The Plan: Day one

The living room is nearly done. I'd say it's about 3/4 of the way completed. I think it will be the easiest room of the whole house, too. There's actually not much clutter there. It's the room we spend the most time in so we've pared down and decluttered there more than anywhere else.

I began early- before 8:00. As soon as Ella was up she jumped right in to help me. LOVE that girl. Isaias wandered around with a damp washrag and wiped things. Isaac slept in this morning. Adelia? She slept until 11:00!!! See? I told you she said she'd be really, really good! ~smile~

We swept, vacuumed, dusted, and washed the walls, windows and floors as we went.

And of course I had to rearrange all the furniture. Which is one of my favorite things in the world to do. Really.

The kids all petered out after awhile, but then Ella read books aloud on the couch to the boys and Addie was still sleeping so I worked alone.

Tomorrow it's Mark's day off and we're off to do something fun with Amy-and-family, so I'll resume the Spring Cleaning on Friday. I forget what room I'm in that day.

Thanks for all your fun tips and encouragement! I realize most people do this type of thing on a semi-regular basis, but I assure you, I do not. But we may have to make it a tradition.

And one more thing. Which happens to be completely unrelated to cleaning or decluttering but hear me out: If you're not watching the show The Big Give, you should tune in. It's basically a show in which Oprah (or other wealthy people), hand some contestants a bunch of money and they get to give it away to various people/organizations. You can watch it online here. Mark and I usually only watch LOST, but it hasn't been on. One night when he was gone I watched this show and now I'm hooked. If you're only going to watch one episode, watch the one called Destination: Miami. Each contestant is given $100,000 cash and has to spend it within 24 hours. But there were rules. They couldn't just hand out cash. They couldn't give more than $500 to one person, and I think the other one was that they couldn't spend more than $10,000 at any one store/place. It was interesting to see what people did, and it made for good conversation around here, too, as we tried to figure out what we would have done. We even talked to the kids over lunch one day, sharing some of the things people had done and asking them what they would do if someone let them give away some money. (I think Isaias said he'd give it to us. Ella said she'd give it to "poor people". Isaac said he'd give it to someone who didn't have any money. I love those kids.)

Now I'm off to see who is slamming doors downstairs when they're supposed to be having a quiet time. ~Sigh~