The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

I confess, I’ve been lax. My bedroom organization plans came to a screeching halt just before Christmas, along with my industrious blog posts, but I have a good excuse:  Santa left me with no budget.

One thing I’ve noticed during my foray into house improvement is that one project usually spawns another.  When you move stuff, it needs a place to go. The linens and blankets moved from my closet are now piled in a large wooden crate, waiting for a home in a different room. This will require a third closet system, and when those things are purged, sorted and moved, where will I put them?

Since I can’t afford to make the desired changes to my bedroom (and now a second bedroom) all at once, my pet project is turning out to be a long-term patience-builder.

Which brings me to tonight’s activity. The owner of the third bedroom closet is a very messy girl indeed. Unfortunately, she stores items in much the same way as her parents. We decided we could not wait for her to clean up any longer and dove in shortly after dinner while she was at an event.

We viewed the dirty socks, stuffed animals, blankets, pillows, school-books and a hundred other items piled on the floor, and giggled at some of the bits filling up her desk:  a mini-Tinkerbell fairy with one wing and no feet; several bits and pieces of broken jewelry,  scattered irritated notes to her older sister complaining of various injustices;  broken crayons and dried-out markers; several dozen half-used scribblers, notebooks and journals (scrawled with the warning, “Do not read! Private!”); tens of tiny containers filled with treasures, including a small square ring box containing…what? A ring? No, silly…two small plastic lion cubs.

As we chatted about how our daughter would feel about us throwing out her stuff, my husband laughed and said, “Well, she’s not here, so she won’t know any better.” When he saw the look I gave him, he pointed at me and said, “No, it’s not the same thing at all.”

I wish I’d used that reasoning when I was cleaning out his closet.