Lent Observance

Although I am not Catholic, I've always been fascinated by the concept of Lent. Since I've yet to even decide real New Years Resolutions, I was stalled. So, I was reading on another blog how this mom had divided her home into 40 sections, and she was going to do a section a day for Lent. That would never work for me, but it got me thinking. I have some really huge messes in my basement. The basement is finished, but extra space seems to attract junk - and we've lived here 12+ years. The clean up is so overwhelming - it looks so bad, I don't know if I can even take a picture, never mind post one.

I am a [messy] seamstress with way too many patterns and too much fabric. Then there's the scrapbooking mess....it looks like Pebbles in My Pocket threw up in there, in addition to the sewing mess. My daughter-in-law has helped thin out the scrapbooking - this past summer she worked at the state hospital and several times loaded up boxes of "stuff" to take to the teenage girls unit. You still can't tell anything is missing, though.

Did I mention the Christmas wrapping mess that is still out in the spare bedroom down there (because the closet is too full)? Lots of other random stuff that I haven't found a home for. I seriously can't believe the mess....

So here's my Lent 40 day exercise (yes, I'm a week or so late): I'm going to clean for 15 minutes in the basement every night. This will require me to gird up my loins after work, and face the mess. I really did not want to do it tonight, but I went down there for about 45 minutes. I did the same last night. I guess I should take pictures every 3-5 days, so I can see my progress. Once I'm there, I get busy and somewhat productive. But, I could go weeks and never venture down there, and the worse the mess is, the less I want to face it.

Did I mention our son and daughter-in-law live down there, too?