I believe I said that we were going to relax today and start working around the house and doing some chores starting on Saturday. My bad. Brady was hung-ho to begin one of the most foreboding tasks on the list today, so when the kids went down for their nap, he and I attacked the furnace room full force.
Three hours later, we had gotten maybe a third of it cleaned up. As I mentioned earlier, I did a huge purge of the furnace room a few months ago, so the worst of the junk is gone, but its all a HUGE mess! Plus, there were so many things on and around the workbench that I just didn’t feel were my business to decide their fate. So Brady and I went through the entire workbench (which is the length of a whole wall), underneath the workbench, all the stuff hanging on the wall, and the shelves around the bench. There was a TON of stuff! We threw out a few old appliances, broken tools, good supplies that we’ll just never use, and a ridiculous amount of rusted out nails and screws. I thought the winner was an old pair of flannel boxers that were actually hanging on a nail on the wall to possibly be used as a rag of some kind? Yup, couldn’t wait to get rid of those things!
The whole table top now has a couple of tool boxes on it, and a tidy little array of boxed screws and hooks and things. We also now have a small tub filled with new jobs. Like fresh wall outlets that we may as well use to replace some of the old ugly ones around the house. There were so many things like that already in our basement when we moved in, and we just never felt the need to replace stuff. But its there, and we should either use it or lose it. So sadly, we still have another couple of days worth of work in the furnace room, plus we’ve added a number of chores to the list. The already humungous list.
I know we accomplished a lot of great stuff in the furnace room today, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that our kids gave us three hours to do it! More garbage out, too! Not that we have anywhere to put it and garbage day was yesterday… But regardless, I know we did good! However, I’m struggling with the fact that I still have this big list of things that drive me nuts every single day, and we didn’t go near them. The furnace room bugs me every single time I enter it, but lots of things bug me every single day, and they are way smaller jobs. I’m having trouble being happy with what we’ve chosen to start working on.
My frustration finally gurgled up as we were getting the kids up from their nap and chore time was officially over. I explained how I was feeling, and then over explained it, and then back pedalled, and I think that it was around that point that Brady agreed to sit down with me at the table after the kids went down for night and talk about my list and plan with me.
So we did. We went over the whole list to see what was ahead of us for the next few days. A few bigger chores, but mostly small stuff. So we decided to do a few things before we got too comfy and settled in for the evening. A fun surprise was that, for whatever reason, I had put “laundry” on the list, and I did all the laundry today! As in, done! Even put away 🙂 So I could actually cross that off the list. Then we cleaned up a big box that had been sitting in our living room for an embarrassingly long amount of time, and threw out a bunch of gift bags that have accumulated since birthdays and such. Brady took out all of our basement garbages next, which we use less often, and also take out way less often, so they’re either empty or bursting. Now, they are empty. And lastly, we did a little experiment for a Christmas. Brady and I are doing a homemade Christmas with my parents and siblings, so we all picked names and are going to make gifts for whoever we chose. I don’t know if my idea will work so we put together a test gift or two as our final “chore” of the evening, so we’d end on something fun.
I think tomorrow will be another day where we work on the furnace room when the kids are down, but we might do some rearranging in the living room while they’re up. There are a few things on the list that we can even involve the kids in, and some could even be seen as fun by little ones. So we’ll see how much we’re up to, but there is potential for the day anyway. But for now, we rest our feet. We have earned it for today.
*** Last cool note of the day, though! Brady was invited to speak at a career fair coming up!! He’s being asked to speak about his experience as a carpenter/tradesman, as well as a small business owner. I, personally, think this is awesome, and kind of a huge honour! However, if you know my husband, he’s a bit shy and really hadn’t done much public speaking in his life at all. But he’d do great at it! I guess its time to psych him up for it 😀 You can do eeeeet!!!