Let's Get This Party Started! (Or The Refrigerator Project)

Ah yes, I am back at it! We finished up the summer with a bang (road trip to camp in Yellowstone for five days!) and have sent the boys happily off to school. The 6 year old is in 1st grade and in school full day now. I'm still adjusting to having them both gone for so long during the day, but I sure can get a lot done!

One of my first projects was to tackle our refrigerator. It hadn't really been cleaned all summer, there was orange juice "glue" from when the boys had spilled an entire container of OJ all over the place, and the side and top of the fridge was covered in layers upon layers of grease with dust on top. The OJ was our fault, but the grease and dust was there when we moved in four years ago. I swear the people who lived here before only cooked fried food.

 It's so disgusting.....UGH!!!

The reason the orange juice turned into glue is because when it happened I didn't have time to take the inside of the fridge apart to deep clean. Then it turned to glue. Then I couldn't figure out how to clean it up. I tried multiple things but it would not come up. Same thing with the grease and dust all over the fridge. Nothing was taking it off. Bleach, Comet, magic erasers, Goo Gone.....nothing.

Finally, after poking around on Pinterest, I found mention of mixing hot water, vinegar (which I already use for cleaning anyway), and a bit of Dawn dish soap. Honestly, I figured it wouldn't work - nothing else had. But this was touted as "miracle solution". What did I have to lose?

Turns out, it does work like a miracle. It took the orange juice glue right up. (I should have taken pictures of that but since I wasn't expecting it to work.....) The inside of the fridge was sparkling. Then I used in the freezer where a jar of jam had leaked and then frozen to a shelf. It took that right up. Then I turned my attention to the outside of fridge. If this worked on the inside when nothing else had, would it do the same for the years-old grease layer with it's protective coating of dust?

Yes. Yes, it did.

Do you see that?!?! I've been frustrated with that grease layer for over four years, have scrubbed and scrubbed until my arms hurt, and all I needed to do was mix hot water, vinegar, and Dawn?? I literally jumped up and down, giggling like a crazy person. There were a few tiny trouble spots, but the Goo Gone worked on those. I guess I'd taken up enough layers of grease that the Goo Gone was able to do what it's meant to do.

The kitchen looks cleaner as a whole and I feel happy when I don't see grease staring me in the face when I cook (the side of the fridge is right next to the stove and would catch every little splatter). Now if there's anything that splatters, I can just wipe it down and it comes right up.

I am so happy to be back, working to simplify our lives. The best part is, my husband has totally gotten on the bandwagon over the last few months and his hoarding tendencies are diminishing. It really helps motivate me to keep going!

Giving Up

Yep, I gave up. For about four months. As much as I want to say that I shouldn't have, I think it was a really good decision for our specific situation. I'll explain:

I was a few months away from finishing school and I was applying for jobs. Things were overwhelming and chaotic and awful. I felt exhausted and beat down at the end of every single day. And this was just from school and taking care of my children. Now, you would think this is WHY I should have continued with my challenge straight through this. But I kept beating myself up about it. I wasn't getting anything extra done even though it was constantly on my mind. Every three weeks or so, I'd clean a bathroom and feel really great, but then get sucked into overwhelming despair again.

I finally re-assessed things with myself and decided to step back from simplifying our life. I knew school would be ending at a set date, so I made the decision to focus on graduating and to stop beating myself up about what I wasn't doing. Because you know what? I was doing a lot. I was causing extra stress for myself unnecessarily by not letting it go. I simplified by pausing the grand simplification.

This provided me with an opportunity to do two things:

1) Focus on what absolutely had to be done during that moment in time. In my case, that was school. I had one more term to get through and it was going to be a doozy. I couldn't afford to let anything deter my graduation. I'd worked too hard to let myself self-destruct at the last minute.

2) Re-assess what I really wanted from simplifying our life. And I will tell you that this was massively eye-opening. I read Tsh Oxenreider's Notes from a Blue Bike and I cried. Oh, I cried. I think I spent the majority of the book in tears. It allowed me to understand that there are others out there who crave what I crave, and who find a way to push back on how our overly busy culture tells us we should be living. It helped me understand that I don't just want an organized house, or to save money on our groceries, but that I want experiences over things. I want to experience joy with my children instead of pushing stress on them by constantly having to be somewhere. I want to have an impromptu outing to the park simply because, and be able to say yes to things because my schedule isn't dictating my life. I want to travel and show my children the world, and I want to be able to afford those experiences because I'm not giving into the myth of having to have a bigger house or the newest gadgets or the latest designer shoes.

Ever since I re-assessed, I am filled with joy. I feel happy and positive, more than I have in a very long time. Now that I'm done with school, I'm working on simplifying things again. I'm also spending lots of time with my kids and we're having so much fun this summer. So yes, giving up (temporarily!) was a very good thing.

Do This!

Thanks to a facebook friend, I discovered a simplifying movement from White House Black Shutters. It's called 40 Bags in 40 Days. You're basically giving up your clutter for lent. All you have to do is fill a bag a day for 40 days. Garbage or donation....it doesn't matter. It can be a big garbage bag or a small grocery bag. Just fill a bag and get it out of your house!

I'm doing to do it. You should too! And if you're worried about finding enough stuff to get rid of for 40 days, trust me. I'll bet anything you'll be shocked at how much unused, unneeded junk is just sitting in your home.

Let's start today! Join me?