But we don't even drink tea!

Last night, I suggested to the kids that we take on one of the toy bins holding their mishmash of toys that I piled up on Sunday. I realized in short order that one bin at a time is not going to work. My 6 year old son can make no distinction between stuff he plays with and stuff he doesn't play with, and my 3 year old daughter just keeps asking, "WHERE DOES BELLE GO? WHERE DOES BELLE GO?" And we just keep finding parts of toys without their other parts, so they end up back in the box. So I"m going to have to rethink this. We may need to set aside part of a day and dump ALL the bins, then sort into categories and piles, before deciding where everything goes. Hmmm, maybe if we do that, the kids will realize just how MUCH stuff they have, and they'll be more willing to part with things. Yeah, right.

Anyway, my own task was to continue in the kitchen. I took the four ceramic canisters that hold tea, sugar, matchbooks, etc., and dumped them out. I didn't count, but I'm going to say I had about 60 teabags of various brands, and maybe 150 assorted packets of sugar, Equal, and Sweet 'n Low, with a couple of Sugar in the Raw and Splendas thrown in there for good measure. The only time we ever have tea is when we're sick, and we rarely make it for guests. So why all this tea? I don't know. Does tea get stale? Probably. It's pretty old and I'm not even sure where it all came from. And yet strangely, I feel compelled to keep it. Well, I do like a nice cup of unsweetened iced tea, so maybe I can start using up those bags this summer. And Hubby insists we keep the sugar packets. "For guests." I did wash and dry the canisters. I also finished cleaning out the old fishtank, (dumped the old gravel, cleaned the accessories, etc.) and now need to find a place to keep that stuff.

I didn't bother decluttering the dish cabinets or the cabinet under the sink, as I am trying to make a dent in the way things look on the outside. I know this is somewhat contrary to FLYlady - she believes in holding off on deep cleaning until the decluttering is done - but I need to be able to see that I'm making progress. I did wipe down all the cabinet fronts on that side of the room, scrubbing off drips, finger marks, and greasy spots.

Then I went through the condiments and stuff inside the refrigerator door. Threw out a few old, almost used-up jars of jelly and other sauces that are never going to get used. Wiped down the shelves in the door. Found FOUR bottles of my mother in law's eye drops. I think she brings them here, uses them, and forgets about them. One has an expiration date in 2004, the other 3 seem pretty current. I have to ask her what to do with them. I didn't clean off the main shelves or the freezer, because they are pretty stocked right now. I'll have to wait until we eat some of the food.

Darn, I completely forgot about the TOP of the refrigerator. Next time. There's another big bowl of candy up there that could use some cleaning out, plus lots of stuff that can probably be trashed.

I then got down and scrubbed another section of the floor, then Swiffered over what I had scrubbed yesterday and today. Now my floor looks like one of those before/after demonstrations, with about half the floor shiny and the other half dull and dingy.

I'm not sure how much will get done in the kitchen tonight. It's laundry day -- hubby does the washing and drying and some of the folding, I do the balance of folding and putting away. On top of that, we need to do our turtle tank maintenance tonight. So the kitchen may have to wait until tomorrow.

Hurray! Clean water for me!