Post-Christmas purge

On Saturday we began a massive clean out. The girls needed to go through their clothes and remove the items that no longer fitted. They needed to organise and throw out stuff.

I needed to attack my office. And I mean ATTACK. I’m dreadful at keeping my office organised. Typically, there are boxes of books, piles of fabric, bits of paper, thread etc everywhere.

I never know where to start, so The Husband has to come and direct, as he’s very good at organising, chucking stuff out, and generally knowing what to attack next.

Between all four of us, we must have come up with about 15 bags of stuff to throw away. The girls had several boxes of toys, books and other things to give away, and several bags of clothes to pass on to others.

We filled our bin early in the day. And the recycling bin quickly became too heavy to add anything more. Fortunately we have neighbours who are not using their bins at the moment, so we’ve filled one, and will top up any others that are available on the night that the bins go out. (This is why we do this during holiday time. My sister used our bin last week when we were away. She was happy to accept the challenge to fill it completely!)

The Gymnast is a very maths-minded girl. She loves to sort things, categorise them, and group like things together. Then she likes to put things into a sensible order. And she loves rainbows. So who better to organise my threads into the new boxes I bought to put them in?!

Some time ago I outgrew the boxes I had for my threads, so they have just been taking over my office a bit. There were some new ranges of threads that were stuck in a bag. It made it difficult to see what was actually there, and therefore to use them. So I hopped on the internet and found some clear plastic boxes with dividers that will be just perfect. My local shop didn’t have them in stock, but as we were further afield yesterday, I managed to pick two of them up from another store. I’ll still need more, but it is a start!

When we picked up The Gymnast from gymnastics training yesterday, I told her I had a job for her. I explained that I wanted her to sort my threads into groups for storing in my new boxes. Once she realised that she could do it quietly sitting on the lounge (yesterday was her first day back at gym in two weeks, so she was tired and expecting to be quite sore!), she eagerly accepted the challenge.

She’s done a great job of organising all my Dinky Dyes threads, and all my balls of pearl cotton – well, all the ones I could find!

There’s still heaps more purging and organising to be done in my office, but I am somewhat limited until the bins are emptied!