Organizing a closet

Yesterday, my husband asked two things of me. One was to empty his side of the closet of some of his shirts and things he doesn't use.  The other was to clean out and organize his work trucks.  Now, I'm hoping you don't think this presumptious of him, to ask me to do these things.  He works 6 days a week about 10 hours a day and two evenings he spends with the teens from our church.  The day he's not working, we all spend attending church together in the morning till noon and in the evening.  Basically his only hours off, if you can call them that, are between noon and 7 on Sunday. 

So I'm happy that he asked me to do this, though I wondered at what point I would have time to take on such an enormous task as organizing the closet.  And so the question....

How do you eat an elephant? 

What?  I can hear you asking.  And yet, the answer to this question also answers the question of time.  If I were to take on the task of eating an elephant, I would eat it one bite at a time.  And so the closet.   If I am going to take on the enormous task of cleaning a closet (and ours is small by walk-in standards) then I need to break it into chunks.

On my schedule, I do have about 45 minutes before school starts when dishes are being done and kids are preparing their rooms for the "Check".  So I,  because I dare not be hypocritical,  have assigned myself the task of making sure my room will pass inspection too.   Though as the inspector, I do tend to fudge that one a bit.   My husband reminds me that it's not good to expect their rooms to be clean if our own is filled with papers that need to be filed, and laundry to put away. 

So, this morning, I thought that I would start this daunting task.  I started pulling out all of his clothes(on hangars) and sorting them according to jeans, dress pants, long sleeved shirts, T-shirts, long-sleeved dress shirts, sweaters, short-sleeved dress shirts.  I found that he had about 5 coats in there that others had given him, so I'm putting them away for the boys, some of them would work, others may not.  And then I started sorting.

I was in fear and trembling at this point.  I could tell that things were not happening according to plan downstairs with the dishes, etc.  But I pressed on.  I certainly could not walk away from this task with all the hanging clothes spread in piles around the room.  Once the children I babysit come, I rarely make it back up to my room.  And by evening, I would never remember that there was much to be done up there.  I knew that coming up to bed would not be a good time to find clothes all over the bed.  So I continued.

First, I sorted all the clothes he'd wear for work and everyday at home - t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts and jeans.  Then I sorted for the real work - his pasture clearing job - the grubby ones that can get stained or torn.  Finally his church clothes. 

Amazingly, I had enough time to sort my own clothes as well.  I brought out a garbage bag of coats to save, about a garbage bag of clothes to give and about a garbage bag of clothes for rags.  And it only took me about 45 minutes. 

All that to say that sometimes the elephant looks huge, until you start eating it.  Actually, the longer you wait to start, the bigger it becomes. 

So happy closet cleaning.  Just do part and it will inspire you to do more.  And now to clean the trucks.  I think I'll tackle that this afternoon as baby isn't here today and it looks nice out.  Everyone out to play while Mommy cleans some trucks. :)

Steph