3 Things I Learned Today While Cleaning Out My Mother's Basement

1. My mother is never, ever, ever allowed to buy any more rolls of wrapping paper. EVER. Good golly, Miss Molly. It's Party City down there...

2. My fear of spiders makes me jump around like a nut case if my fingers even brush against something and I don't know what it is.

3. Zinabu carries on long-winded conversations with me when he realizes I am stuck in one room and not going anywhere.

While my mom is overseas I promised/volunteered/got stuck with cleaning out the unfinished part of her basement. This is what we are converting into two bedrooms for the boys, and it seemed as good a place as any to begin. It's really not that bad. It's a large room with a lot of stuff in it, but I'm learning it's mostly empty boxes and they're all spread out. So once you actually get your hands dirty, it's not too bad. My dad (and I am my daddy's girl) hated clutter and always kept things pared down and tidy. My mom is more of the philosophy, "Let's just put it in the storage room and I'll deal with it later." I have to confess I get a little thrill at being able to sort and purge and toss. I'm weird that way.

Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me so I have no photos yet. I must do that, because I'll never have another chance like this to do so many "before" and "after" photos.

I also finished up meeting with Jackie, aka "The Kitchen Cabinet Lady" as I've dubbed her. I bet I was her easiest client to date. We're keeping the layout of the kitchen the same, and I knew what cabinets I wanted, so wham, bam I'm done. I have gotten over the guilt of how much it costs to renovate a kitchen. That horrible, horrible guilt when you know there are children starving in the world and you are plunking down obscene amounts of money for new cabinets. Really, it made me feel gross. So I can't defend what we're doing. All I can say is we want to do all the work now so we never have to do it again. And now that I am past the guilt, I must say I am really looking forward to those cabinets.