Ultimate Spring Cleaning

Yesterday, a giant dumpster landed on the driveway of our house and the tear-out began.  This happened because the previous day Bart and I signed a one line document authorizing the removal and destruction of all remaining personal property in our home.  Now that is something I never thought I would sign.

We have both said our goodbyes to the destruction, the black walls, the charred remains of William's room and our room.  First it was horrific to look at, then we looked past it and worked in it for one week taking inventory and then it just was horrible to look at again.  On Thursday, I took one cardboard box and walked around filling it with simple little treasures - the kids' hand drawn Art to Remember magnets, a few more drawings that were in Caroline's desk, a tiny pair of overalls that my grandmother had made 35 years ago for my favorite stuffed monkey.  I don't know if they will ever smell the same, but I couldn't part with them.  Bart took detailed photos of each room - both for continued inventory purposes and for us.  Though we will never show them to the children, we need the pictures for us.  Its a part of our story.

When Bart was at the house gathering some things, he came across this soap.  It is our special sweet-smelling soap from our half bath.  When my parents surprised me with a visit for my birthday, my mom and I went to Homegoods, our favorite store, and we were sucked in by the beautiful wrappings on these soaps and their amazing scents.  A few weeks ago, William decided to "help" me by unwrapping not just these soaps but the 24 bars of bath soap from the linen closet.  So these pretty soaps were unwrapped, not that far from the fire.  Strangely enough, these soaps are the only things in the house that do not smell like the fire - I mean the ONLY thing.  So now they are at the rental house and everytime I walk past our bathroom I smell the familiar scent of our real house.

A giant thumbs up for the day was some good old fashioned retail therapy.  With my "just for me" gift cards from my Bible Study girls in hand, I headed out to do some shopping.  Goals were: a cute pair of shoes, a Valentine decoration (since we have none) and a picture frame.  I can not live one more minute in a house without a framed picture of my children!

Here are my treasures:

Jeweled silver discs can snap off and be interchanged with others. Fabulous!  Too bad I can only wear them inside right now.

Notes to self: Need to get a picture of the kiddos printed today and favorite Valentine treat - jelly cinnamon hearts to fill candy jar.

Funny story of the day:  I was in the house with the man who is removing and labeling all of our fixtures.  He yells to me "I turned the water on to the half bath if you need to use the restroom."  I yell back, over the sound of the ozone machine, the gigantic dehumidifier and the heater, "thanks!"   Then he yells back "if you do use it, you'll have to go outside and get a bucket of snow to refill the bowl."     WHAT?   Gee, thanks for the lovely offer, but I think I'll visit the neighbors.  Bart told me he had asked the restoration ladies about the trash can of snow in the dining room a few days earlier.  Their explanation for it was, I thought at the time, unbelievable.  Perhaps I should take the soap back over.