So much of my life seems to run parallel to a children’s’ book. Today’s theme was much like “If You Give a Moose a Muffin” (I love that book!)
That very modest looking mudroom storage unit was the event of the day.
It all started with an earlier than normal wakening. For the Littles, not for me. As I stumbled to the coffee pot, they were searching for gloves, because they already had plans for the pre-breakfast hour, and apparently those plans involved going outside. As last night gave us the first frost of the season, they ran out, then quickly ran back in, dashing about for gloves and coats to wear over their summer shorts that work for pajamas. (No. They had no plans to change out of the shorts, but they desperately, DESPERATELY, needed gloves to keep their fingers warm. While they rummaged in the mud room, I drank coffee. They searched in their bedroom. I drank more coffee. They descended to the abyss of the basement, I continued to drink coffee and pondered breakfast. They emerged from the basement and the storage totes victorious! Two and a half pair of gloves! They decided to take turns wearing the gloves so no one would have a freezing hand the entire time, and off they went. I made breakfast.
They were only outside for about 15 minutes and came inside completely satisfied with their play, ready to eat and tackle the day. Which we did. We were nearly through our history lesson, having already completed math for some, handwriting for most, language arts and reading for a couple of children who, at the moment, I’m unable to recall who did and who didn’t. This is the life is a homeschool mom.
I have a plausible excuse for my lack of recall. The kids rummaging made me realize that I hadn’t gathered fall and winter gear yet. But before I gather, I need to sort, and before I sort, I need to clean… you get the picture. So I went into the mud room to clean, starting with the sweeping the floor. I had to move aside a plethora of shoes, some of which haven’t been worn in a rather long time. So all shoes were gathered into one location and all feet busied themselves in trying on and passing over to the next pair of feet, just in case they might fit somewhere down the line.
After the shoes were sorted, and a very large pile was made of “these don’t fit anyone anymore” shoes, we moved on to jackets and we repeated the process.
We only sorted through what was already in the mud room, I’ll gather items from the basement another day, but we really needed to clear space to store the big things – like boots, snow pants, heavy winter coats, gloves, scarves, and hats – and keeping in mind that every year these items get bigger because the kids keep growing, and I decided that I should clear out the cubby system we use and get it ready for winter.
Now, our cubby system was salvaged from a business that was scaling back. I originally intended to paint it and did just that, removing the doors and painting the inside and outside of the cubbies. And then life happened and I ran out of time before painting the doors, so we stored them in the garage. And there they sat for the last 2 (3? 4?) years, during which time I completely forgot what paint color I used on the cubbies and, not wanting to paint the doors the wrong color, kept putting it off.
But I really, REALLY, wanted doors on these cubbies, because even a mismatched door looks cleaner than no door at all. So out to the garage I went, to gather the doors.
Now, remember how I said those doors were stored in the garage for a… bit..? You know how things stored have a tendency to get other things stored on top of them? And then other things stored in front of them? And then more layered and stacked and layered and “I’ll just put this here for now” turns into “oh my goodness what is under there??” Ahem.
Into the garage I wandered, broom in hand ready to sweep off those doors, and what I found was a jigsaw puzzle of pieces, parts, and projects blocking my path. But at that point I was determined, so with broom in hand, and shop vac ready to go (saw dust and spiders beware!), I tackled the pile and unearthed the doors I was looking for. Hooray! Unfortunately, it took me much more digging to find the bench seat that was meant to sit in between the cubbies, but even that was found, dusted, wiped down and brought back into the house.
All that moving around in the garage left me with several items that would be better stored in the basement for the winter, so I brought those in, too.
With a bit of rearranging, and furniture moving (the woven bench seat was moved to Zach’s room, and a cupboard that never quite fit in the mud room (which also doubles as laundry room) was removed. (It’s currently sitting in the middle of the kitchen while I ponder a more suitable location.)
So, as a result of the kids looking for gloves, we have doors on the cubbies, a cleaned out corner in the garage, an extra piece of furniture with no suitable room for it to move into, a small pile of things that should be stored in the basement, and a basement that needs sorting before I add anything else.
Happy Friday, friends! May your weekend be interesting and much less busy than my afternoon. 🙂