Friday: storage room is finished!

One year ago* I started cleaning the storage room.  I had been hoping to do it last in the Operation: Clean the House list, but it had reached a critical point.  It got a lot better quickly, but Ben and I spent the last month finishing up the few last things.

*I took the before pictures on January 10, 2025, it is really only 364 days ago.

And so, with lots of elation, I present before and after for the storage room.

There's not a ton of change here.  The white fridge broke so we needed a new one.  I cleaned up some of the area behind the freezer, but am now storing full boxes of donations there.

The stuff on the left stayed mostly the same, but I dealt with the boxes in front of the water heater so the space has opened up.

Look at all the stuff that was moved!  A lot was just moved to a different area, but it is now a calming experience to enter the storage room instead of a harrowing dance among the boxes.

I just like the difference for this picture.

This is one of the better pictures that shows how cluttered it was...and how much it has changed.

Same location, slightly different angle.

It is hard to show just how terrible this back corner was.  The shelves weren't being used very effectively because they couldn't always be reached.  It had become a dumbing ground.  I also couldn't get a very good picture of how bad it was because there was too much stuff in the way.

Box storage moved and I put up a few high shelves...so that we can stack things underneath later.  (Hopefully much later, but based on the rest of the house it takes about two-three years to need another round of cleaning, but nothing has dissolved to its original state either.)

The picture doesn't show well how hard it was to walk to the other side of the storage room.  It was very possible, but kind of balance beam-esque.  

There is a dedicated place for tables and ladders now too.  They had just been moving around the house and so it was always hard to find them when needed.

So the three bookshelves went down to two shelves of books.  I feel like I should do more, but it just wasn't in me.  Next time.  Ben also cleaned up the cable area so we could move everything down the wall three feet.  The black shelves are now my "get rid of stuff".  EBay, donations, electronic recycling, books for the library, etc.

We removed several large boxes for electronics, and dated the ones that we did need to keep.  Box storage also moved into this area.  It's still rather full, but it is stacked better.  We also added the indoor bike for Joshua's winter exercise.

It isn't a good before and after picture, but Ben cleaned up the cords so we could move the bookshelves.

 

And a few extra pictures, because I could actually stand in good places for them.  The white shelves that disappeared earlier got moved over here into the shelf row.  After that are some black wire shelves with our extra Lego - it is a massive improvement to the bucket we had before that was so annoying to look through.  

Thursday: not finishing things

Today had two main goals: clean and organize some Lego stuff and prep some items for sale on eBay.

I worked on the Lego stuff in the morning.  I made a huge dent on the pile, but it isn't completely finished.

I ate lunch and took a short nap.

In the afternoon I worked on getting some eBay listings prepped.  I got several ready, but it felt like a small amount compared to the amount that we want to list.

But...progress was made.

Wednesday:

Yesterday Isaac got to wear the birthday hat at rock climbing.  He was not excited to wear it, but the others were insistent and I think he gave in without too much trouble.

He also got this red route, which involved some very specific foot work running up to it.

Ok, today.  Today was a normal get stuff done day with nothing special.  I was pretty successful though!  Our main area is mostly back to normal except for some extra chairs and a tower of boxes.  It feels amazing.  I love the Christmas decor, but I also love not having the Christmas decor in January.

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!

The animals found baby Jesus right away on Christmas day.  Phew.

However, by the time I woke up the Christmas Ruiners had come along to ruin Christmas.  Baby Jesus was put in a jail (although they didn't fit very well.)  

I said "no, no! Jesus is for everyone, even Christmas Ruiners." and moved everyone back to a better position.

In the afternoon we went to Larry and Cheryl's house.  We started with brunch.  It is one of my favorite meals of the year.  We opened presents.  We played games.  We ate a ton of delicious food, and it was a lovely time.

Christmas Eve

Nathan and Liz left after an early lunch.  The morning was pretty normal: they did some packing, the kids did some playing, we all did some talking.  Isaac got his birthday present early.

Both children are getting taller and it seemed extra noticeable this Christmas.

After nap time we opened our presents.  I guess I didn't get many pictures, but everyone was very generous!  

Creeper's ...squares?  toes? were cold so he went in one of Joshua's new slippers.

Christmas Tuesday: DeYoung Christmas day 2

 I forgot to mention it on the day my family arrived, but at one point Evelyn and JJ played their recital pieces.  They were excellent.  And then Joshua played through his whole Christmas book. :D  It was cute, but a few details to make it more interesting.  1) He had a play list.  2) He had been practicing these songs for a while.  He had a plan of giving a performance.  3) The songs were on the easier side for him, but it worked well because he was able to figure most of them out himself.  I think he decided to bring the book to piano lessons, but most of it was just him.

So, back to Tuesday.

The kids horsed around in the morning.  It is nice not to have to have someone on child-duty anymore.

Aunt C came over.  Dad had a picture of the old farmstead and so that brought out some stories.  The garden was farther away from the house than I would have guessed.  It was (mainly) beans, tomatoes, and strawberries.  Although it was primarily a dairy farm, there were also some pigs and chickens.  The milk was stored in the milk house next to the barn and someone came to get it regularly.  (I feel like it was every day, but I'm not sure on that now.)  Julie would line up the calves and play with them.  I think they moved into the city when Mom was in middle school -ish.  Before high school for sure, due to logistics of getting to Muskegon.

We had lunch and then nap time.  We were going to Hope to work on a project, so when my alarm went off I came out and found a lot of people had joined me in nap time.

Our project of the year was wind-up cars.  Dad found them in his office as he was cleaning it out.  It was a nice project because it required the use of the bandsaw and drill press and the kids were old enough of use the tools by themselves (but with supervision!).

The cars worked ok.  They moved down the hallway, but for the amount of effort needed to wind them up they didn't move very far.

There was the annual "run to the end of the hallway and back" run too, going on for at least 35 years.

When we got home Pat had already gotten there.  (Cars took a bit longer than I expected, so she had been there for a while.)  So she and Ben got out our most complicated game, some wine, and she learned a few key words so that they could tease us.

Dad made spaghetti for dinner - it was lovely not having to cook.  Isaac still went to rock climbing practice, so Nathan and I went to pick him up and watched him climb a few routes.  The other kids watched a movie and had popcorn.

Monday: cleaning

I received these texts yesterday...after two weeks of Christmas break.  I really wish there wasn't quite such a big push on perfect attendance - there are some good reasons to not go to school sometimes.

I got a lot done today.  Maybe I could have done it with people around, but it is so much easier with everyone out of the house and not distracting me.  I finally got the kitchen fully cleaned.  I put away all the laundry.  I packed up the remaining Christmas decorations.  (Below is a picture of all the stuff that needed to go back downstairs.  There were more items, but my pile had gotten obnoxiously large and so I needed to bring some things to the basement.