Out with the Old is Energizing!

Some people like to relax when they have time off from the normal schedule and routines of life.

Not the Martino family!

Dan's company is basically shutdown the last 2 weeks of the year. Well... kind of. Outside of the random conference call or email response, he was pretty much truly *off*. Which was wonderful... because he has been working and traveling a lot. So, Dan had a few goals to accomplish over the break... including clearing junk and extra stuff from the garage that sort of moved with us because we didn't have the time to really go through it properly before the move. And, by go through it... I mean decide whether it was something we wanted to keep, toss or donate to goodwill.

I get SO excited when Dan is home with us for a full week. And, I get even more excited when he gets motivated to do something like this around the house. So, I couldn't just stand by and watch. I decided I was going to clean out and purge toys from the play room and kids' bedrooms, and my closet.

We did really well!

I started in the playroom and ended up gathering 4 garbage bags full of toys to donate to goodwill, and 1 garbage bag full of garbage (broken toys, toy parts, junk, etc.). Then, I was able to pull 3 garbage bags full of clothing from my closet to bring to goodwill.

Dan & I then sorted through all the stuff in the garage.

All in... we donated 3 truckloads full of stuff to goodwill (that includes the toys and clothes).

The garage is now organized! The playroom feels so clean! The kids didn't even realize anything was missing (obviously, I purged toys when Dan brought them on an errand!). And, my closet looks so much more organized and fresh. Love it!!

I don't know why... but I truly LOVE removing the clutter from my home! Dan thinks I'm crazy.

I think it energizes me too... because in addition to doing all this organizing and purging... I logged 43 miles of running for the week. I haven't done one week of dedicated running training this entire year... it's just been a crazy, unpredictable year for us as a family with so much change. So, to actually log 40 miles and end the year strong felt GREAT!