It’s been a while since I did Friday quick takes, so I’m linking up with Kelly for seven of them today.
1.
Last weekend, I went to a wonderful Catholic bloggers conference in South Bend.
I was so excited to finally meet in person the lovely Nell, and Bonnie, and Annie, and Jacqui, whom I’ve communicated with in cyberspace for some time now. I was also happy to meet many other ladies whose blogs I have read, and many new people whose blogs I now can read. You’ll notice that I updated my Blogroll in the sidebar, and I’m pretty sure I have all the new blogs I found there. Recommended reading right there>>>>
2.
Unfortunately for me, I cannot go away from my family without feeling guilty. I drove to South Bend on Friday evening and was planning to stay on Saturday night too. Then I discovered that dinner was planned for early on Saturday, so my guilt led me to decide to cut the weekend short and drive home Saturday evening. It was wonderful to get home, but I do wish I didn’t always feel so guilty about going away for a short time by myself (last weekend was only the second time I’ve done it). Does anyone know a cure for this??
3.
If you know me, you’ll understand what a huge step this is for me:
My husband and an appliance salesman convinced me (finally) that it’s okay to not rinse my dishes to a gleaming shine before loading them into the dishwasher. I have requested that my husband still rinse dairy products before loading, because dairy+sitting in the open=Ew, but other than that, I’m doing pretty well with leaving the dishes sort of dirty before putting them in. This experiment has been pretty successful too. Other than having to rewash a few bowls and a couple of spoons (note to curious husbands: big globs of peanut butter don’t come off with just the efforts of the dishwasher), I have been pleasantly surprised that our dishes are coming out clean. I can honestly now call myself a recovering compulsive pre-dishwasher-rinser.
4.
Miss had her first rehearsal with the children’s choir at church last night. It was so darned cute. Look how small she looks!
She loved it, and now wants to sing in church every week. She’ll sing at her first Mass next Sunday.
5.
I met with a realtor about selling our house. She casually mentioned our need to “edit out” some of the stuff we have in our closets and storage. I wonder if she meant this:
I was really embarrassed to even let her look into that closet (which is why I’m showing it to all of you), but she was intrigued by how big it was and wanted to go on back in there. The part of the closet that is used (I mean not as a dumping ground for outgrown baby clothes) is also quite big, so this stuff is all out of the way and usually I just toss the stuff that is too small for anyone back there, knowing I’ll get around to going through it “someday.”
Someday is now.
6.
On Wednesday, I went in there with trash bags and started mercilessly throwing all of it into the bags to take to St. Vincent’s. It was actually kind of hard, because I have been holding on to all of this stuff thinking I will probably need it again at some point. But I went ahead and bagged it all up.
I bagged and bagged until I ran out of time and bags (I ended up with about five grocery bags in addition to what is pictured). I kept almost nothing. A few special and personalized things, the pants I made for Miss, the Wonder Woman shirt that is my favorite, and almost nothing else. I loaded it all up in my car, where it still sits.
I don’t think I can do it!
I’m pretty sure this weekend I’ll be bringing the bags back inside and going through them a little more carefully. I’ll still be donating a ton of it, but it would make sense to keep a few things. I think.
7.
I’m feeling a mixture of excitement and terror at the idea of going through and cleaning out other areas in our house. We have so much stuff to purge. I’m so eager to do it, but I don’t want to do it. Know what I mean?
But I must.
This is happening, whether I’m ready or not!
I hope you have a great weekend. I’m gearing up for fish fry, another in-town conference tomorrow, and lots of game time and outside play with my girls (hubby is out of town). Don’t forget to check back for Embrace the Ordinary tomorrow (and link up!)
And be sure to check out Kelly’s Quick Takes link up too.
You can do the purge!! Loved finallly meeting you. You’re just as delightful as I thought you would be!
Eek! I don’t know! I was all hung ho to just get. rid. of. all. of. it. But now I feel like I should go through everything and maybe keep a FEW things. Just in case?
And thanks. I was so happy to have the same experience meeting you 🙂
When I did my post-MC purge this fall (and little purges before then) I found it helpful to go about it in stages. Keep everything that evokes a sentimental reaction first (you can go through it again in a couple months and purge out what no longer evokes that reaction as a second stage), but immediately donate anything with a “shelf-life” (unless it’s a sentimental item you wouldn’t mind never using again, but don’t want to part with) this includes things that actually have a safety expiration and things that will wear out in storage – namely anything with stains (which is keep degrading in storage) or lots of elastic (shoes, socks, etc.).
It’s totally okay to go in stages, but it helped me to think of the people I was helping out with the generosity.
Plus, at least in our case when the mountains might sing if we ever have another baby, we’re in a place where things can be replaced (by ourselves or by celebrating friends and family) and not everyone has that luxury. My mother actually told me “Get rid of it now. If it happens again people are going to be so excited they’ll be itching for something you need or want to buy and celebrate”. So two birds, one stone – other people get things they might not have to means to provide and I have a nice little list and empty drawers ready to really celebrate a future baby.
Molly, that is a great point that I never thought about – “If it happens again people are going to be so excited they’ll be itching for something you need or want to buy and celebrate.” So, so true.
I was going to purge quickly and mercilessly to try and make it less difficult, but maybe I will go a bit more slowly. I know I’ll still give away a LOT, because we have far too much (as is painfully obvious in that photo!), and I know there are so many who could use what we don’t need right now, but maybe I’ll go through things a little bit more carefully, just to make sure I don’t have regrets later!
It was so great to meet you, Amy!!! And I hugely admire your purging prowess!
Thanks Michelle! It was so fun to meet you too and to now finally have a person to go with the blog 🙂
It was so wonderful to meet you in person! Purging baby clothes is hard! I find myself doing it in waves where I get a little less attached to it all each time.
Yes, it was great to meet you too! And I was hoping to make it less hard by doing it very swiftly, but it seems I might have to be a little less drastic. Maybe 🙂
I have the same purge problem. To cure it I’ve been giving all of my daughter’s outgrown stuff to my SIL, who has two little girls (3 yr old and newborn). I don’t want to swamp her so I only give her the really good stuff, the nice dresses and outfits my daughter loved. I give the rest away to charity. I figure, if God blesses us with another daughter I get to go shopping for girl clothes again!! Your new home is looking awesome, BTW. I have dreams about having all that space!
I tend to pre-rinse the dishes too, probably out of habit from when I was growing up and dishwashers weren’t as nice as they are today. But my husband is really bad, he practically washes the dishes first (soaks them in hot soapy water too). It’s so bad I can’t tell if we turned the dishwasher on or not when he does them! Complaining about a hubby who does dishes?! Crazy, I know. I’ve been trying to convince him the dishwasher really does sanitize the dishes, but old habits die hard.
I used to be like your husband, though not with soapy water. My husband always got confused about whether the dishes were clean or not, because you really couldn’t tell just by looking at them if I had loaded them! My attachment to the pre-rinse definitely came from my childhood too!
We are also compulsive pre-dishwasher, washers. Nothing wrong with that!
Nope, nothing wrong with it! It is nice to not feel the need to scour them completely anymore. Actually, I should clarify, I still kind of feel the need to do it, but I just don’t. Baby steps 🙂