Dirty Little Secret

Ok, it's not so little.

I don't let people outside my immediate family in my basement. Ever. When we have company, I pretend that we don't even have a basement.

When they ask what the door leads to, I tell them it's decorative.

If the furnace needs service, I blindfold the repairmen and tell them I'm taking them on a treasure hunt. If they don't run screaming from the house, they're probably disappointed I didn't spank them with the big hairbrush down in my dungeon.

Do I have some kind of mutant child chained up down there? Bodies of brats who've tormented my kid over the years?

No.

The basement is a massive pig sty, and has been since we moved in.

Do you have a room or even a drawer where you toss stuff to get out of your sight, and plan to deal with later?

I did that for 10 years in an entire section of a house! I just never got around to "dealing" with it.

So for this year's spring cleaning, I decided to tackle the basement. I couldn't stand it any more.

And let's just say hubby motivated me by his vow to clean out HIS crap-catching area, the garage.

For the last week, Little Guy and I have been plowing through piles and piles of stuff. Big Kid has been hiding under his bed, just in case we find any mice (this is the kid who left a room knee-high full of food garbage when he went to college and came home to a mouse nest in his underwear drawer which he didn't discover for WEEKS).

Little Guy is fearless. He's earning money for a bigger TV. He'd probably eat rocks for a bigger TV. The prospect of a couple of lil' meeses didn't phase him a bit.

Among the treasures we found?

An entire box of catalogs from about 7 years ago. WTF?

A pair of hubby's light blue satin disco roller shorts from the 70's. he he he

A mystery box full of rusty pots and pans from our previous house. What in the world were we thinking?

Some Time magazines from the Reagan Era.

A bunch of savings bonds my dad bought the boys about 11 years ago. I guess I had an attack of CRS, because I completely forgot about them.

2 mattresses and 3 box springs. How does that happen? Do they multiply in the dark like rabbits? And where's the 3rd matching mattress? Did the others attack it and eat it?

47 pillar candles I bought from Hobby Lobby after Xmas around 12 years ago when they were 25 cents each. Yeah, since we moved into a log house, we don't have much interest in open flames.

A complete bedroom set (even more actually, because there's twin headboards AND the canopy bed) of French Provincial furniture from Sears circa 1974 in lovely condition. What in the world am I going to do with that? It's good solid stuff, but it's not like it's Chippendale. Save it in case I have granddaughters? Eek.

The best find was in the bottom of a box of toys my mom sent over (probably the same time she sent the bedroom furniture). It was some vintage Barbie clothes and accessories---and one fairly hard-to-find dress---in pristine and crisp condition. I don't remember ever playing with them (prolly why they're in such great shape). I admit it! Even though I wear killer bunny slippers, I'm still a girly-girl at heart! I collect vintage Barbies!

We did find some ancient dog poo, but thankfully, no meeses or poops of meeses.

We ended up using 40---I'm serious!---18 gallon tubs to organize the mess. And it looks like we're going to have a huge garage sale sometime this summer. Whew!

Now on to the laundry area.....
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Thanks so much for your encouragement during my breakdown. Got my assignments in on time and some of my equilibrium back. You guys are the best!