Crock pots and Clutter

I had pulled out my crock pot yesterday just to give it a good washing since Fall is right around the corner.  Then after doing a little re-arranging I decided to leave it out on my counter since it made a nice decor.  That then inspired me to clean out the drawers and cabinets on my last day off of my little Labor Day vacation.  If you are anything like me then you know that can be an all day excursion and let me tell you they haven't been touched in well over a year and a half  since we moved to the house. 

To make things easier for myself I decided to use the crock pot today so I didn't have to worry about cooking dinner after the demolition began.  So I first started with the two drawers in my bakers rack...the smallest drawers in the house and the ones that have been cleaned out not too long ago.  I usually keep bills, pay stubs and coupons in these drawers so it was really a simple clean out.  I really have no clue why I have to hold onto a gas bill from 2011?  I always feel like I have to hold onto them incase I need my account information because there are probably 100 people with the same name as me living in the same town.   Then on to all the many coupons from last year.  We have to hold on to expired coupons so that we can never use them.  Then I sit there and wonder why I didn't use these coupons and start adding in my head how much I could of saved.  Then I pull out half filled out notebooks.  I realize I have 4 unfinished notebooks sitting here.  Of course this takes me about a half an hour because I have to read everything in it.  I've counted quite a few calories in the past year and have taken down phone numbers of people with no name.   It was time to get rid of the unorganized mess.  I filled up a brown paper bag pretty fast.

Then I turned around and looked at cabinets that made me want to get this exact house.  I had such hope for these cabinets!  

I decided when I moved here that I would no longer be a basket person.  I'd have about 5 different baskets full of everything that could fit into it.  These cabinets became my BIG basket.  From electronics to the little trinkets that you think you need to hold onto because it may go to that thing that you think may be up in the closet in your room.  Then I get pulling out all the school papers.  I think I had every single paper given to me from last year put into this closet.  I was literally pulling out a live calendar.  Back to school night papers, school picture order forms, Christmas Concerts, progress reports, Christmas store letters and lots of completed homework papers.  I cannot believe I held onto all of this.

This is when the guilt started to pop in.  There were times when I said to my son "you really need to tell mommy when you have book orders or school concerts because with my busy work schedule I need to know ahead of time".  How many times did the kids hand me papers and I left it on the table and then tried to rush around to clean up and the paper just got stuffed into the cabinet.  I wonder how many times I lost my temper with them over something that was completely my fault.   This cabinet clean out turned into something even bigger than I thought.  There were lunch calendars probably from every month of the year...I never even looked to see what they were having for lunch this year?  So I eventually got all the papers thrown into the trash but then I sat there and just thought about how I just let this past school year rush before me.  I hurried and checked homework papers, signed papers as they were walking out the door, hoped they had enough lunch money while I was at work.  I just sat there on the hardwood floor feeling like a complete failure.  With that I bowed my head and just went right to the Lord and asked Him for his forgiveness.  After being in prayer for quite awhile I felt a little better.  This gave me a new hope for this school year.  I'm excited to get a new system started with their new school papers so I can juggle my worklife and my homelife all at the same time.  

Meanwhile, my dinner was almost done and I treated my kids to their favorite, cornbread and brownies.  So, in one day I accomplished a few things:  organization, preparation, learned how to throw things away and most important going right to God to clean me out.  So at the end of the day I feel so much better that I was able to serve my family with a great meal and at the same time clean something that needed to be cleaned for a long time and I'm not talking about my cabinets.  The guilt of not putting my children as a top priority this past year is gone.  I'm looking forward to being handed that first school paper and seeing what God has in store for me this year.