Tuesday, June 22, 2010

crossing things off


Last night I must’ve gotten a wave of adrenaline or energy or something because after work I decided to undertake the basement and my office simultaneously. If I would’ve known how far I was going to get I would have taken before and after pictures, but lack of foresight didn’t allow me to think ahead.

In a previous post I told you how one of the most daunting projects in my mind was making room in my office for all of curtis’ stuff. His office will eventually become the baby’s room, so in order to start on a nursery, we have to find a way to make room to accommodate both of our stuff. Not a simple task. One that has actually given me waves of panic since deciding to fit another person into our cute little house.

So anyways, last night I was feeling brave enough to start the project I’d deemed impossible. Where would half of my stuff go? I told him I’d give him half the room minus a bookcase (I can’t give up my books). I was already regretting my generosity. So I went down the basement to assess.

A few months ago – maybe even last year – my dad gave us some old cabinets he had ripped out of a kitchen remodel he was doing. We put them in the basement for storage. They aren’t pretty, just basic white under counter cabinets. Curtis placed a big flat piece of wood on top as a counter and had semi-filled each one with his house stuff – tools, paint, gadgets, etc…

It was a mess.

But when I walked down the basement I saw potential. And so I got to work cleaning and organizing the basement. After about an hour I had all of curtis’ tools and stuff organized into half of the cabinet space that was available. I now had room to make myself a little space of my own. I swept and laid a colorful African mat on the ground. Color! Then I proceeded to start moving half of my office down the basement. This included anything that wasn’t clothing (I will not get dressed in our unfinished basement – that is where I draw the line!) …sewing stuff, knitting stuff, wrapping paper, cards, art supplies, journals – you name it. If it wasn’t clothing it went down the basement.

I must’ve made 25 trips – I’m not kidding. Today I woke up and my calves felt as tight as rubber bands. Who needs a stair master?!

After three solid hours I was soaked with sweat but unspeakably gratified.

I now had half of my office cleared and ready for Curtis to “move in”. It felt good. I not only made room for him, but now had a nice little section of the basement laid out just for me. No longer was the basement cluttered with tools and gadgets, it was now organized and useful. And if you know me you know I love things organized. I may not be the neatest, cleanest person in the world, but when things have a place, I am one happy camper.

I did leave a little corner of boxes for Curtis to go through. I know most of it can probably be thrown away, but I can’t be the one to do it. (he’s gotten mad in the past when I try to help and clean by throwing away what I deem as “junk” - years later he’ll be looking for a certain cable and blame it on the time I threw away his stuff!)

After standing in the basement admiring my progress I curtailed it back upstairs and began to clean Curtis’ room – against my better judgment. Similar to organizing his junk/stuff, he doesn’t always like when I do this, but I figured I would do all I can to make “the move” easier for him. I picked up all the dirty clothes, folded all his clean clothes, made a neat stack of all the miscellaneous papers, cleaned off his desk, threw away wrappers and true junk, etc. I figured, if it’s clean, he may be more inclined to start organizing to move into my room sooner rather than later. We can perfect the space-sharing before we actually have to in order to get the kinks out now rather than later.

Then I took a shower.

Then instead of stopping for the night, I sat in front of our case of cd’s in Curtis’ office (that will eventually have to be boxed up) and went through my computer to see which haven’t been loaded. We don’t need to keep out the hard copies if they are all at least on one of our computers, so I made a large stack of what I couldn’t account for on my laptop and began loading them one-by-one on my computer (this may take a while). I found cd’s I had totally forgotten about and even the cover art took me back, some ten years or more ago. It was like music therapy.

And then I was exhausted. I sat on the floor in the living room, inserting cd’s and watching last comic standing (which actually wasn’t that funny!)

I texted Curtis that I had a surprise for him.

He texted back, “Are you preggo?”

“Nooooo,” I responded. “not that big of a surprise – but don’t guess, just call me when you’re about to come home.”

I knew he was stumped.

When he pulled in the driveway I met him at the back door. I was so excited to show him all I accomplished in a few short hours.

Needless to say, he was shocked. And impressed. (it’s always good to impress your spouse once in a while!)

We went to bed late. Too late for a work night, but when I did eventually get to bed, I fell sound asleep in minutes out of sheer exhaustion. - Exhaustion and with one less burden on my shoulders. This was a daunting project for me to even think about beginning, and I was dreading it, so I’m glad I didn’t have too much time to mentally prepare – instead, I just went at it like a tornado.

Now that I have my biggest “to do” (besides the actual adoption paperwork) actually started, I have visions of our office. This weekend I am going on the search for some kind of bins for Curtis to keep his clothes/stuff organized. Because he won’t have a dresser, I thought it would look better than socks and underwear thrown on a shelf!

Here are some photos - taken tonight - for your visual enjoyment:

organization

*these are of the "after" - the first four are of the basement and the other are of the guestroom (aka my room) -- one side is empty, the other is packed...but it won't stay that way for long!

We have been accepted and things are moving – and I’m less anxious than I was before about being able to get stuff done and accomplished before the last minute. I know we have time and I’ve never been a procrastinator anyways, but the worry was still there. Since all of our timelines are fuzzy, we can’t risk not having time to finish up what we’ve started.

Everyone says the process will probably take longer than expected, but in the off chance it doesn’t we want to be prepared. So away we go with projects and paperwork enough to keep everyone on their toes!

1 comments:

CitricSugar said...

Awwww - you're nesting! :-)

 
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