sucess

Oh how sweet the success tastes. My Mother came for three weeks and boy did she give me a huge boost! She was hear to pack up the cabin and downsize her possessions. In the middle of all that we had a garage sale to help unload both of our stuff.

This was a huge boost because it organized the garage so that all the stuff I've been sending out there for the last few months was all sorted and on tables. We could just send kids out with stuff and they'd put it where it needed to go, or close to it, anyway. Then we had a huge sale and move a TON of stuff. And made some money. Which was really, really nice.

I didn't get a lot more of my stuff out for the sale, we had our hands full just setting up enough tables and organizing stuff so people could see it and get to it. (I was still running kids/animals places during all this) We ended up in three buildings, one three car garage, one two car garage, and our main barn. The three car garage was the main area, with the two car garage full of furniture and the main barn had plywood tables set up with free stuff, including free clothes. Did I mention it was a lot of stuff?

Now that Mom has accomplished her mission and returned to the coast, I have this week to finish purging my house for another sale on Sat.

Yesterday was the first day I'd had to focus only on our house and boy did we focus! Stuff was flying out of the house all day! We moved out beds, toy chests, shelves, dressers, blankets, books, clothes, and just STUFF.

Stuff that was STUFFING our house!

And boy can we tell a difference! Our upstairs hallway and our office had the biggest makeovers, in the public family areas anyway. We also changed out a bedroom, so that we now have a play room again. So two of the bedrooms now have no toys in them and the boys love how much room they have. I love not walking on legos when I go to tuck them in!

The younger two boys have a bed each and a short bookshelf each in their room and that's it. Their personal toys/papers, STUFF are in drawers that are built into the beds and their clothes are all in their walk in closet. I love walking into their bedroom right now. So clear and calming!

I am LOVING how our upstairs feels. We cleared out all but one books shelf and the stand the snake is on in the hallway. The stand is smaller and shorter, now that we only have one snake.(the other snake was sold at the sale!) There is also a cat litter box and one box in the hallway. The bookshelf and box will leave at some point. (hopefully some point in the very near future)

I asked my husband and one of the boys how they liked the hallway and they both are loving the room. Me too. Another son is loving his room, he had two beds in there, his loft bed and a captain's bed.(we used the bed as a spare for guests) Now it's just the loft bed. Plus his other furniture, a desk, dresser, cupboard thingy, and a coffee table he's using in the middle of his room to play games on with his brothers. He was so happy to see the legos and captain's bed go! It's given him so much more room.

There is a play room again and I love how that works for us! They were all in there tonight building legos, they walked out leaving very little floor showing and I DON'T CARE! I closed the doors to that room and I don't have to deal with it! If they want to use it, they have to maintain it! There is very little reasons for me to have to see or walk into that room! And there will be even less when I get our room moved downstairs! (which is also hopefully in the near future!)

I am loving how much I downsized the homeschool stuff. I don't miss any of it yet, and it's much easier for me to look at the stuff and use it! LOVE IT! I cleared out our closet. Took out a laundry basket full of clothes between my husband and I. And there were some boxes in it, waiting for me to deal with. So I dealt with them! Again I love the space! It just feels soooo good. Did I mention how much I'm loving it?!

I've made progress on decluttering AND on making money on the stuff going out the door. Still have hang ups on the money thing.....I would much rather the sale this weekend was a freebie sale. But I'll stick it out one more time and then the next time, it's all going for free.

I am very happy with how far we've all come with the decluttering and am looking forward to this week and having a lot more success to boost me up!