and so it goes

While my sister did an amazing job motivating Elizabeth to make her room less of a disaster area, they didn't really tackle the root of the problem, which is stuff crammed everywhere.

I've started to notice that if Andrew is enjoying a particular toy a lot, it winds up squirreled away in Elizabeth's room.  This is annoying, to say the least.  

When he pulled out a little car set, and one car was missing, Elizabeth casually said it was in her room, in her nightstand.  I went to find it, but her nightstand was mysteriously empty.  So I went on a small rampage, rooting around in all her stashes.  

Never found the car.  But in 5 minutes of rummaging, I did find:  

1. A used teaspoon
2. a yellow cherry from the Hi Ho Cheerio game
3. a red butterfly from the Elefun game

That girl!  I am in a total funk right now over the toys, and specifically the games, and are really feeling a lot of annoyance directed at the nanny.  Games get hauled out and then pieces distributed everywhere.  It makes me crazy.  None of the games we have can be played right now.  None.  The pieces have been dispersed to the far corners of our house, never to be reunited again.  CRAZY.  ANNOYED.  

And we're heading toward Christmas, and more toys will make their way into our house, and the whole thing makes me think my head is about to explode.  

I'm gearing up for a huge toy sort, and it has to be done before Christmas.  And I have to comprehensively sort the main level, the basement, and her room, or the whole effort is fairly useless.  Why didn't we choose a nanny who was more organized than us?  Or at least even slightly organized?  Or who at least understood why toys should sort of go together.  I'm perpetuating my disorganization on another generation and it is making me grumpy and crazy.  

and so it goes

All right, well, I haven't covered shoe-mageddon, but let's just say I got rid of a LOT of shoes.  A LOT.  Like I think at least 35.  Before shoe-maggedon, I was holding at 169 pairs, having gotten rid of 31.  And that means now I had settled on about 130 pairs.  That is an unbelievable amount of shoes!  It's hard to do an accounting as it all happened so fast, and we got rid of so many, and then completely re-organized.  I have a good memory, and it's what I call a situational memory.  So I was able to remember prices of shoes or where I got them, or when I got them, based on what I remembered from the situation, or context, around the purchase or wearing.  But that means that by re-organizing the shoes completely, my memory that a particular shoe was in a particular stack has now gotten all jumbled.  In fact, just this past weekend I was rooting around in a stack and ran across a pair and realized I had forgotten I had them.  And I was going through the blog and am really wondering where the 2011 new black pumps are.  I have no idea.  Not a clue.  I have to go on a hunt to re-familiarize myself with my shoe holdings.

And do you know why I was looking at the post of the 2011 black pumps?  Well, you may recall I've spent a significant portion of 2011 un-employed, or seriously under-employed.

In 2010, I bought 22 pairs of shoes, a number that actually kind of stunned me.  I knew with a tighter budget in 2011, I wouldn't even get close to that purchase total.  Surely 2010 (another year when I was under-employed) was an anomaly.

Well, let's see, before I stopped tallying in April, I had purchased 6 pairs of shoes, helped by a mini-frenzy of 3 pairs in March.  The other day, after a shoe purchase, I jotted down what I knew I'd acquired since April.  And - what the heck.  Uh, that would be another 10 pairs.  TEN PAIRS of shoes in 4 months.  4 months in which I was unemployed!  How was it possible?  Well, 4 pairs came after I started working, but still!  Ok, 2 are $10 espadrilles, and another 2 are $10 flipflops (both once I started working).  So, looks like I might have to do an accounting of my new pairs.  (Some of which are awesome!)

Also, my house is cluttered.  Way, way way too cluttered.  I did the dreaded toy sort this past weekend, and threw out three bags of crap!  Three bags!  From just the main level of the house (toys + craft supplies) - the basement could probably generate another 3 bags, and Elizabeth's room.....I can't even think about it.

Anyway, bottom line - more shoes, and more sorting coming soon to AwwwClutter!

decluttering returns!

OK, so in addition to shoes and food, I've got to get back to decluttering. My goal is one project a week. On the 10th, I sorted and organized the toys in the living room.

The toy sort. My least favorite activity. How in the world do the toys get so disorganized? WHy can't they keep their toys together? It makes me crazy. I did a toy sort in July, so we were way over due. Though I guess once every three months is probably all I can handle. I've got to sort through toys in bedrooms and, ugh, tackle the basement.

But for now, I got rid of one plastic bag full of broken toys, crappy toys, broken bits and pieces, etc. I'll count that as 1 item, even though it was a long, tedious job (Rich and ELizabeth were out and Andrew was supposed to be napping, but he 'helped' instead!). I also threw away 2 wooden puzzles. The pieces had never fit together well, so they were super difficult to put together. And after being chewed on, too many of the pieces had portions of their picture worn away. Oh, and each were missing at least 2 pieces. So 2 more things gone.

I kept this puzzle. But J, where are you?


Total items: 3