I spent a good portion of each morning the last week or so just trying to slowly sift through what’s on our counters, cleaning the table off, throwing things out, putting things in the donation bucket, recycling, etc. We’re literally cleaning house, albeit slowly. Over the weekend I found a package of coffee filters that are too small for our machine, so they went to the church for Bible school (more on that later). I knew they would find something to do with them, and it seems like they will. Out of my house and put to good use! We waded through the nursery, took down the long neglected infant swing (thanks, hubby), and put some things in to donate, shifted things around (for example, baby towels got put in a zip top bag and thrown in the top of the linen closet to wait for November), and moved larger toys out for the toddler (say it ain’t so!) to play with for a while. I even managed to find a box of disposable type inserts (called hybrids to use in cloth diapers) that were long neglected and notify a friend that could use them and send them off to her, along with something else I’d been holding onto for a while. It feels good for those to go to good use. She has some gently used newborn diapers that might come my way as a general exchange, so that’s good for me!
It looks a lot better in there, and once we have the go ahead for gender we’ll sort through the 2 overflowing tubs of 0-9 month clothes and most likely donate a lot of them. Most everything was a gift at those stages and I’m certain there will be someone at our church giveaway this year that will need it. Anything leftover typically goes to charity anyway, so at some point teeny sleepers and onesies will cradle a new life, whether it comes from our genetics or not, someone will happily snooze, eat, and poop in those clothes, a parent will be happy their child is safe and warm, and we’ll be making more room in the house. I’m not saying we’re done having kids, but at this point we have to let some of it go. The oldest ones don’t quit needing new things- yes, we too will ‘shop’ at the free drive from our church-and as the seasons change things will be handed down until there’s reason to let it go or throw it out. Same thing with toys, a few things here and there, no matter how cute, have to go. We attempted to get the older kids to sift through their toys as well, but by the time we got the nursery done and had done quite a bit with getting the garage tidied up, that went to the wayside. One thing at a time.
Although we took time to explain Memorial Day to our older kids, we didn’t have a barbeque (although we did grill steaks, twice), didn’t throw a party, didn’t post anything crazy to Facebook with flags waving. Basically we just took it in stride. Life is moving along quickly, whether we’re ready for it or not. Before we know it, summer will be on us, I’ll be too weighed down to do much and the kids will be wild! That’s what summer is for, right? Once summer is over, it will be birthday season in this house, and that means new things in and time to really get down to the business of figuring out what we need and what we can live without.
We hired our babysitter for a few hours to watch the older 2 kids and she ran one of them to ball practice and jaunted around with the other one. Kind of like an older sister. Worked for us. She’s moving soon and the kids don’t know it yet. That’s going to be epically tragic for all of us. But, it’s good for her family so we’re keeping a stiff upper lip. Until it’s time to say goodbye, anyway. Moving on, the reason we did that is so we could go vehicle shopping. We loved a particular van, but the difference in height between the two of us makes what might be uncomfortable for him, comfortable enough for me (because I’m not picky) still not worth it. I would have to sit about 5 inches from the steering wheel because of my height (1o is recommended for protection from the airbag) and by July my stomach would be sitting ON the steering wheel. The way to avoid that is adjustable pedals (electronic) which is basically available through one brand, so that’s where we’ve been continuing to look. We’re not pressed to buy until baby needs to come home, so we’re hoping to nab a steal once new model years come out. But we found out what we needed to and that’s a relief. We’re going back and forth between 2 SUV type things, because we’ll be trading our truck in exchange, we still need something with 4WD that will let us make it out if need be in winter with everyone. Meanwhile our old truck (2004) is still in the shop for body work, so once it’s fixed and drivable that will at least be an option for the variety of truck purposes, hauling, breaking up snow in the driveway, towing, etc.
Yesterday my husband took off work and we did some more necessary things. He caulked the patio door that’s been leaking, we’ll see how that works. It would be nice for our kitchen/dining area not to flood when it rains, as has happened the last year or so. We’ve been thinking about replacing it, but the expense is tremendous and we’re trying to get our bills down, with baby coming, naturally, it would be nice to not have a $2000 bill out there for a door that really should not be leaking after only 4 years. No matter what payment plan we’d be on, it’s still an expense. So we’ll see how it goes. We also took out easily 6 months of paper recycling, got rid of a month’s worth of can/plastic recycling all from the garage and my husband sprayed for pests in there, it hadn’t been done in a while. We dropped packages off at the post office, books at the library, and while he did the recycle dumping, the kids and I went to help out at Bible school prep. A ton of stuff needed done, cutting out cardboard pieces, painting of said pieces, hanging stuff up, there was a job for everyone. My husband got there and checked outdoor lights which haven’t been working (he’s on the Trustees) at church, and since Bible school is at night this year, yup, time to get those fixed. They’re so old we’re having trouble finding a replacement locally so we’ll have to order something. Fingers crossed it gets here in time. The oldest and I went back a second time after lunch and the younger 2 went to bed, at the end of the day we’d really helped out a lot. Bonus: art for everyone! Homeschooling win!
So yes, basically we did our best at cleaning house, although by the state of the living room, you seriously would never know. One day and one room at a time, I guess. We’re making room, clearing things out, welcoming other things in (several years worth of homeschooling materials showed up for us, gratis) and doing our best to be good people.
