Binge and Purge

This is post 199 for those of you keeping track. I'm almost at my goal, which in Kristen's world is usually where I start to slack off and lose steam...yes, I do slack off. But not this week, no not so much.

Although we may be in a "down" economy, it was a banner year for gifts in this household. Between Hanuka and Christmas celebrations (not to mention the birthday smack in the middle of the two), I am pretty sure that Natalie received everything (she can remember) that she wanted. My brother, with no children of his own (yet), went nuts. NUTS! Not in a bad way, more of a beloved, child-like, awesome uncle way. Games, barbie, a Home Depot work bench, a gumball machine, two electronic Thomas trains. That isn't even everything he bought and he isn't the only one who bought gifts! This sent me into a tailspin of cleaning and reorganization.

First, the upstairs craft closet (yes, we have more than one). Natalie was a good sport about throwing things out. I must give her credit because she really is a queen of ideas for repurposing materials. She is so convincing that even while I am in my mad woman phase of "everything must go" she makes me stop and think, maybe we should keep those ties that hold toys to the cardboard in order to make whatever clever idea she just told me." But I stayed strong, praised her creativity and resourcefulness and threw them out. OUT! The upstairs craft closet was the easiest, I have to say. Making room for the Crayola music draw thing and the light up Color Wonder paint set was easy.

Next came the game closet. It has been my dream, since before we had kids, that when we had kids we would have one of those game closets that had every game imaginable. Shout out Lyman family. I wanted their game closet. In fact, it is the model in my head as I reorganize every time a new game comes in. This holiday season brought us:

Twister

Scramble (aka Perfection)

Sorry (but not the original, although still on my list, a shuffle board version)

Kerplunk

Operation (which we already had, so we will pick out something new)

Three new puzzles

I'm tempted to list our entire collection, but I will spare you until another day. All I have to say is that it is good. Not finished, but if you wanted to come over and play a game, chances are we have it. And if you do want to come over, well, we're game. hahhahahhaha

There was some after hours purging that had to happen to make this organization possible. We said goodbye the the magnetic Melissa&Doug Calendar which had so many pieces that I was constantly picking up, I was not sad to see it go. Some noisy bug game that none of us knew how to play, and bag full of other stuff that really wasn't that great because I can't even remember what it was.

Since I was on a mission and we were snowed in on Monday, I decided it was high time that we take all the bins down from the attic, go through them, and purge. It feels so good. I organized all of Natalie's baby clothes (just in case), condensed three Christmas bins into one, and went through all of my work clothes from before I had Natalie. We threw so much out, that we were left with six empty bins. The rest we lettered and made a list as to what was in them.

The tree is undecorated and ready to be taken out and I feel that we are well prepared to bring in 2011!