Completed: Basement clean-up.

So.

Although this blog is only several months old, this is a post 3.5 years in the making.

I explained a little bit of the backstory of this in my post about cleaning up the laundry room. Basically, when we moved in, the movers dumped all the boxes in our basement. I unpacked like a demon over a number of weeks (since I had a baby who never, ever slept and I was seriously delirious with lack of sleep, it took longer than I would have liked), but I left my husband's boxes down there, because, well, they were his boxes. Some of those boxes had been sitting, crammed full of stuff and untouched, since we got married in 2007. At our last house, they were in the attached garage, so I didn't have to look at them, but here? Here they were in the lower level of our house (it's a split level, and the basement is finished, so it's not a true basement, but it's how we think of it) and I passed by the heap every time I did laundry, scooped the litter box, or searched for a book on our shelves or something in my craft area.

As time went on, the heap of boxes grew messier. Stuff got added to the pile, things shifted around as my husband dug through the boxes for items he was searching for, I pushed things around to make room so I could actually see some of my craft area. And still he left those boxes there. "Even if you just go through one item a DAY," I begged him, to no avail. The mess remained.

And all the while, my anxiety grew. Messes and clutter have started making me very anxious, and beyond that, this area of the house was embarrassing. When we had people over and they caught even a glimpse of what that area looked like, I was mortified. Even when the rest of the house was in perfect order, the shame I felt over that basement was gargantuan. I'd been refusing to clean it, because hey, not my stuff...but as time went on, it became more and more obvious that it just wasn't going to get clean unless I did it, and honestly, my anxiety was so bad over that area that something had to be done.

And since part of the reason I started this blog was to leave no task unfinished, I began getting myself into the mindset of cleaning the basement. I started with smaller projects, worked my way up to the laundry room (whose mess was starting to resemble the basement itself!), and then it was time.

Are you ready?

It's bad.

Here it is.

It's okay to scream. Really.

That's not even the worst of it, to be honest. It's looked even worse at times. Can you see why this set off my clutter-induced anxiety so badly? It was getting to the point where I literally dreaded going down there, and I was getting tired of being afraid of- and being unable to use!!!!- an entire floor of my house. Another glimpse:

Is this worse? It might be.

This one was actually after I had started doing a little bit of cleaning, moving some stuff around and whatnot. On the right hand side, you can see a corner of the dry bar, basically just a large countertop with some open storage underneath. My son and I have cleared this thing off multiple times over the years we've lived here, and my husband keeps dumping stuff on it (he's, uh, got a messiness problem. Good thing I love him!). I stopped cleaning it off and my son gave up similarly, and the mess grew and grew. 

But no.

No more.

I desperately needed to Get It Done.

So I did.

It was a Tuesday when I started. I moved things around at first, making enough space for my daughter to play on the SmartCycle someone gave us (but that we've never hooked up to the TV because we don't want to get her started on video games this early! She has no idea it even hooks up to anything and just enjoys riding it like an exercise bike), and then I started going through boxes. I had a huge pile of recycling, a smaller-but-still-huge pile of garbage, and five hard plastic containers for storage in the crawlspace. And methodically, item by item, I began going through the boxes down there.

The things I found!

Bills (paid at the time, but then stashed and for some godawful reason, PACKED AND MOVED. WE PAID TO TRANSPORT THESE, SOME OF THEM MULTIPLE TIMES. YES, I'M SHOUTING; WOULDN'T YOU???), some of them from before 2010. Empty envelopes from cards and mail received years ago. Paperwork from cars and property that we no longer own. Bits and pieces of tools and things to be used with said tools, decorative items, military gear (my husband got out in the mid 2000's), backpacks with broken zippers, and my favorite item of all:

No phone it here; it was just the box.

WE TOTALLY NEEDED TO STORE THIS FOR YEARS AND THEN MOVE THIS THREE TIMES, RIGHT????? (This wasn't mine; mine was orange.) This box went straight into the recycling pile, and I moved on to the next ridiculous item. All in all, I managed to condense the heap of boxes my husband had been moving from place to place into four and a half plastic storage containers. That was it. Those boxes probably filled up an entire moving pod (which is what we used to move back here from Tennessee), but the keepable contents would've only filled a back corner. Not cleaning and organizing your stuff costs you money, people!!! 

So yes, it was an exercise in frustration, and it furthered my resolve of being careful as to what I bring in the house these days. I'm not interested in my time being taken up caring for possessions; I want to spend my time doing and creating and making, not cleaning and dealing with STUFF. I don't ever want to have to do this again. And most of this stuff wasn't mine in the first place, but I'm still glad to be in this mindset so that I don't get trapped by my own personal possessions.

The basement really didn't take as long as I thought it would. Two full days of sorting, organizing, and moving stuff around, and then this happened:

I nearly wept at being able to do this!

This was a huge deal for me to be able to do. 

I gave away a huge stack of empty boxes on Freecycle to a lady in my neighborhood who is moving- she was like, "Thank you!" and I was like, "No, thank YOU!!!!" I loaded up the car twice with enormous piles of stuff and dropped them off at the thrift store (and I still have at least one more, smaller donation pile). I gave my mom a few things. I organized my bookshelf, which had become a victim of my anxiety where I would just dump stuff on it and run out of the terrible basement, and I organized my craft area, which I'd been ignoring for ages, since I didn't feel like I could use it effectively with all the clutter down there. I organized, pitched, cleaned, decluttered. I. Was. Brutal.

Are you ready?

The difference is huge.

Check this out.

TA DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you even? Because I seriously cannot. 

Even seeing that picture makes me heave an enormous, satisfied sigh of relief. The amount of times I've gone downstairs this past week, solely to admire the clear, empty space, numbers in the I'm-not-sure-I-can-count-that-high. The last time the basement looked this clean was when we were touring this house when we were looking for a place (the lady that owned it previously had passed away, so the house was empty), so this is an ENORMOUS deal. Everyone I've shown this picture to that knows us and has been to our house has had a reaction like, "OH MY GOD!!!!"

Yeah.

It's that good. 

So I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to get at least SOME things done these days. A lot of this summer has been dedicated to getting the house in a more workable condition, and I'm feeeling a lot of relief about the results. I have a few more projects to do- I want to pull the stove out and scrub it down; I want to scrub down my appliances that sit out (my Instant Pot, my rice cooker) and clean off all the dust and yuck that have collected on the sides; I need to clean the two closets in my upstairs hallway (waiting on my husband to put up the missing wall in the shower to do that; it's been down for, uh, six weeks or so now, and the parts of the wall that need to go back up are lying in the hallway. He works long hours and so his time to work on home improvement projects is limited, so we all just live in an ongoing home improvement project, basically). 

One box, one item, one old piece of paper at a time, I got the job done. 

And I'm feeling pretty proud about it. :)

Have you ever done a major clean-up like this? I'd love to hear your story about it.

Completed: Laundry Room Cleanup

Do you have one of those areas in the house that, over time, turned into a dumping ground? One of those areas that the job is SO big, you weren't even sure where to start and so you've been avoiding it?

That's our downstairs.

So.

Story time.

When my daughter was born, she didn't sleep.

Ever.

You go into parenthood expecting some level of sleep deprivation. You expect to yawn, to be bleary-eyed, to maybe hit up whatever caffeinated beverage gets you through the day a little harder than normal. This was what life was like with my son. I was at the level of tiredness where everything was funny when he was young. Not a huge deal.

But my daughter never slept. And when she slept, she woke up constantly, and since my body was her food source, I was awake constantly, too. It wasn't abnormal for her to wake up six times between 11 pm and 6 am, and that was my life for 18 months. 18 months of getting, at most, 3-4 broken-up hours of sleep per day. (And forget naps; she rarely napped decently either, and I was too keyed up to fall asleep, not that it would have mattered, because her naps were 45 minutes tops until she got much older.)

So instead of yawning with bleary eyes, I sobbed uncontrollably, would think something and then have ZERO clue what I had just thought (there were times when I would think, 'Oh, I should get that out of the kitchen,' stand up, and then have NO clue why I was standing up), had joint pain and random aches for no reason, forgot where I was going when I was driving. I wish I were exaggerating; with that last one, my son, who was then 13 years old, had to remind me that I was taking him to school.

Oops.

There's a reason sleep deprivation is used for torture; it does terribly things to your physical and mental health. My daughter is four years old now and sleeps pretty well, but I still feel like my brain is recovering from all that time it spent without restorative sleep.

Anyway.

I struggled pretty badly through that time. I did my best to take care of what needed to be taken care of, but I failed pretty badly at a lot of things, no surprise there. Our basement was where the majority of the boxes were stored from our move (we moved back to our home state when my daughter was 8 months. NOT. EASY), and my husband's boxes, which are full of junk from college and also contain things like Comcast bills (paid, of course) from 2008, are still there. It's a dumping ground, one that I'm planning on tackling next, but the dumping ground had started to bleed over into the laundry room and I hadn't yet found the energy or the fortitude to tackle it. So it got worse and worse and worse, until suddenly, I couldn't take it anymore.

Are you ready?

Seriously. Steady yourselves.

Here's the laundry room.

*infinite screaming*

That's AFTER I started the cleanup process, as evidenced by the pile of stuff on top of the washer. But the stuff scattered on the floor, that was just...there. The bin of what looks like rolled-up wrapping paper was actually a small trash can full of roller shades (none of which fit any windows in the house) that was there when we moved in (as were the old disgusting mop and the other things leaning by the wall. Yuck). That's the thing about not sleeping- you don't even THINK of easy solutions, like, "Hey, I could throw that out." Never even occurred to me during that time, not even once. It's almost embarrassing to admit that.

But part of starting this blog was to hold myself accountable for all the things I both want and need to do, and this was definitely on my list of absolutely need to do, so I began slowly tackling the room. I started on a set of shelves left here by the previous owner (an older lady who had passed away). I weeded out a bunch of things she had left behind, then reorganized my own belongings and called it a day. The next time I organized, I worked on that large set of shelves you see on the right hand side of the picture, then moved to the space between that and the washer. And so on and so forth. Yesterday, I tackled the dryer, which is across from the washer, and the area to the right of it. And last night, I decided that the job needed to be over and done with, and I tackled the final box down there and swept the entire room. 

Are you ready?

It's so much better.

Here we go. 

Isn't it lovely? Isn't it woooooooooooonderful???

The amount of relief that picture gives me is enormous. Clutter triggers my anxiety in a bad, bad way, and I keep going downstairs to examine the gorgeous fruits of my labor. Let's look at some more organizational and cleaning fantasticness, shall we?

The area to the right of the washer had been FULL of boxes, clothes, and junk. FIRE HAZARD.

A view from the other direction.

So clean. So clutter free.

This took a LOT of work and a LOT of effort. My back is pretty toasted today; my hips hurt, my pelvis aches, and I was having trouble walking up the stairs last night after finishing all of this. It's going to be like that when I do the tough jobs; that's unfortunately just how my body works these days, and while it does indeed stink, I'm used to it and know to expect it. But the payoff here is really great; I get the satisfaction of both a clean, clutter-free laundry room, I get space to set up my drying racks for the winter so I don't have to use up so much electricity running the dryer, and I get the immense satisfaction of knowing that I completed a project that desperately needed completing.

I bought a small shelf from Menards today; that will go around where the bottles of water are in that last picture. It'll hold my daughter's paints, which are currently languishing where my husband left them, on the super cluttered bar in the basement. I'm sure I'll find other things to be stored on there as well, because up next...

The basement!

Wish me luck, because that place is seriously Nightmare on Elm Street-levels horrifying.

Do you have any major projects that you're tackling?

Book review: A 1000 Mile Walk on the Beach by Loreen Niewenhuis

Imagine a walk on the beach. The sand under your feet, the sun shining ahead, the call of birds in the distance, a power plant to your right, the strong smell of...is that some sort of solvent? And is that a half-stripped deer carcass over there? And what's all this trash doing here???

Equipped with a deep love of Lake Michigan (pictured above), author Loreen Niewenhuis decided to undertake a walk on its beaches- a long walk, all the way around. Clocking 1,019 miles at journey's end, Niewenhuis began at Chicago's Navy Pier, touring the lake counterclockwise, through towns, industrial areas, tourist havens, and deep forests with no signs of human life. She walked through various types of weather; occasionally she walked with friends and family, but mostly, she walked alone, allowing for deep contemplation of the lake, humanity and its relationship to nature, and herself.

This story is beautifully written, one of goal setting and determination, a love letter to the lake and a plea to the people who live on it and make the laws controlling it. Niewenhuis wonders over the natural beauty of the lake and the diversity of the wildlife that flock to it, but laments the way it's been not just changed, but devastated over the years. Industry has polluted Lake Michigan in shocking, terrifying ways, and invasive species such as zebra mussels and round goby have severely damaged the biodiversity of the fish population (and many of the remaining fish found in the lake are unsafe to eat). Time and again, she mourns what the lake could be, should be, if only humans would learn to live with it, instead of demanding that the lake serve us.

I'd been aware of some of the problems of the lake, but not to this extent. I live close enough to Lake Michigan that my drinking water comes from there (the water in the middle of the Lake is known to be potable; Niewenhuis drank filtered lake water on her journey, which, after reading her tales of all the chemical spills, and chemical and waste dumping that has taken place in the lake, I consider that pretty brave!), and I was extremely dismayed to read about how carelessly the lake has been treated practically since the beginning of white settlement (the native population lived more in harmony with the world around them). "I began to formulate the idea that the most invasive species of all is probably man," Niewenhuis says, and she's not wrong.

There's a lot to admire about Niewenhuis's journey, her love of the lake, and her persistence (she was back out there just days after being hospitalized for gallbladder issues so severe, her pancreas was affected). Loreen Niewenhuis is an amazing example of not only finishing what one starts, but also delving deeply into a personal passion. She's continued her walks, strolling the shores of all five Great Lakes and exploring the Great Lakes islands. I'm inspired by her drive, her follow-through, and her passion for the natural world, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more about her 1,000 mile walks.

And I'll be keeping a closer eye on the news regarding the health of Lake Michigan, and demanding that my representatives act as better stewards of this amazing resource. You should too.

Because this little girl, and all the other girls and boys out there deserve a clean, healthy lake.


(All photos come from our trip last summer to Traverse City and the surrounding areas.) 

An inheritance and an inspiration, or how this blog began.

This is Edith. She was a wife, a mother, and for almost 38 years, she was my grandmother. After 87 years on this earth, we said goodbye to her last month as she headed for her next destination. 87 years is an amazing lifespan, and we were incredibly lucky to have her around that long.

Some of my fondest memories are of sitting next to her on the couch while she worked on a cross-stitch or embroidery project. She'd poke the needle through the fabric, then let me pull it through. I developed a love of the calmness of crafting, of the rhythm of a needle passing through fabric, and of the joy of a design appearing where none had been before. Through her, I learned that handmade items make beautiful, heartfelt gifts.

Let me backtrack a little bit, because the story of this blog really starts a few months before Grandma passed.

Earlier this year, via the magic that is Facebook, I came across an article that a friend shared and it really got me thinking. Go Deeper, Not Wider (seriously, stop everything and go read this article right now, I'll wait. It's worth it, I promise) made me consider everything I have in my house- the books (fiction and non), the instruments, the craft supplies, an entire home full of things that I was planning on getting to someday...but when exactly was that someday? The author was right. Going deeper was exactly what I needed to do. I started by reading a few of the books I already had on my shelves, interspersed with the library books I've been getting through interlibrary loan (more on that in another post), and started working on a piano piece I'd bought from a book sale earlier in the year.

And then my grandma died.

For years, Grandma's Christmas gifts to me were these beautiful hand-embroidered dishtowels, which I used (and am still using) until they went to tatters. The cheerful designs and sunshiny colors she had chosen never failed to make me smile. Years ago, after Grandma's health had declined, my mother had mentioned those towels in passing and said, "Enjoy them, because there's not going to be any more." That phrase always stayed with me, and I thought of it often when I used one of those towels, or hung one out to dry.

After Grandma passed, I started thinking about her embroidery and what my mother had said, and I thought, "It doesn't have to be like that." Sure, maybe there won't be any more towels that Grandma made...but there can still be towels. I can still carry on that tradition, carry on the things she taught me, and in a way, it's like having part of her still here. While I'm proficient at cross-stitch, embroidery is a little beyond the skill set I'd developed, so I pulled out a book I'd bought years ago on embroidery, and I started to read. Two days later, my phone chimed with a text.

MOM: Hey, honey, do you do embroidery?

I sat on the floor of the library where I'd been picking out books for my daughter, staring at my phone, laughing at the ridiculousness of the Universe. My mom and aunt had discovered my grandmother's stash of embroidery and cross-stitch supplies, and Mom wondered if I'd want them. 'Of course!' I texted back. I hadn't even considered that Grandma had a stash. Four days later, this is what she brought:

There's a LOT of stuff crammed into that little box. Four stamped cross stitch aprons (not started), at least two sets of stamped pillowcases, plain white towels, stamped towels, scissors, at least one embroidery hoop, and floss- DMC, Coates and Clark, J&P, marked and unmarked. And then there was this:

A table runner, specifically Bucilla's Festive Fruit pattern, partially completed by my grandmother. With it came four napkins, also with a little bit done.

Most likely, my grandmother stopped doing her needlework due to her health. In her later years, she developed a problem with one of her hands; it kind of froze in one position and she could no longer open it (I believe they offered surgery, but she refused). But I'm sure Grandma didn't expect that the last time she put this project down, she would never pick it up again, and it would be passed on to me to finish it as a joint project.

That's really been on my mind lately. What will I be leaving unfinished? How many projects will my family and friends look at and go, "Huh, guess she never got to that"? And the answer is, a lot. I have two boxes of yarn downstairs, shelves of fabric, enough books to start my own bookstore...It's time. Time to go deeper, not wider. Time to finish what I start...or in this case, help Grandma finish what she started. Thanks for the inspiration, Grandma.