Four Weeks and Counting!

We began our summer holidays two weeks ago, and I have had a wonderful time relaxing, school planning for next year and watching reruns of the Great British Bake off. We have four more weeks of summer left and I have many plans to empty our house! Yes, I am on a decluttering, reorganisation rampage!

Every few days, I’m going to post what I’ve done. I have a list as long as both arms and am going to slowly make my way through it, hopefully right to the end 😀

So, today I focused on Becca’s room. Abigail is going to take over Thomas’ room over the next few weeks, but until then I am using it as a clearing room. This morning we emptied everything out of Becca’s room and into Thomas’ old room. Then the girls and I began sorting through everything. We managed to clear two black bags full of rubbish and four black bags full of clothes to go to the charity shop.

Gary has been off for the past four days, and today he worked alongside us to create a new, larger art/needlework area for Becca. As she grows, her needs seem to also grow. Becs sews, paints and does arts and crafts all day long. The desk under the stairs was not working for her anymore, and all her supplies were creeping outwards into the hallway. So Gary built has built her a lovely crafting area in her new bedroom:

Today, we took down the white curtains and curtain rail and put up a green blind. Becs still loves the woodland theme she had a youngster and as we still have the duvet covers and blankets, it was easy to fulfil her wish.

She has a box unit, which we will use to store her clothes. It is her clothes we have been stream lining. She and Abigail always find it very difficult to keep things tidy, primarily (I think) because they have too many clothes. So today we got rid of four sackfuls!

Becca also has a wardrobe, but after much discussion we have decided to keep the wardrobe just for out of season clothes and bedding, the large collection of Christmas bits and pieces (Becca LOVES Christmas!), suitcases, and the spare fold up bed and guest bedding. We will be working on this more tomorrow.

Whilst Gary was fitting the art area, I began to defrost the fridge and freezer. The girls had picked all our black currants and raspberries and frozen them to make jam once all the berries had been picked. So today I made a heap of jam. I strained the jam, keeping all the fruit for a reboil tomorrow to make some berry syrup to dilute for drink:

Oh. My. Goodness. I made so much mess. So much. The kitchen looked like a berry bomb had gone off in it!

Meanwhile, I washed one of the guest sleeping bags, which will be kept with the fold up guest bed in Becca’s wardrobe; Abigail washed down the cube unit and the windows and window frame and Becca sorted through some of her arts and crafts supplies.

We didn’t stop today. Literally every single minute was used decluttering, cleaning and making a complete and utter mess in the kitchen.

It’s results day tomorrow. Ads has his A level results, whilst Lil has her Diploma results. They have both been a little nervous and I think we will all be pleased for tomorrow to come.

Right, that’s it for me. I need to have a good night’s sleep if I’m to be at all productive tomorrow 😴