40 bags - Day 3

Today I took on the cabinet below our home altar first. I cleaned out several packages of candles that we have aquired from people who were moving away, which made room to reorganize the cabinet. It will be much more user-friendly now.

A few candles didn't fill the tall kitchen garbage bag I was working on, so I decided to be a little more systematic about this. With Katie along to keep me motivated, I moved into the front hall and took a look around. Front hall closet!

Filled a bag with coats, snow pants, hats, scarves, and so many things that were going unused, even by our crew of active snow-players. Filled half another bag in the kitchen with things to throw out. Katie did a lot of the actual work. I consulted while I made the soup for tonight's soup supper at church.

When she got to the top shelf she turned it over to me. It's full of mailing envelopes, packing material, etc. Not for the faint of heart. I threw out a few unusable envelopes and decided that what this shelf really needed was to be reorganized. These are things we use frequently to mail packages home, so they need to be handy and easy to find. So I was off to the 100 Yen store for a few things. I love the 100 Yen. I should take photos sometime. It is like a dollar store, only sooooooo much better.

Found the items I needed and was home in 30 minutes. Kids were still playing happily, Katie had transferred the magazines and catalogs to a Chinese basket that had been gathering dust on top of the closet and was preparing to throw out the old magazine basket. But Meghan took it over and started carting her dolls around in it. Very cute. Not sure which day it will be before we get that basket thrown out now.

Closet is cleaned and reorganized. Katie even labeled our baskets and the new storage bins for bubble wrap and torn books waiting to be taped. I have a great feeling of accomplishment, and it really didn't hurt to throw away irreparably torn and broken things or to give away good ones that we aren't using. This may be easier than I think. Having Katie along for support definitely makes the whole thing more fun.