Sunday was one out of the blue for this household.

Onyx decided he'd tidy up his office, which of course I was all for. I'd driven the exercise before but this time the idea came entirely from his camp.

So while the youngest children were set to shredding paper from the unconventional filing system that hubby uses, he and I and our eldest started moving mountains.

I sorted through my yarn stash that is housed in storage bins, and was really quite surprised to find the count at only 6.

• A box of childrens books was shifted to its approximate resting place
• A box of recipe books was rediscovered and re-routed to the kitchen
• 4-5 sacks full of Agate's confiscated clothes and bedroom junk was sorted through - there is a load of washing in the machine now of clothes to give away. She only got a small box of toys and special things back and has managed to keep her room tidy for 3 days!!!
• One box of linen and a picnic set was re-located to where the shelves are one day going to be built into the hallyway (we have the wood leaning up against the wall in our dining room with waterproof gypsum board off-cuts and hardwood for lining the wardrobes too)

• 3 boxes of recyclable cardboard and paper was sent outside to await the collection this week
• A trash sack full of rubbish has taken residence in the hallway until the project is officially concluded (hopefully by this coming weekend)
• About 8 computers in various states of dis-array are sitting on our front porch for the recycling centre to pick up, with old Microsoft books, legitimate software, and other programming books

• Our 2 fans are at the back door to go out to the shed - we finally have enough stuff to need to summerise and winterise - lol
• A pop-up sun shelter is there too - what was that doing inside the house anyway?

• The office mat was moved from its rolled up position in the hall (were it had been since it was cleaned) back onto the floor of the office.
• The curtains were re-hung (down since the January house exterior stripping and painting marathon)

I could go on, but you get the idea that we achieved A LOT! Onyx and I continued on long into the night, and even managed to master a 2 minute video that we were working on as a family project.

The flow-on effect has been great too.



Today I grabbed the recipe books that I recovered from the office, picked up the few that I was recently given from the bedroom, and hauled all the others out of their place in the pantry, with the one aim of sorting through them.

The result: 53 books went back, 26 went out, and 7 were set aside to see if I look for them in the next while. So for those counting - yes, thats 86 books that I had. In my defence there were a whole range of categories: nutrition, bread, barbeques, baking, vegetarian, gourmet, allergies, chocolate, italian, german, etc.

The main realisation that I came to during this process was that I am less likely to use a book that has recipes on more than one food or subject. Whereas when I was first married, the general easy cookbooks that contained a bit of everything were the staple in our kitchen, as time goes on, and with a mother who would eat cookbooks as a basic food group if she could, we have accrued quite a few.

Laying them out into their groups on the table was quite an eye-opener - down to even how they managed to fit into the shelves designated for them in the pantry. Now we have half a shelf empty, that has quickly been assumed by some servings dishes.

Oh, and the recipe book sort has led to a pantry re-ordering too - so I better get back to it.


What I am still shell-shocked by, is that the tidy-up was instigated by Onyx, and that made it all the easier. We all worked together and saw some results faster than if I were to do it on my own. Objects (and the floor) are easier to find, and simply walking into the room is a pleasure not a burden.

My hope is that this weekend we may be able to attack the room that Ruby has saught refuge in as a sleeping area, but which is nothing short of the 'junk room' - a space that I was setting aside those items that we need to part with but that were worth trying to sell online.