Seasonal purge.

Ella is finally well enough to return to school.  Tomorrow.  Turns out she had strep throat.  Which I knew when I called the nurse at the peds office.  I knew because Ella wouldn’t drink her orange juice.  She’d knock you down for some orange juice most days.  And I don’t know why because I don’t care for it.  Never did.  Unless it’s mixed with Absolut vanilla.  (pause while I fix a drink)

The children sensed my unrest this afternoon.  I was in my “help me clean or get out of the way” mode.  They retreated to the basement for the two hours it took me to clean the main floor.  It was scuzzy down to the fibers.  I have picked up in the last week but didn’t get the vacuum out.  General laziness got the better of me.  But I know it’s time to clean when Amelia is tripping over toys more than playing with them and I go to bed with stickers on the bottom of my feet.

I have recently discovered what a colossal waste of money stickers are.  My kids love them, there’s not doubt.  Ella used to get a pack of stickers every time we went to the medicine store (CVS).  There for a while, it was a weekly trip.  Now, it’s monthly at least but never more than twice a month.  Still, that’s a lot of stickers.  Ella is pretty good about not sticking them to anything except paper.  Amelia?  Will put them anywhere and everywhere.  The toilet, the oven door, all over her legs.  And they don’t vacuum well.  And they stick too well to the linoleum in the kitchen.  So, stickers are banned from now on.  They don’t know it yet.  I wonder how long it will take them to miss the stickers.

I also went through my medicine cabinet and purged.  And got rid of all the weirdo lotions and whatnots that we women give each other as token gifts.  That felt good and left me tons of room in my cabinet.  After supper, I cleaned out the fridge (never has been my strong point, cleaning the fridge) and ditched the out of date salad dressings.  And yogurts.  That felt good.  Some of those dressings made the move last winter so it’s probably time.  I guess you could say that I’m feeling overwhelmed by my surroundings. 

It could have to do with having a sick kid and not leaving the house hardly at all for three days.  Or it could be the impending season change.  Fall has always been my favorite season despite being tainted with so many, many bad memories.  There are so many things in my house that need to find permanant homes before we are caged in for the winter.  I guess I can feel that coming. 

Despite my shopping problem and the place that retail therapy has in my life, I really believe that our possessions are the ones who own us.  I don’t own a house because (among other reasons) I know I can’t take care of it.  If something got broken or needed to be replaced, I wouldn’t know how to do it without being a wuss about it.  I turn to putty in the hands of some guy repairing something I don’t know anything about.  He could rob me blind and I wouldn’t know the difference.  Done is good.  Knowing that I probably have too much and could do with much less, I am feeling the purging love.

So that’s my goal this week.  Every day I pick a spot and purge.  Get rid of, donate, recycle, throw away.

As soon as I can get this kid off to school.