I feel a purge coming on . . .

Purging. I guess it's my version of Spring Cleaning . . . only I tend to get the itch two or three times a year. It's not so much about scrubbing and airing out, it's more about cleaning out closets, and dressers, and cabinets, cupboards, shelves, toy chests, etc. And when I'm done, I usually have several large bags of garbage to show for my hard work, as well as bags of stuff to donate, and bags of clothes to pass down to the younger kids. It's very cleansing and satisifying.

My current itch was brought on by the fact that the contractors finished downstairs yesterday (woot!), so now we have new carpet, new paint, and a new bathroom vanity and sink . . . and lots of crap. It's a huge mess down there, because everything had to be shoved around and stacked here and there when the flood happened, and now it's clear that we have a big job ahead of us to clean everything up and put it all back together into a living space. And there's also the fact that I see the kids' pants growing shorter on them, their clothes becoming more stained and ratty as the days go by, which tells me it's time to clean out their closets and drawers - out with the old, in with the new.

And this will lead me to clean out my own closet and drawers; I have a firm philosophy that if I haven't worn it for a year, I'll never wear it again, so out it goes. Of course, I had a pregnancy in the last year, so maybe I should give myself a little more time to get back into the things I haven't worn for more than a year . . .

Anyway, of course a lot of the kids' purging I have to do on the sly - either when they're at school or deeply involved in a game outside, because if it were up to them, we'd never get rid of anything, no matter how ratty, broken, or outgrown. Actually, Michael's the same way.