Progress

I think that this post pressure thing might work (see To do's).   On Sunday morning, while the house was still quiet, I made myself a nice cup of coffee and got to work on my spice cabinet.  Stage one, take everything out of the cabinet and clutter up the counter top.  This is where the blog pressure kicked in, because I saw all of this crap and I just did not want to deal.

Deep breath.  I threw out everything expired and made two lists: have and need.  The need is especially important with the Christmas Season almost upon us.  It is Weihnachtsmarkt time and every respectable one will have a spice stand.   Anyway... I moved one shelf up and  replaced my regular turn table with a two-tiered version (by the way the old turntable has found a home and I will do a post about it soon). This is how the cabinet looks now.

A bit of an improvement, I think. Now I just have find some more cohesive containers to make it look a little less all over the place.  I am thinking of picking up the DROPPAR spice jars  from IKEA.  As you might be able to see (my apologies for picture quality) I have a RATIONELL VARIERA spice rack mounted on the door, but I think I will just keep it to one and will eventually keep my six most used spices in them.  On to the next.

To do's

In October I posted "So" with a to do list.  Here is an updated version with some excuses explanations for the state of progress:

• Organize the basement (this alone is a huge undertaking) This is just to big to be listed as a single item. So, I am going to break this down into manageable tasks.  Considering that we have put in several hours of work, I already have some finished tasks to cross off my list. Yes, I add completed tasks to my to do lists just to cross them off. 
• Sort & organize bedroom closet No comment.
• Sort through Sam's room Seems kind of silly considering he is 6 and has the ability to completely "destroy" his room in under 5 minutes.
• Organize kitchen cabinets Another one to break down
• Repaint basement floor Can't really do that until I finish the organizing
• Clean windows (we have 21, 24 counting the basement) I cleaned the ground floor windows.  Think I will list windows by floor. Anyway, five windows down.
• Spring bulb planting
• Roses to move and plant Can't move it until it is dormant.  Leaves are still green, so I totally blame the rose and the weather.
• Hostas to split and move (not sure if it wold be best to wait until Spring for that one) Decided to go for it. I like to live dangerously.
• Design built-in cabinet for bathroom I meant to do the professional thing and do drawings but it just didn't happen & so I winged it explained everything to the carpenter while he took measurements.
•  Consolidate to do/project lists Sad, but I haven't found them all.

So I need to add:

• Organize spice cabinet
• Organize holiday decorations (basement)
• Organize Pantry (basement)
• Throw out the stuff that I have had in the throw out pile for months (basement)
• Sort through High School and College Documents (basement)
• Sort through letters (basement) 

This week's project is the spice cabinet.  Here is it's current state.

Tell Tall Heart

The basement is my personal Tell Tall Heart.  Not that I murdered anyone and hid them under the floorboards, but I can hear the basement from all over the house or rather it is that nagging feeling of unfinished business that is always with me.

This is what it looks like after several hours of clearing with my husband.

Hard to believe,  but there really is an improvement.  Really. This is going to take time. Lots of stuff to sort through and a lot of decisions to make.

Stuff.

A year and half after finishing college I moved to NYC.  Anybody who has ever lived or been in an apartment there knows that space is pure luxury.  These confines kept me weeding out and there is nothing like having a Brooklyn stoop sale to keep stuff from accumulating.

Upon moving to Germany we found a two bedroom with basement storage. There should be a way to insert angel choir singing here.  Anyway,  it was pure bliss and the insanity commenced.  Don't need it right now, put it in the basement. Will probably never need it again, put it in the basement.  Don't want to deal with it, put it in the basement.  Then we decided to buy a piece of property and build a house.  A four bedroom house with a full basement.  Feel free to insert the angel choir. As you might imagine the insanity continued.  We moved in almost two years ago and it got to the point that I would walk through the basement with my eyes locked on the floor.

So a couple of weeks ago I convinced my husband and we started cleaning out the basement. I thought about taking before pictures and posting them, but who would want to see that?  Besides, I really didn't want to share it. This morning I was catching up on my blog reading and saw Nicole's post "The Empty Basement". I think it was pretty gutsy and tomorrow morning I am taking pictures of our basement and posting them.  They may not be true before pictures, but I think everyone will get an idea of the real before considering we have already spent about 4 hours bickering and blaming clearing and organizing.