It was everything a summer storm should be: lightening, thunder, rain pounding on the windows. It was glorious.
On Friday my house began to smell like ass.
::blink, blink::
Seriously. Ass.
A few weeks prior, Aaron had gotten all crazy-productive and trimmed up some bushes in the front yard. Bushes that had over grown and fully blocked the basement windows from sunlight. Turns out, they also blocked them from rain.
So, the "office" in the basement completely flooded.
I put "office" in quotes because it's suppose to be the office but is really more a dumping ground for old magazines, miscellaneous papers, old baby clothes and all sorts of other crap.
On Saturday Aaron pulled out the completely-flooded, starting-to-mold rug (the major component in making the house smell like ass) and I began to do large loads of laundry with boiling hot water and bleach to salvage as much clothing as possible.
I spent the day yesterday filling two trash bags with trash, three bags full of stuff to donate and bag full of recyclable.
Of course, I had to go through every damn magazine that wasn't moldy and rip pages out of it to keep. For what, I haven't figured out yet.
And I'm keeping all my Martha's. I can't seem to get rid of those. Why is that?
So, the room is about a fourth of the way cleared out. A fourth. Oh my holy hell, a fourth.
I'm trying to make myself believe this fiasco is just what we needed to jump-start the reorganization of the basement. But seriously, why did it take the basement smelling like ass to get me to do it?
16 comments:
well, generally only horribly stinky things motivate me too.
Because...you'd have never done it otherwise...ass smell is a serious motivator. When my basement went by the wayside last year, my niece had said "it smells funny downstairs" we pooh-poohed her and then I went to do laundry a couple of days later...ewwww...and squish squish went the carpet...sigh.
Yeah, I can't throw away martha either. Have fun with that reorganization/ass-smell purging.
So sorry. What a mess. And you still have a long way to go, too.
We've had sewage leaking in our basement before. Luckily both times the smell alerted us quickly on and nothing was ruined.
yuck. good luck with the trashing.
when our normally dry basement flooded, it made us wake up to the crap accumulating there. mostly the kind of crap that just loves to soak up nasty storm water... my dear husband used some 'junk' towels to soak up water. i freaked. then we got a wet/dry vac which saved our butts (and our towels).
i took 10 years of martha magazines and exacto'd out only the parts that I liked. i 3hole-punched them, sorted them into categories (crafts, recipes, inspiration pics, etc) and they all fit in a 2" binder. now i do this every couple of months with new issues. i admit, this took me a VERY long time but i'm super glad i did it.
What a fun project for such a hot week! Who knows what you'll find down there. That's exciting or scary, maybe both!
Thanks for the cute comment. I'm all warm and fuzzy now. :)
Cheers! LA
It took your basement smelling like ass to get you to clean out the room because: YOU ARE A MOM AND YOU ARE TOO FREAKIN' BUSY!!!!
I only clean out the crevices of our storage areas when I am really, really, really organized and have my life in order. Hhhhmmmm, that would explain the dust and dirt and cobwebs
Answer: Because no one can stand dirty smell ass that long! Good luck with the reorganization! Hoping it comes up smelling roses when you're all done.
Oh, yuck! At least when it's done, it's done.
Why can't you part with the Martha's? I'll tell you why... the photography alone is scrumpdiddlyumptious! I can't toss 'em either.
Trade ass smell for yellow lab hair, blood, slobber and pee; swap your basement for my garage and you'll know the only reason it's sparkly clean now. Had I not known better, I would have accused my husband of turning loose our vacationing neighbors dogs himself just so I'd get the whole thing spotless while he was safely at work!
I trapped 'em in there for an hour and a half while I figured out what to do and they completely trashed the place and most everythig in it.
I guess sometimes it takes a disaster to finally get things done, but I really am glad I finally tackled it, even if it wasn't on my own terms.
That happened at my parents' house once when they were out of town, so my sister just went around the house spraying Lysol all week and wondering what the smell was... Ick.
That's a definite motivator!
I love magazines, but hate how much space they take up. So I cut my magazines up and put them into a pretty binder for inspiration... Maybe you should do that with the pages you tore out?
Do you think you could bottle 'ass' and sell it as a motivational therapy. I could squirt it in my junk cupboard and clear that out.
Love that top magazine title for irony!
But you feel A FOURTH lighter now, don't you?
Come on, that is some fortuitous flooding! You know you were dying to get rid of stuff...it's not like you can keep gross moldy crap! Yippie!
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