Tuesday Tell All: Photo Op

This weeks challenge is to sum up your day, week, or month, with one photo and give an explanation.

These two photos document what I spent most of my time doing last week.

BEFORE:

AFTER:I love having a storage room. It is wonderful to finally have a place I can stash all of holiday decorations, games, toys, food and all of life's extra bits. It's nice to have a pantry even if it's located in the basement next to the Imaginext tub. I love having our old fridge allowing me to buy extra milk and food thus cutting our trips to Wal-mart down to a few a week instead of what seemed like everyday. (Sad, I know!)

I love that I have a place for all of the toys, but it can get messy when they decide to PLAY with their toys in the room. It can get very bad when games are spilled out on the floor, weapons are hanging from the fridge door and dry spaghetti noodles have exploded after inquisitive little girls found them on a low shelf.

While there is a bit of shelving, a lot of things are stored in Rubbermaid bins and stacked in the back corner. Here is where it got a bit tricky. Up until last Halloween things were looking pretty good down there despite the usual small messes. Then I started pulling out Halloween bins, then Thanksgiving boxes and finally Christmas trees, wreaths and wrapped up Santa Clauses. It was time to start over. I dreaded the thought because I knew it would take days, especially if I had my two trusty sidekicks (aka Brynn and Kaitlyn) digging through things with me. I had finally had enough and dove in headfirst (literally at times) to tackle this huge mess.

The biggest problem was that I was going to make it 10 times worse before I saw any improvement. I pulled out everything (before photo). I went through every Rubbermaid, box and pail and thankfully found many things I sent to Good Will. I went through boxes of old photos, letters, handmade cards and spent a good hour taking a little trip down memory lane. I went through all the decorations and tossed the unused or not cute ones. I dumped out toys boxes and weapon bins making sure everything had a proper home. Matt has NO excuses now!

And three days later I finally saw a finished project. I know where the craft supplies are, the toiletries, the 1000 books I don't have room for upstairs, the extra canned tomatoes, the padded envelopes, the Easter baskets and where new lights bulbs are. It still may look like a crammed storage room, but to me it is organized and clutter free instead of one blown up mystery room full of this and that. I am one happy girl!