We've past the halfway point of the month. How can that be? Days drag on and on but weeks fly by and months are barely noticeable. So is life, I guess.
With just two weeks left in the Month of the Closets (http://thewingmom.blogspot.com/p/january-skeletons-out-of-closets.html) I thought I would share how my closet clean-out is going. There has literally been blood, sweat and tears. And you should know that I am one of those people who do not misuse the term literally. These things really happened: I bled, I sweat and I admit, I cried a little. The tears though were of course spurred by finding nostalgic items in my children's closets.
I'll spare you the play by play but to sum up, I have done the master closet, the closet shared by The Cowboy and The Ladybug and the coat closet (silly term since it holds only three coats and about 27 games and 19 puzzles). The Munchkin and I have made it about halfway through hers and now are struggling to find time to finish it up. That leaves just the dreaded linen closet untouched.
So, how do I get myself in the mindset to open a closet door and begin pulling things out. It can be hard and sometimes nearly impossible. My first approach is dressing for the job. I have found over the years I can do about anything so long as I am in the right gear. So what does one wear to clean out a closet? For me it is simple: sweatpants and an old t-shirt. For some reason this get-up tells me it is time for some serious cleaning.
If my outfit hasn't been enough to kick start a clearing out project, the next order of business is music. I think of it as a soundtrack like in a movie. Rocky's run up the stairs would not have been even half as cool if the opening song to The Backyardigans was playing instead of Gonna Fly Now. I'm not saying I clean to the tune of Gonna Fly Now, but I have a fairly short list of cleaning cds (I know in the world of iPods I should call this a playlist, but I still listen to cds.....my tape deck broke). My personal favorite for deep cleaning is Elton John's Greatest Hits. Really. Levon and I can do about anything.
With music cranked up, sweats on and my coffee at arm's reach, I am ready to dive in. Oh, I should mention that for some reason The Cowboy has really enjoyed these closets clean-outs. When he sees me starting he runs around yelling, "makes me happy, makes me happy!"; like mother like son, I guess. Or perhaps he more enjoys the epic mess I make in the process. Not sure on that one, but the cheering section sure helps the cause.
Before signing off and diving into the linens, I thought I should share what caused the first annual Month of the Closets at our house. It was many years ago, back when The Cowboy's room was still just a guest room and therefore his closet used as a holding bin for the oddities that never had homes. One January I decided to empty that closet. I had never done a complete empty-it-out-style closet cleaning before but this one required it.
As I pulled out some of the strangest things I have ever seen, I came across something even weirder than the rest. Nestled in the bottom of a box of Christmas gifts we had received the year before, as in 13 months earlier, I found a little ball. It was slightly bigger than a golf ball but every bit as hard and even had little dimples similar to a golf ball. I turned it over and over in my hands and thought about the fact I had spent months and months looking for that box of Christmas gifts. Christmas? What in the world was this little ball? And then it hit me. It was "the orange". Everyone gets an orange in their stocking and most people either eat them or leave them on the counter until they are yucky and need thrown away. We apparently leave them in a box and stow them away until they dehydrate into a nearly perfect brown golf ball.
It was a funny but also cathartic moment for me. The stowed items in the closet had been left untouched for so long that I dehydrated an orange. Really? Is that totally awesome or totally awful? Maybe both. So from that January on, each New Years I start making my plan of attack to look at and sort every single item, dehydrated or not, in every single closet, every single year.
I hope you make the most of the next two weeks and clear those closets out. If the right clothes and perfect playlist can't get you motivated to do it, remember the orange!
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