Cleaning House, moving on

Well, it's finally starting to get warm this South Jersey Spring and with it comes my desire to clean house, clean out the house and garden. OK, so the last one will have to be another post, really so will the first one. Today I'm talking about cleaning out the house, purging, decluttering, whatever you want to call it. Today I'm talking about a sad rite of passage for a Mom, or at least this Mom. I am cleaning out my maternity clothes and my son's outgrown clothes, and when I say cleaning out, I mean getting rid of anything that I absolutely can't get rid of.

When we had our kid Jedi as he calls himself, we intended to have 2 children, but with me being a SAHM and finances being what they are and the economy basically taking a downturn from the moment I stopped working, gas prices jumped over $0.50 per gallon the week my son was born and continued to escalate from there, well it became apparent that we couldn't afford a second child. Oh, I fought it, I packed away his clothes to hold onto for another one in case we had another boy. Last year I started to slowly, very slowly, release the hold these things had on me. I started to lend the clothes to a friend of mine. As we all know when you lend, you may not get back, or at least not get back in wearable condition. I have to say she did OK with them.

Well, now I'm giving them away. I've been slowly going through the totes to get rid of all the clothes I don't have some bizarre emotional attachment to, and I'm going to finish that up this spring. Today, I was going through my maternity clothes, and this was just as difficult as going through kid Jedi's clothes if not more so since I haven't tackled anything under 18-24 months of his clothes. The church I go to MOPS at, and I've recently started attending services there too, has a maternity closet. Well I have maternity clothes so I was going to give them my tote and 1/2 of maternity clothes, I say going to for 2 reasons, 1 - sad to say there were a couple of outfits I loved so much that I am holding on to for about another year or so just in case God's plans aren't our plans and 2 - we aren't going to MOPS today since my son has a cold. The clothes are packed up to go, I set a couple things aside for one of my friends who is pregnant with her second child, but most of it's going, I kept 3 outfits, a dress, a pair of jeans that I loved, a sweater and a cardigan, and those things I didn't feel right donating, you know lingerie.

It is still going to be a slow, emotional process for me, because I'm still not really ready to admit that kid Jedi will be an only child and, well, it's difficult for me to let go of anything. But the process has started, and like the lady who runs the maternity closet said, my clothes will be in the maternity closet if I ever need to borrow them back.

Tackle It Tuesday #13 - Getting caught up

Well, today's tackle isn't a very interesting one, no pretty pictures either. We have been all over the place since Christmas. If you read last week's tackle, you know that right after Christmas we started prepping for my son's 5th birthday party, well that's now over and since last week was hectic between my DH's car being in the shop Monday & Tuesday, my son's doctor's appointment on Friday and finding homes for all our new toys, I'm spending this week getting caught up and back on schedule. I'm starting with laundry and putting all the dishes/cake decorating stuff away from the party. I finally changed my dishes from Christmas to regular again. So next week, I will have a real tackle with pictures and all, though I'm not sure what it will be yet.

So, this is what I'm doing this week, let us know what you are doing and check out what other Mom's are doing at 5 Minutes for Mom .

And don't forget to celebrate the inauguration of our newest President.