Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Celebrate "Organize Your Home Day" by Merrillee Whren

     You have probably all heard of spring cleaning, but have you heard of Organize Your Home Day? I like to blog about silly or unusual holidays. This one really struck me because of a recent incident with our grown children who came to visit for Christmas.
     When we moved from Florida to Arizona, my mother-in-law, who lived with us at the time because of her poor health, moved here with us. She passed away about six weeks after we moved. We gave away her clothes, shoes, and many other things she had brought with her. One thing we didn't do was clear out the extra blankets, sheets, and pillows she had left behind. Those wound up in drawers in the bedrooms we don't use except for company.
     At Christmas our daughter with the two girls wanted to put their clothes in the drawers, but they were full of the above mentioned items. She wanted to know why we still had all those blankets and pillows. I explained that we never looked in those drawers. So we emptied the drawers, and this has prompted me in the days since they left to not only clean out the stuff we don't use in the drawers but to also organize and clean all the drawers, cupboards, and closets.
     When I stumbled upon this holiday that is celebrated on the 14th of January every year, I decided it was the perfect blog topic. It fit in with what I have been doing in my spare time. It will take me until spring to go through every drawer, cupboard, and closet that needs organizing, but it will feel so good when I get done.
     I didn't think to take before pictures of the things I was cleaning, but I've taken some after photos and some before photos of places I have yet to organize. My desk area is one of the things I need to organize. I admit to working in a pretty messy setting. Below you will see a very messy window ledge next to my desk. There's enough space for it to become a collect all. I've already gotten rid of a pile of magazines, but it still needs a lot of work.

 And here is a cupboard in my office that needs a lot of work. The biggest thing is trying to figure out what I need to throw away and what I need to keep and how the stuff I keep needs to be organized.

Now for the stuff I have accomplished. I've cleaned and organized several drawers and closets, and hubby took two large trash bags of clothes and bedding to the Gospel Rescue Mission. I'm sure I'll have more to donate after I finished this project.
You should have seen this one before. I wish I had taken a photo of the mess. It looks so nice now.
This is a closet in my office, and it looks so much better now that I have organized it.
Here is the guest linen closet. I discarded the mismatched sheets and pillow cases and straightened the towels. I can't reach the top shelf, and I had been kind of throwing stuff up there. It was a mess before the makeover. Now I know to use the footstool to put things away.

What needs organizing in your house?

Be sure to check out my latest bargain book, on sale for 99 cents. 
Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of forty-plus years, and has two grown daughters. Connect with her on her Facebook page and sign up for her newsletter.



12 comments:

  1. Everything if I have to give up my pile system of organization.

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  2. Jean, LOL, I love your answer. And Merrillee, I am actually cleaning out my daughter's room this week. She's been in Ireland for 7 years.

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  3. Josie, it's been seven years since we moved here. Seven years seems like a good timeline for starting the cleaning. LOL

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  4. My closets need it the most for me. I'm slowly working on them. Thanks for the reminder.

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    1. Margaret, closets have a way of collecting things, it seems almost by themselves.

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  5. Oh boy. A lot needs to be organized. It's overwhelming thinking about it all. My desk is a total mess to the point, I've moved to the dining room table.
    When the mood strikes me, I'll clean it up.

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    1. The closets are often out of sight, but my desk stares at me every day and cries, "Clean me."

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  6. What a great holiday - unknown to me until your blog. The photos you shared are inspiring, Merrillee! I'm embarrassed to admit that my closet is a disaster.

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    1. Magdalena, it's easy to shove things in closets and drawers and forget them.

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  7. My home office needs organizing. I have piles of papers on top of piles of papers. :-)

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  8. We spent two days in our storage room (it's actually a bedroom we just use it for storage), going through boxes and putting things into totes and we ended up getting rid of a lot of stuff.

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