Spring Cleaning ... Day 6 - the bathroom ... yuck!!

Okay, so I'm now caught up with the Spring Cleaning Party over on Simple Mom. A wonderful blog that EVERYONE should check out ... I mean EVERYONE! I figure any blog that proves valuable to me - mother of one, a 9 year old who is in public school, pastor's wife who volunteers in both my daughter's school and at the local crisis pregnancy center, helps my sweet husband as much as I can, etc. - and to my sister-in-law - homeschooling mother of seven (ages 10 & under, YIKES!), who is also a pastor's wife in a very small community and who ends up helping her husband with all kinds of stuff ... well, clearly Beth's and my lives are very different. And we both love Simple Mom! So, everyone else I know can certainly find something useful - and simple! - to help in the daily life of MOM.

Okay, free but very sincere! advertising aside ... back to the PAR--TAY!

Today's task was the bathroom. I confess that I only did the girls' bathroom at our house. My precious husband Scott generally maintains his own bathroom - he was raised right, people! Although, I will get in there tomorrow to do some of those tasks he generally despises ... like cleaning out the drawers and cabinets. :) So, back to the bathroom of the day ...

Here are the before pictures ...



And the after shots ...



So, for my daily lessons learned from Spring Cleaning:

1. We keep WAAAAAAY too many extras. I have no idea why I really thought we needed that many travel size portions of anything! So, I followed the advice of sweet Tsh at Simple Mom and combined as many as I could then added the rest to the give pile. Travel size shampoos, lotions, etc are a wonderful donation to your local battered women's shelter!

2. We have way too many bags ... duffle bags, overnight bags, makeup bags, bags, bags, bags! UGH!! So, I pared down to what we love - our Vera Bradley stuff. Everything else was loaded with the books from last week's bookshelf cleansing and loaded in the car for Good Will. The best thing about Vera Bradley - okay, one of the best things! - is that it all folds up inside the biggest piece. Casiday & I both have our own sets ... and every piece is folded up inside the largest piece. Took up one small drawer in the wire rack located in the bottom of the closet.

3. We have way too many beach accessories! Yes, we live 20 minutes from the beach but that is no reason to have 15 bottles of sunscreen! So, I followed the "keep things we use together in the same place" rule and put all the beach towels, beach bags, and sunscreen - along with the small ziploc bag of googles, etc - in the middle wire basket in the closet.

4. Purging periodically is a great thing! I am pretty good about going through the makeup and hair stuff that accumulates in a home with girly girls like ours. So, it was very nice to know that I had just cleaned out my makeup so I didn't have to do anything with that! I go through my makeup on the first day of each season - four times a year! Well, that's the plan ... but by planning it quarterly, I'm still doing great if I get it done twice.

So, it's 10:20 and I'm typing my second blog of the day (check out my Fab Five for last week if you get a chance) ...that means I have already accomplished three of the four MITs on today's list. I'm going to post this blog to Simple Mom and then get started on Meal Plan Monday stuff. Goal is to have everything done by noon so I can get started on some laundry!! LOL I love Mondays!!

Happy Cleaning to all!!!