Temples, Education, and Dejunking

Sunday we didn't have church here in Utah because of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication. Jake and I left Grant with Jake's mom while we went to the 3:00 session at our stake center. I don't mean this to be trite, but I'm always amazed at how smart Heavenly Father is! Who'd have thought that you could get 500,000 people to be able to participate in a temple dedication? It helps me realize that the great priesthood and sacrament meetings at Adam-ondi-Ahman might not happen the way our finite minds expect that it will--maybe the Russian saints, the Greek saints, and the Australian saints won't have to make the trip all the way to Missouri after all...

My mother-in-law offered to babysit while I attended BYU Education Week last week. I've never been to anything like it, and I had an incredible experience! It was just what I needed to feel rejuvenated and excited about the gospel and about being a wife, mother, and homemaker. I couldn't even begin to choose a favorite class, and I won't take the time right now to write down the inspiring things I learned (that will be a later post), but the greatest thing was the overall feeling of joy I had every day. It was exhausting, though, because I was all but running up and down the hill between classes (next time I do something like this I might try doing classes according to location...).

One of the classes was about organizing your kitchen. She told us that most people have 50% more things in their kitchens than they actually use. Advice: clear off counters (if you clean it more often than you use it, it might be a good time to get rid of it), hang everything you can, clear out cupboards. It was my last class of the day, and I came home feeling very motivated--when I get into a kick like that, I have to get to work before the feeling leaves me. I tend to be much more of a packrat than I really need (or deep-down want) to be. I started by cutting down my utensil drawer (I'm still in love with the fact that I can find what I want in there without having to dig around through sharp and pointy objects). There were triples of several items that I don't even use very often.

I moved to bigger appliances--I discovered that there were tons of things I'd received for my wedding that I never use, but that I'd always felt too guilty to give away. In my moment of madness, I started making a pile to give to DI. Luckily, Jake was there to keep me reined in. I think we ended up with exactly what we need and will use. My cupboards were now cleared out enough that I could put things like my enormous breadmaker in them, freeing up even more counter space.

I did my pantry. I've finished half of my bathroom closet. Saturday, Jake was even in the mood to keep up the momentum, and we worked all blasted day on the basement. The bathroom down there is finally finished, so we stocked up the cupboards and closet spaces in there with our random cleaning/storage supplies. We cleaned up the big shelf in the laundry room. We cleared out the closet in the family room (which left enough room for Jake to set up my sewing machine and YourStory binder at the desk-like shelf inside), and even tackled the closet in the guest room. Most of it wasn't junk (we only threw away a box or two worth of garbage as we cleaned the entire basement), it was just stuff. Mostly wedding things that I had been holding on to with plans to use them in the future. For example, we have a small crockpot and a large crockpot (which we love and use often). Do I really need to hold on to another large one so that I'll have it when mine dies in ten years? Maybe. But I'm not going to.

It was quite a cathartic experience. I can't even begin to explain how great it feels! I didn't know how cluttered the back of my mind was with the knowledge that every closet in our house was jammed with boxes that I needed to go through. I honestly feel freer now!

My brothers, Austin and Derek (and his wife, Kori) have been staying here this week while they wait for their BYU housing to open up, so we decided that we should have an auction (free, of course). We also invited Jake's sister, Aubrey. Basically, we put all of our purged items on our couch downstairs (remember, most of this stuff is brand new) and let them choose what they wanted. The rest of it is going to DI. Hooray! Sorry, Alisha--I couldn't wait for you to get back from Spain....

Amid all of this, Grant has become quite the avid crawler, which has certainly kept things interesting. Here are his top 5 things to zero in on and conquer: cords, lamps, plants, cords, cords. Somehow we survived the week!