...on the last episode of Ann's Random Blog... You'll all remember I made a deal with the devil. My last post was Thursday, the 2nd. So here's the deal: Happy Late 4th, everyone! I did take a couple days off from Thee Holy Regime. This was ONLY because we had a 4th party to attend on Friday evening, then actually hosted a lil 4th gathering on Saturday. So Friday and Saturday consisted of shopping and prepping and making foodstuffs for those events. Sunday I helped (or pretended to help) restore the farm to it's original "order" (a.k.a. cleanest farm EVER) and Sunday night we watched the rescheduled fireworks in Dixon. End of Weekend. Waaah.
Monday was back to work (ew) and back to Thee Regime. On Saturday I couldn't find my awesome F&F Boutique rainboots so I texted Mr. Clean on their whereabouts. He responded with: "Look in your other closet. Your trunk." While I was trying to determine if I should spell out the f-word in my response or just write "eff" or "F" or "f***," he promptly followed up with a "Love u." Smart man...he's clean AND smart! So, whatever, Steward...step off my trunk. LOL. I'll admit the Audilicous has minimal trunk space due to all of Belle & I's junk. It's been a "lil" out of control as of late since Belle's been on the roll for the summer and people are constantly handing me bags of stuff they bought her or she brought out or whatever. Anyway, so I cleaned my trunk. Belle's entire American Girl collection, our sets of rainboots, 44 pairs (exaggerated )of flip flops, several tote bags, my winter coat (okay, two of them) are all in the house now in their respective spots. Yay. So, truly, it doesn't count as a "house clean out" per se but I did throw a bunch of items away and put some in the donation pile. :)
Last night, omfreakin'g, I hit the dreaded computer desk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been avoiding it like the plague. From the outside it looks quite innocent. A big vintage wooden desk. It kind of rocks it. The drawers are PACKED full of random MBA books, notebooks and papers, cameras, CD's (blank, burned and purchased) packs of pictures (pre-digital camera) era, random adapters to whatever gadgets I've had over the past five years, keys, a couple rocks (?), three staplers, etc etc etc. This innocent desk yielded two garbage bags full of stuff. The funniest things I found were: five old cameras (4 digital, 1 non-digital), I'm sure their respective adapters, three old John Deere badges and a badge to a gym I cancelled membership to in May '08, and two bags of potpourri (I don't use potpourri). I mean FIVE cameras - really? Why? Okay, my last film camera I still had because the battery was dead BUT there were pics on the film. Obviously, you can't take out the film until all had been exposed. I tried, trust me. I then decided the pics most likely weren't worth the cost of the special battery just to take pics of the floor and then take out the film. Gone. Also included were my first digital (Kodak EasyShare), second digital (Canon Elph SD700 - movin' on up), Kurt's digital camera (about as cool as his computer he loves), and a random digital camera of my mom's. I threw them all away. Anyway, this is a really stupid story. I also found all of our wedding receipts! Oh, and a huge stack of my paystubs (unopened) from 2004 and 2005, in order. WTF?
I still have the top of the desk (a row of books) to clean and also the middle drawer (a.k.a. the card drawer). I'm saving these for another night! :) I'm too tired today so I'll have to find something to throw away. I think I'll clean out this lil decorative basket beside the desk and just throw away everything in it. Fun!
Mucho, mucho, love!
Ann
Showing posts with label Deal with the Devil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deal with the Devil. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Pure Insanity
Written on Thursday, July 2:
Yep, Day 5. Still hitting the trash bags and Goodwill/Garage Sale piles! I'm starting to get depressed/annoyed at myself for keeping all of this stuff I NEVER wear or use. Maybe Kurt is right - lol.
Tonight I went into the trenches...our attic. It's actually a big room off of the bedroom but for some reason my whole family calls it the attic. I think it's because everyone for the last fifty years has always used it for storage (due to lack of ANY other storage). I mined an ENTIRE laundry basket packed full of purses/handbags/wallets for giveaway. Then I found an entire HUGE storage tote FULL of sweaters and long sleeved shirts. OMG! I decided to not even go through it. I just put it ALL in the pile. Why? I recall packing these shirts away over three years ago when I was trying to put away winter clothes "for the summer." The fact I didn't look for them for three years indicates to me I'll never wear ANY of that stuff again. Ew. Goodbye.
In the "attic," there is an old armoire type of thing. I have all kinds of random clothing in it. That's where you see the big stack on top of the laundry basket in the pic. I made it about 1/3 of the way through this armoire.
The funniest part of the night is a humongous Victoria's Secret bag I FILLED WITH BELTS. Oh god, I have no idea how many but wow were they hilarious!!!!!!!!! Honestly, at least FIFTY BELTS, probably more. Why did I save all of these? Some I seriously remember wearing in college. This is just not normal. lol.
The bad news is the stuff for donating is really starting to stack up in the extra bedroom, which is about to give my farmer a heart attack. Yikes!
Post more soon!
Love,
Moi
Yep, Day 5. Still hitting the trash bags and Goodwill/Garage Sale piles! I'm starting to get depressed/annoyed at myself for keeping all of this stuff I NEVER wear or use. Maybe Kurt is right - lol.
Tonight I went into the trenches...our attic. It's actually a big room off of the bedroom but for some reason my whole family calls it the attic. I think it's because everyone for the last fifty years has always used it for storage (due to lack of ANY other storage). I mined an ENTIRE laundry basket packed full of purses/handbags/wallets for giveaway. Then I found an entire HUGE storage tote FULL of sweaters and long sleeved shirts. OMG! I decided to not even go through it. I just put it ALL in the pile. Why? I recall packing these shirts away over three years ago when I was trying to put away winter clothes "for the summer." The fact I didn't look for them for three years indicates to me I'll never wear ANY of that stuff again. Ew. Goodbye.
In the "attic," there is an old armoire type of thing. I have all kinds of random clothing in it. That's where you see the big stack on top of the laundry basket in the pic. I made it about 1/3 of the way through this armoire.
The funniest part of the night is a humongous Victoria's Secret bag I FILLED WITH BELTS. Oh god, I have no idea how many but wow were they hilarious!!!!!!!!! Honestly, at least FIFTY BELTS, probably more. Why did I save all of these? Some I seriously remember wearing in college. This is just not normal. lol.
The bad news is the stuff for donating is really starting to stack up in the extra bedroom, which is about to give my farmer a heart attack. Yikes!
Post more soon!
Love,
Moi
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Motion of the Lotion
...as in out the door.
I decided to hit up the lotion cabinet tonight. It's actually a really tall antique cabinet that serves as our bathroom closet as surprise, surprise: there is no closet in the bathroom! There is no closet in the bathroom because when the house was built, the bathroom was the outhouse. Therefore, the bathroom was snuck in later behind the kitchen = no room for a closet.
Shockingly, I had an entire shelf DEDICATED to lotions and lotions and lotions. And corresponding body sprays and whatnot. Granted, it's true...I am a shower freak, as previously mentioned. That being said, I buy a lot of lotion. I also feel terrible throwing away any gifts people get me. So I had a huge shelf of this stuff that I may have used at one point for awhile, but switched to something else. In most cases, I won't go back to the old stuff.
I have an ENTIRE fabric Hy-Vee bag packed FULL of bottles of lotions and body sprays. My friend is going to empty them and recycle them. Yay, Kate!
I also was able to purge almost all of my sunscreen collection, like 20 bottles of nailpolish, a bunch of hair ribbons Belle doesn't wear anymore, several types of band-aid boxes after consolidating the contents, etc.
I decided to hit up the lotion cabinet tonight. It's actually a really tall antique cabinet that serves as our bathroom closet as surprise, surprise: there is no closet in the bathroom! There is no closet in the bathroom because when the house was built, the bathroom was the outhouse. Therefore, the bathroom was snuck in later behind the kitchen = no room for a closet.
Shockingly, I had an entire shelf DEDICATED to lotions and lotions and lotions. And corresponding body sprays and whatnot. Granted, it's true...I am a shower freak, as previously mentioned. That being said, I buy a lot of lotion. I also feel terrible throwing away any gifts people get me. So I had a huge shelf of this stuff that I may have used at one point for awhile, but switched to something else. In most cases, I won't go back to the old stuff.
I have an ENTIRE fabric Hy-Vee bag packed FULL of bottles of lotions and body sprays. My friend is going to empty them and recycle them. Yay, Kate!
I also was able to purge almost all of my sunscreen collection, like 20 bottles of nailpolish, a bunch of hair ribbons Belle doesn't wear anymore, several types of band-aid boxes after consolidating the contents, etc.
Sorry for the bad pic quality. Kurt accidentally threw away my camera cable so I had to take pics with my phone and upload until I can replace it. Well, at least I'm blaming the cord loss on him. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact my desk and closets are in a disarray! BUT O.M.G. I should've taken a before and after shot. The before picture would look similar to the above picture, except imagine the inside looking like the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. I seriously cannot even explain the difference but my farmer seems impressed this is like Day 4 and I'm still ditchin'...and he can now open the bathroom "closet" without going into cardiac arrest!
So this is a totally lame post. But it IS a bathroom closet and that's the hottest scoop that could come from a bathroom closet! :) Still ditching stuff so...yay! Eventually, I'll have to move on to the computer desk. Ugh!!
Mucho love!!
Ann
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
End of an Moose-alicious Era (almost)
OMFG. I cannot believe I'm about to admit what I'm ditching for the day. Mainly because I should in no way, shape or form have any of this stuff!!!!!!! I have a feeling my friend Craig will never talk to me again. lol.
So when I turned 30, I decided I was too old to wear my beloved Abercrombie jeans and quit shopping at my 2nd favorite store cold turkey (Von Maur has always been #1). I had been shopping there hardcore for YEARS. Since age 30 (appx 16 months ago), I've done three MAJJJJJOR purges of my A&F collection including lots of jeans, lots of sweaters, lots of long-sleeve stretchy numbers, lots of obnoxious striped items, etc etc. Kurt's god-sister (?) (it's his mom's god-daughter) is 13ish so she's been able to wear all the stuff, which is AWESOME! She's getting rather tall now though so not sure she can still rock my A&F jeans. For those of you wondering how the hell a 13 year old can wear my jeans, do know that I am only 4'11". End of short story.
Anyway! Kurt mentioned the other day that he has never even seen me get into one of the dressers in the spare room. lol. This dresser is my "jeans" dresser and happened to be PACKED sardine-style of jeans, pants, (apparently jean skirts, omg) and capri's that have PRESUMABLY/APPARENTLY made the cut from the three major post-30 wardrobe purges?? For lack of a more appealing offer, I decided to tackle this little # for my nightly seek & destroy project. I discovered and ditched 5 more pairs of A&F jeans, a pair of IT jeans and a pair of GAP jeans in there. Considering I don't wear jeans that often (have to dress up for work), chances are I would NEVER choose any of these jeans over my True Religions or even my 7's in ten million years. Gone! I also found several pairs of A&F khaki's in there I used to wear to WORK (omg no), 4 A&F jean mini-skirts (wtf * 2) and a white (wtf) A&F khaki skirt. At some point you need to evaluate your age and incorporate the fact you don't do 1,000 squats per week...and admit you will NEVER wear one of these jean mini-skirts again...even if they were in style, which sure AS HELL they are not! Goodbye.
Now I actually have room IN THE DRESSER for all of the decently cool jeans I stack ON TOP of the dresser. Yay. I ditched some other random stuff I had on top of the dresser and stashed on the side of the dresser. I also cleaned out a tote of little shirts/tanks and made a decent-sized ditchable stack, most consisting of moose-adorned attire. Ugh!
Now I say "almost" in the title because I did keep a bunch of A&F tanks I still wear under stuff, some plain-colored tees I don't really wear but could see myself wearing eventually. And fine, several pairs of capris for lack of any other capri's (in general, I never wear jean capri's anymore...soooo over them). I'm sure they'll be getting ditched during the next purge.
I am starting to agree with Kurt's mom that I should have a garage sale (she wants me to have one, so she can have one, lol). Ugh. It sounds like a lot of work!!
But the point is I'm sticking to my deal with the devil and Kurt's going to be way overjoyed when he gets home from the farm and sees yet another garbage bag in the hall and a huge stack of clothes for either Goodwill or the alleged garage sale that will most likely never happen. Who has time for this? And why do I save all these clothes I NEVER wear? Seriously?? Jean mini-skirts??? I'm dying.
So when I turned 30, I decided I was too old to wear my beloved Abercrombie jeans and quit shopping at my 2nd favorite store cold turkey (Von Maur has always been #1). I had been shopping there hardcore for YEARS. Since age 30 (appx 16 months ago), I've done three MAJJJJJOR purges of my A&F collection including lots of jeans, lots of sweaters, lots of long-sleeve stretchy numbers, lots of obnoxious striped items, etc etc. Kurt's god-sister (?) (it's his mom's god-daughter) is 13ish so she's been able to wear all the stuff, which is AWESOME! She's getting rather tall now though so not sure she can still rock my A&F jeans. For those of you wondering how the hell a 13 year old can wear my jeans, do know that I am only 4'11". End of short story.
Anyway! Kurt mentioned the other day that he has never even seen me get into one of the dressers in the spare room. lol. This dresser is my "jeans" dresser and happened to be PACKED sardine-style of jeans, pants, (apparently jean skirts, omg) and capri's that have PRESUMABLY/APPARENTLY made the cut from the three major post-30 wardrobe purges?? For lack of a more appealing offer, I decided to tackle this little # for my nightly seek & destroy project. I discovered and ditched 5 more pairs of A&F jeans, a pair of IT jeans and a pair of GAP jeans in there. Considering I don't wear jeans that often (have to dress up for work), chances are I would NEVER choose any of these jeans over my True Religions or even my 7's in ten million years. Gone! I also found several pairs of A&F khaki's in there I used to wear to WORK (omg no), 4 A&F jean mini-skirts (wtf * 2) and a white (wtf) A&F khaki skirt. At some point you need to evaluate your age and incorporate the fact you don't do 1,000 squats per week...and admit you will NEVER wear one of these jean mini-skirts again...even if they were in style, which sure AS HELL they are not! Goodbye.
Now I actually have room IN THE DRESSER for all of the decently cool jeans I stack ON TOP of the dresser. Yay. I ditched some other random stuff I had on top of the dresser and stashed on the side of the dresser. I also cleaned out a tote of little shirts/tanks and made a decent-sized ditchable stack, most consisting of moose-adorned attire. Ugh!
Now I say "almost" in the title because I did keep a bunch of A&F tanks I still wear under stuff, some plain-colored tees I don't really wear but could see myself wearing eventually. And fine, several pairs of capris for lack of any other capri's (in general, I never wear jean capri's anymore...soooo over them). I'm sure they'll be getting ditched during the next purge.
I am starting to agree with Kurt's mom that I should have a garage sale (she wants me to have one, so she can have one, lol). Ugh. It sounds like a lot of work!!
But the point is I'm sticking to my deal with the devil and Kurt's going to be way overjoyed when he gets home from the farm and sees yet another garbage bag in the hall and a huge stack of clothes for either Goodwill or the alleged garage sale that will most likely never happen. Who has time for this? And why do I save all these clothes I NEVER wear? Seriously?? Jean mini-skirts??? I'm dying.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Deal with the Devil
Yes, I made one. F***! Not that my husband is Satan himself, but he sure as hell (no pun intended) is the g.d. anti-Christ of clutter. Nothing makes him go all male PMS more than a stack of magazines with a pair of sunglasses, a random Von Maur receipt and a bottle of nail polish on top. Leave this on the table inside the entryway and don't expect a conversation for two hours...instead expect lots of loud sighing and dirty looks. Most of the time I think it's cute/funny...after I came to accept his freakishly clean ways and realized that wow - I no longer have to clean. Yay!
Anyway, so he says I'm a packrat. I say I'm eclectic. Of course, I am right and he is wrong because I am pregnant and he is not! :) That being said, I have FINALLY admitted my need to downsize my junkola from our HUGGGE farmhouse to the new farmhouse. Current farmhouse has no closet space and a serial-killer basement. New farmhouse is way smaller but has tons of closets and storage space (including a dry basement). The fact that it's way smaller, means I gotta unload some serious eclecticness. Stat! I can't be doing this all last minute!
Basically, I like things to look really neat but my closets and drawers are an action-packed DISASTER. So I'm not sure if you'd say I were a neat person or not...I guess I'm "fake neat. The fake neatness extra extra sucks in an 100+ year old farmhouse because closets were built to hold only like two homemade dresses and a hoop skirt. Ugh!!!!!
So, last night I cleaned out my 4-drawer dresser. I packed an entire huge garbage bag of throw-away clothing and also got a heaping laundry basket full of clothing for the Goodwill. That dresser should not even be able to hold that many clothing items!!! And it still has lots of stuff in it!!! It felt so good to clean out this dresser that I told Lucifer I would "clean out" one thing per day. He was so overwhelmed with joy, he sprouted angel wings and started floating around the house. I thought he was going to propose again immediately. Then, I rained on his parade when I told him it could be something big (like a dresser) or something small (like a shoebox). Regardless, he can ask me about it each day and if I haven't done anything, I have to grab something immediately and throw it away. OMG!
Since he's probably on his way home from the farm now, I better get crackin'.
Wish me luck. Updates to be posted, for sure. I should post pics too.
Mucho love!
Moi :)
P.S. I forgot to mention my husband is pefect and awesome except for his little clean regime/Sleeping with the Enemyish ways. :) But it sure is nice to have a sparkling house all the time! :) So it's worth it!
****************************************************************************
UPDATE!!!
K so fastforward two hours from when I originally posted this blog. I was under a lil' bit of a time constraint and expected Stew to be home any second. I was snooping around the casa trying to find something that was worth my time to clean out yet not too big of a project. I looked in my lotion cabinet. Never a good choice. I mean everyone needs 100 bottles of various lotions and 74 bottles of sunscreen...so what's to throw away there!?!? I opened Kurt's nemesis (the computer desk) and quickly shut the drawers and ran screaming the other way.
Finally, I came back to our bedroom. Our nightstand has kind of hidden lower shelf that is nothing short of a nightmare. It doesn't bother me too much b/c it's on his side of the bed and by the wall so I literally NEVER go over there. And you cannot see the lower part of the nightstand from anywhere else in the room (fake neat). I discovered a bunch of random stuff stacked up on that shelf. Here's what the garbage bag claimed:
Approximately 7 bridal magazines, apparently from early last year when we were wedding planning. Oops. A software package of various fonts (also from wedding planning), a couple random best-seller paperbacks I bought in airports but didn't read and *drumroll* my favorite paperback of the night: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS. I mean, REALLY? For those of you that know what this book is, I am positive you're laughing your a$$ off right now. I think I bought this book when I was trying to be all collegiate (I graduated in May 2000, so before then) but never read it then and I sure as hell won't read it now! I mean the pages were now YELLOW and when I bought it, it cost $7.95 from Brentan books, which I think used to be the bookstore at the mall before Borders and Barnes & Noble rolled into town!!!!! I'm dying! LOL. I checked Borders.com and it's now selling for $15.95!!! OMG, okay, I'll admit this is kind of fun cleaning out this stuff...and I have NO IDEA why I have this stuff stashed!! This innocently-looking nightstand yielded almost 1/2 a garbage bag of trash. I'm dying.
Things from the nightstand that made the cut: a vintage purse, an awesome hardcover book on Fashion my friend Larry gave me, a paperback dream book, Kurt's farmer's almanac and a box of kleenex.
Here is the description of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, for those unfamiliar. Click here.
Anyway, so he says I'm a packrat. I say I'm eclectic. Of course, I am right and he is wrong because I am pregnant and he is not! :) That being said, I have FINALLY admitted my need to downsize my junkola from our HUGGGE farmhouse to the new farmhouse. Current farmhouse has no closet space and a serial-killer basement. New farmhouse is way smaller but has tons of closets and storage space (including a dry basement). The fact that it's way smaller, means I gotta unload some serious eclecticness. Stat! I can't be doing this all last minute!
Basically, I like things to look really neat but my closets and drawers are an action-packed DISASTER. So I'm not sure if you'd say I were a neat person or not...I guess I'm "fake neat. The fake neatness extra extra sucks in an 100+ year old farmhouse because closets were built to hold only like two homemade dresses and a hoop skirt. Ugh!!!!!
So, last night I cleaned out my 4-drawer dresser. I packed an entire huge garbage bag of throw-away clothing and also got a heaping laundry basket full of clothing for the Goodwill. That dresser should not even be able to hold that many clothing items!!! And it still has lots of stuff in it!!! It felt so good to clean out this dresser that I told Lucifer I would "clean out" one thing per day. He was so overwhelmed with joy, he sprouted angel wings and started floating around the house. I thought he was going to propose again immediately. Then, I rained on his parade when I told him it could be something big (like a dresser) or something small (like a shoebox). Regardless, he can ask me about it each day and if I haven't done anything, I have to grab something immediately and throw it away. OMG!
Since he's probably on his way home from the farm now, I better get crackin'.
Wish me luck. Updates to be posted, for sure. I should post pics too.
Mucho love!
Moi :)
P.S. I forgot to mention my husband is pefect and awesome except for his little clean regime/Sleeping with the Enemyish ways. :) But it sure is nice to have a sparkling house all the time! :) So it's worth it!
****************************************************************************
UPDATE!!!
K so fastforward two hours from when I originally posted this blog. I was under a lil' bit of a time constraint and expected Stew to be home any second. I was snooping around the casa trying to find something that was worth my time to clean out yet not too big of a project. I looked in my lotion cabinet. Never a good choice. I mean everyone needs 100 bottles of various lotions and 74 bottles of sunscreen...so what's to throw away there!?!? I opened Kurt's nemesis (the computer desk) and quickly shut the drawers and ran screaming the other way.
Finally, I came back to our bedroom. Our nightstand has kind of hidden lower shelf that is nothing short of a nightmare. It doesn't bother me too much b/c it's on his side of the bed and by the wall so I literally NEVER go over there. And you cannot see the lower part of the nightstand from anywhere else in the room (fake neat). I discovered a bunch of random stuff stacked up on that shelf. Here's what the garbage bag claimed:
Approximately 7 bridal magazines, apparently from early last year when we were wedding planning. Oops. A software package of various fonts (also from wedding planning), a couple random best-seller paperbacks I bought in airports but didn't read and *drumroll* my favorite paperback of the night: Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS. I mean, REALLY? For those of you that know what this book is, I am positive you're laughing your a$$ off right now. I think I bought this book when I was trying to be all collegiate (I graduated in May 2000, so before then) but never read it then and I sure as hell won't read it now! I mean the pages were now YELLOW and when I bought it, it cost $7.95 from Brentan books, which I think used to be the bookstore at the mall before Borders and Barnes & Noble rolled into town!!!!! I'm dying! LOL. I checked Borders.com and it's now selling for $15.95!!! OMG, okay, I'll admit this is kind of fun cleaning out this stuff...and I have NO IDEA why I have this stuff stashed!! This innocently-looking nightstand yielded almost 1/2 a garbage bag of trash. I'm dying.
Things from the nightstand that made the cut: a vintage purse, an awesome hardcover book on Fashion my friend Larry gave me, a paperback dream book, Kurt's farmer's almanac and a box of kleenex.
Here is the description of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, for those unfamiliar. Click here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)