. I would love to sit down, relax and enjoy this moment but I can’t because everything hurts and I’m not finished yet. Tomorrow I have a list longer than Santa’s to get done, In laws arriving late in the evening and a swim team meet to prepare for. In the midst of that I really need to find 6 new chairs for our  kitchen table so I won’t have to spend all weekend screaming, “no! Don’t sit there, that’s the broken one!”. We have to leave it at the table though so Mr. Byrd will have a chair to eat dinner with.  If you’re new here and wondering if life is always this chaotic let me reply with “yes”.  Also for those of you that want to know “will it stay this way?” the answer is simply “no”. But one thing is checked off my to do list. Now the real fun of painting the most of the house and turning the cute VW bug clad bedroom of the 3 year old into a pink and turquoise big girl room.  I’ll get started on that right after the swim meet and the next pool day or maybe after the next homemade sprinkler day. Yeah, maybe then.