I graduated from college 25 days ago (has it really been that long?!?), but because of NAIA nationals, I didn’t move back home from the dorms until Memorial day. I knew that when Karis and I moved back home that it would be a little interesting. We both had a lot of stuff in our dorm rooms, and there wasn’t space in our room at home. Karis and I both knew right away that we would have to spend at least a few days cleaning so we could move our clothes from the garage into the bedroom. (It’s actually kind of fun living out of the garage, because I know it’s only my clothes there!)

Karis was really good about cleaning the first few days and got a few bags worth of clothes and shoes ready to give away. I ended up working a lot the first few days, so today was the first time I started cleaning with Abigail. It was actually quite surprising how much we got done in an hour and a half! We started in the study, and boy, was it was a mess! But by lunch time, I had taken out 3 bags of trash and 2 more bags of stuff to give away.

I was thinking about the lessons that could be learned from this cleaning project. Here’s what I came up with so far:

  • How in the world did we ever accumulate this much stuff!!! I was finding stuff from when I was in 9th grade, especially clothes. I know there is 4 of us, so it’s easy to pass on clothes, but clothes from 8 years ago, really? I am disgusted with myself!
  • We are so blessed to have this much stuff. It’s a pain to go through, clean and throw away, but I could be living in a third world country somewhere scrounging around for my next meal.
  • It’s soooo freeing to clean and work towards a clean room!
  • It’s also fun to find old notes and trinkets which bring back great memories. I found a few cards from close friends and as I read them, I was encouraged again, even though the note was several years old!
  • I can’t wait to get the rooms cleaned so we can be a better steward of the things God has given to us. Who knows, maybe we could even rent out a room or something!

I don’t want this to be just another well-intentioned plan to clean our room that dies out by the third week of summer. Besides the fact that we just can live with such a messy room, we want to rearrange the 2 bedrooms so they are more functional. And perhaps they will actually stay cleaner! A few days ago, Karis and I came up with a “master plan” to totally revamp the furniture in both rooms. The new plan gives us much more open space in the middle of each room and even some wall space that’s not used. Right now in the bedroom, we have 2 bunk beds and 2 dressers. The study currently has 2 dressers, 3 desks and 2 book shelves in a 10’x9′ room! Both rooms have large closets and windows, so every inch of wall space is used.

The four of us girls have slept in the same room for the past 9 years or so. It’s been nice, especially as we went through high school and had nights where we went to bed at different times and got up at totally different times. I remember that we used to stay up and talk for hours when our parents thought we were sleeping (shhh!). But now that I’m done with college and 2 more are in college in the Fall and are living in the dorms, it makes more sense to have 2 beds, dressers and desks in each room. Gwen and I could even have our own room during the week, and when Karis and Abigail come home each weekend, there will be a bed ready and waiting!

I thought about not writing a blog post on this because it shows that we’ve been lazy in cleaning our rooms. However, I decided to post this because then we have some accountability! Here’s to two clean rooms!

Ps. Take the poll below and tell me how you clean your room!