One Project Done; What Now?

One of the most satisfying things about finishing a project over here is the time spent catching up on things that I wasn't able to do while I was mid-project.  The first thing I do is always clean the kitchen!  Since that's the center of the house and not as kid-heavy, it almost always becomes the chaos space when I'm working.  And getting it cleaned up has been amazing.  

Cleaning is also essential going into winter: half the kids have winter birthdays, and with holiday gifts, baking, and cooking we enter a different kind of chaos.  Especially in the kitchen.  Our Black Friday tradition is the opposite of shopping (I'm usually done with most gifts by Halloween): we go through our belongings and do a major purge.

Annual Purge

We made a secondary goal in the annual purge this year to donate one item that corresponds to the day of the month: so November 1 we found one thing to donate, November 2 we found two things, and so on.  In total, that adds up to 465 items!  We hit that easily yesterday alone, if each item in a set counts as one.  But it's really made us think differently about the things we own.

By nature, I'm a collector.  So, my goal (knowing I did a lot of hosting just before the pandemic) was to pare down anything I haven't used or needed since 2019.  I reorganized and purged the kitchen and dishes this spring, and even re-evaluated our coffee cups yesterday.  I dropped most of my plain mugs, and kept a pair from each of the big sets.

Enjoying the Spoils

One of the best things about finishing a project is always enjoying the spoils!  It has been so satisfying to see the work we did every time I look out the kitchen window or walk down the hill from the kids' school.  But getting the area around it cleaned up gives me a much easier time enjoying the backyard stress-free.  I'm no longer thinking about the condition it's in or how I'm going to make it better, but I can be at the firepit and really enjoy myself.  

I always try to plan at least a week between house projects.  The room to breathe and relax is so needed, and I can get my feet wet choosing what's next - if that's not already in the plan.  Project planning for us always comes with a lot of advanced preparation.  We think in terms of budgeting our money and our time to really make sure we can do what we need to do.  The major 2022 projects have really forced us to stretch in ways we weren't sure were possible, but we made it work!  Now it's time to hunker down and plan ahead for next year.