The boys have been begging. I finally said yes.
We finally pulled out all of our clothes and did the great switch from winter to summer clothes (leaving some sweats and jeans and sweatshirts in the closet just in case because packing all the warm clothes away is a sure way to make it snow).
Here’s what happens at our house:
I clean out and organize the boys’ closets twice a year. In the meantime…we receive boxes and bags of hand-me-downs. When this occurs…do I carefully sort and organize the clothing we receive?
Nope. I throw them into the back of a closet until unti the next biannual closet clean-out.
Why, you ask? Because I’m lazy like that. Because our clothing bins are in the attic making them hard to get to. Because we don’t need the clothes yet. Because I don’t want to. Because the clothes we receive are likely not to fit anyone yet anyway. And because organizing clothing twice a year for four growing boys is plenty for me.
This is what my camera captured when I turned on the flash then stuck
it into the back of the closet. That pile was several feet high.
We pulled it all out and it looked like this.
I asked Matt to bring our clothing containers down from the attic and the boys started pulling out all of their favorite shirts…and talking at once…and asking me loud questions like “will this shirt fit me this year?” and “oh can I have this one?”. Malachi was crawling all over me and into my well ordered piles and into the containers. It was a fun organizational moment. The kind that makes me want to not let them help me. But…I know they love helping me with this job, so I kept myself from screaming for Calgon to take me far, far away and let them go a little nuts for a while.
Two days and several hours later…the bottom of the closet is storing only sleeping bags. (Someone needs to take a broom to that floor.)
The clothing bins are now ready to go live in the attic again until the next time I feel like we need a little family insanity.
And…I was able to take a very full container of clothes to the clothing giveaway at church we hosted over the weekend.
What’s it like at your house when you sort through clothes during the changes of seasons? Have any closets that you need to clean out? (My boys would be happy to come and help you.)
You can go visit Tammy’s Recipes for more “Pile Clean Up” motivation.