Mission Possible

I once asked you: How do you eat an elephant? The answer: One bite at a time.

As much as I loved my Pumpkin Spice Grands Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast, the rest of the day I was eating elephant. (aka tackling the clutter).

When some of us see how much stuff has accumulated in our homes over a decade, it can be overwhelming to think of organizing, donating, selling or tossing it ALL at once. So I've been taking little bites at a time. It felt so good to get my closet re-organized last weekend, I didn't want to lose momentum.

Today, since Jim was gone all day to UW-Whitewater watching his Warhawks whoop up on the UW-Stevens Point football team, I decided I would hit the "cobweb corner" – also known as the laundry room and "storage" area of the basement.

There are a lot of boxes and bins and bags of clothes that are either don't fit anyone or don't fit the style of the current decade. I was on a mission. By midafternoon, I hadn't gotten to all the cobwebs yet, but I had the back of the CRV filled and was headed to the Bethesda Thrift Shop for a donation.

My math went something like this: 6 bags donated to Bethesda + 4 bags of garbage tossed = 1 evening of hard-earned anti-hoarding Hallmark Xmas Movie time.

That was my plan. But it turned out even better. Instead of the Hallmark movie, which I am DVR'ing as I type, I got to spend 3 hours with my boy, who was organizing and downsizing his wardrobe, too.

We went to Stevens Point to eat an early supper at Buffalo Wild Wings. Then we stopped at Fleet Farm so I could buy some ingredients for Christmas cookies, plus the yummy red and green Spice Gum Drops I can only find there. After that we stopped at Kohl's for some early Christmas shopping. We hit pay dirt at the clearance rack and Carter got some new clothes to replace the ones he just got rid of. Who am I to judge or explain that this is how the cycle never ends??

After that, Carter insisted we stop for a cool treat. It's almost mandatory after hot wings, even though we'd had an hour to cool off already. So we stopped at Sweet Frog and enjoyed some frozen yogurt for the ride home. Seems like a perfect date to me.

Glad we both worked so hard to deserve it. It feels good to say "Mission Accomplished."

Even if it was just one of many to come.