Time for the Great Summer Clean Out

No more excuses.

School is over and summer is upon us. I am not teaching, not testing, not chasing the kids all over the house to get them to do their schoolwork.

I am free. And the house must be sorted. With the school year finished and thoughts of a move ahead of us, I am getting rid of everything but the essentials. I am already relishing the thought of less clutter. Ahhh....

Let me wallow in that for a moment.

Less clutter.

Ahhh....

To do:

* Sorting clothes and donating what we don't wear or what the kids have grown out of

* Shoes!! I'm listing this separately from clothes because it is a project in and of itself. We have a ridiculous amount of shoes.

* Selling furniture (already in the process- thank you craigslist)

* Get rid of blankets/towels/linens except the ones we use on a regular basis

* Books

* Memorables... what to keep and what to toss? Old soccer jerseys, my childhood scrapbook...

* Kitchen

* Toys- that's a hard one. The kids want to keep everything. Some must go.

* Decorations

* Garage stuff- bikes, camping equipment, tools

I should hold a "free sale" for my friends. I can just send out invitations that say "You are invited Tuesday night at 6pm. Please come look through my house, and if you see anything you can use, just take it away." It's a thought.

Inner distractions and solutions

Apparently it's not just the surroundings adding "noise" to my life, but all this clattering inside my head. The brain has no off switch and no remote for changing the channel. When I get it stuck on one useless yet distracting item, there seems to be no means of moving it along to something else. For instance, this week I'm on a self-esteem crisis. The brain has decided to give me a constant onslaught of listing my flaws. Repeated in sequence over and over. I have too, too, too many other things to focus on than this, but here I am, sleepless, mulling over the imperfect me.

I'll go back to the tried and true... memories that take me somewhere happy.

Images

* Meme's house

* My first puppy

* The births of my children

* Sitting underground in a cave

* Praying in Madinah

Sounds

* My 3-year-old's giggle

* Ocean waves

* Singing with my sister

* The birds at fajr

Smells

* Right after a rain

* Wild roses

* Ma's homemade chocolate chip cookies

* Fallen leaves

Feel

* The sheets on my bed

* Baby hair

* Lying on moss

* My back snuggled against my Great-grandma Sue's back when I used to sleep by her

* Sitting on a horse

Taste

* Hootie balls made by my Ma

* Snow

* Yeast-and-butter popcorn like Phoebe makes it

* Boba tea

Remoteness is a big plus when seeking solitude

A couple of friends have invited us up to Canada to spend a few days in a cabin on an island out in the middle of a lake a few miles from nowhere. Granted, they've got a toddler and we've got our four little people, but it's a big wide wilderness and hopefully the lake and the trees will swallow up any extra noise and leave us with some blessed silence. And there's always the night time. Oh, the beautiful, quiet night!