7QT - The Project Barn Edition

1. "Project Barn" is not taking as long as I first feared thought, it seems when you try to keep "everything" in a big storage space instead of: a) binning it; b) recycling it; c) donating it or; d) finding it an appropriate home, it is actually relatively simply to clear most of the "everything" using those four categories. Multiple trips to the grey bin (rubbish), blue bin (recycling) as well as the four boxes ready to load into the car (donations) can attest to the former statement. The piles gathered in my had-just-been-cleared-dining-room demonstrate that the finding-appropriate-homes category is by far the most difficult!

2. Many of the items in the dining room are frames and artworks, yes MORE frames and artwork! Bless my husband, I think he visibly paled when he saw the new piles of pictures to replace last week's piles of pictures that we had JUST finished hanging. A couple of treasures unearthed include a brass rubbing of Madonna and child (that I did age nine and won a prize for), which fitted perfectly in an old (if sightly battered) A3 frame and has found an albeit temporary home atop our second fridge in 'the barn,' and a late eighteen-eighties (yes 1880s) somewhat damaged A3-sized print that I cut up(!), to fit the bit I liked of it, into a 6x4 inch frame. We still have MANY boxes and books to find homes for but all, except those frames in need of painting, are now in our house and out of 'the barn.'

3. Ripping up empty cardboard boxes is good therapy and clears a lot of floor space.

4. Dust plus dust mask equals a happy and productive mama. Sweeping out a very dusty space without a dust mask and with allergy issues equals a crabby, sniffy, sinus-y, much less productive mama. Just saying!

5. James is going through a bit of a cranky-testing-boundaries-irrational-behaviour period (aren't we all most days), so working on this very physical project has helped me get out a lot of the arrrggghhh. Just a half-hour last night of shifting boxes and tidying up was very therapeutic after about five hours of constant griping. Thank you hubs for allowing me to hand-off dinner time. The grousing included that classic toddler thing of asking for something (his trousers) and then screaming ("no") when given it (them); ah the delights.

6. On the note of tantrums, Mama had a very calm one, yesterday and cancelled plans for free play, at the gymnastics club, this morning. Gymnastics is the epitome of fun to James and our fortnightly outing is cancelled until behaviour improves - harsh but necessary I think. Instead a morning emptying the "top house," to unearth a desk base for my craft cupboard, lies ahead of us as "Project Barn" continues. Once the craft cupboard's in place, my part of the challenge will be (almost) at its end and I might finally have a laundry "room" to call my own.

7. On two completely unrelated notes, Wednesday saw me receive an email that my copy of "Something Other Than God" has a delivery estimate of 12-14th rather than the original 27-29th - yay AND we got a new niece/cousin yesterday, "Zo" is not quite seven pounds of cute and we can't wait to meet her - double yay!

Now jump back to Jen @ Conversion Diary for some more #SOTG news and giggles.

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