Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Spring Cleaning

Over the past two days I have made good progress on my list! Before you look at the "before and after" photos I feel I need some kind of disclaimer or something. We really the giant pigs that the before pictures imply... really, we aren't! The end of the school year gets amazingly crazy around here! Between recovering from the senior trip, being sick, report cards, getting the car fixed, a wedding shower, two productions of the school play (The Magical Land of Oz - which was amazing by the way,) ordering all my school supplies for next year, packing up everything in my classroom, and trying to get my gardens in order, the inside of the house has basically been ignored for the past three weeks. (For some reason Blogger isn't letting me type an enter...So imagine I am starting a new paragraph.) I started by tackling my bedroom. Between my unpacked suitcase, laundry and piles of stuff everywhere - it seemed like the best place to begin...
After
Then it was on to my son's room. He's been itching to have his "baby bed" taken down for some time now. I usually have the kids help when their rooms need to be cleaned, but today I just dove right in and did it myself...
After
The living room was also atrocious! The five of us (we have a friend, M, living with us this summer) spend a lot of time here and it tends to get trashed daily. As I sit in my nice clean room, I can't believe how bad it was! Dear God...
After

In addition to cleaning those rooms I also cleaned the entry way, organized the hall closet, cleaned my bathroom, organized my bedroom closet and the bathroom closet, washed and put away six loads of laundry, got one bag ready for the thrift shop, got another bag ready for the dry cleaners, went through all of S' clothing and packed away the too-small items to hand-down and unpacked all of his handed-down summer things.

I'm not sure how much I'll get done over the next few days as I am headed to Traverse City on Friday (which means I have to leave the island tomorrow) to get my Bernina serviced and to hopefully buy a serger. Then we are off to the Charlevoix Renaissance Festival (we've never been before) on Saturday. Have a great weekend!

15 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW.

It must feel good to look on the newly clean rooms.

I always feel so satisfied myself after deep cleaning. Too bad I never remember that while I am procrastinating actually doing the work!

Maggie said...

You'll sleep well tonight! I hope you find a serger-- It's a great tool to have in your sewing room, and the finished seams make everything nice inside and out.

misschris said...

That is awesome. Good work. I hope you put your feet up after that. :)

jacquie said...

Whew! Put your feet up. It looks fab! Enjoy the festival...they are sooo much fun!

Manoute said...

Wow, impressive! well done. You can enjoy your weekend now!

Mum-me said...

Thanks for showing your 'before' photos. Cheered me up a bit - my rooms look like that regularly, and it feels so good to get them tidied.

Shannon said...

And you still sat down to blog! U r amazing! I'd be asleep at that point. It does feel nice to have a clean house, though, doesn't it!

zakkalife said...

Enjoyed looking at your before and after pictures. Amazing what a difference a clean room can make.

muralimanohar said...

Good God...you weren't just cleaning your sewing room...you were on a rampage! lol

Oh...so I was looking at your living room pic...and then glanced beyond the laptop screen...umm..it was a continuation of your before pic. Ahem. :p

palach said...

Hey, I've been to your house and it usually looks like the 'after' pictures. What's a 'serger'?
Hope you have a great time in Charlevoix.
Pam

Anonymous said...

You. Are. Awesome.

And you can come on over and clean at my house anytime! ;)

Unknown said...

Liz...20 years later, I'm still in awe of your productivity. Now if we could just find a way to pass it on to me :-) D. would be a very happy man if so!

Spokane Southie said...

You are a brave woman to air all your dirty laundry so to speak. I try to pretend like I am a great housekeeper by cramming everything into the office/spare room and shutting the door whenever people come over. My friends don't believe that I am a slob, but my husband knows the truth!

P.S. Do you teach high school? I knew you were a teacher but assumed you taught elementary school, probably because of your craftiness.

Liz said...

I teach 4th - 7th grade math and science. I have a combined class of 4th and 5th for 1/2 of the day and the combined 6th and 7th for the other half of the day.

Jeanette said...

Wow, I am truly amazed at the ammount of work you got done. You are a stronger woman than me, I don't think I could take a before picture of my bedroom. That tends to be where everything gets dumped when we don't know what else to do with it.

My house too is suffering right now, between the end of school, two vacations, and leaving DH home alone with the boys for four days while I went on the shop hop, it looks like a tornado tore through here. I wish I had a little of your ambition to get it all cleaned up again.