Rediscover Your Home

Loving the home you live in is going to save you money!

The Case of the Missing Mitt
or
“How to Get Your Guy to Help You DEEP CLEAN the Closet”

What does a missing mitt, a stash of gel pens, two recorders, a safety traffic vest, a guitar, and the world’s largest dust bunny all have in common? They were all hiding in my front closet (except the missing mitt, more on that below).

I needed that missing mitt. We had just experienced our first frost of the season and I had to scrape off our car windows. Do you know how hard it is to scrape a window wearing a left-handed mitt on your right hand? The pinky and the thumb feel like they are being turned inside out!

In the past, a missing mitt would have resulted in a quick trip to the store where I had been admiring a pair of burgundy gloves with fake fur trim. Big sigh… Someplace in my home, I have a right-handed baby blue mitten. I know this because that was the pair I fell in love with LAST year.

SHOP at home FIRST! Closet #1...

I was pretty sure that the “missing mitt” was going to be found in one of two closets: the front hall closet (usually in pretty good shape) or the “hard hat only” closet in our laundry room (named for the protective gear you need to wear when opening the door). The “hard hat only” closet is home to our vacuum cleaner hose, the ironing board (poor ironing board – it rarely gets let out of the closet LOL!), the steam cleaner (very handy during flu season), our suitcase (a great place to hide presents by the way), and everything else that had no other place to go. It’s amazing how much stuff you can stuff onto two shelves. It’s not easy avoiding that avalanche of junk that occurs when you open the door. But over time, I’ve learned how to duck to the right, hold my arm out, kick the falling stuff back into closet, and quickly shut the door before any more items try to escape! It’s an amazing feat of “mom acrobatics”!

Front Hall Closet Before we tackled the stuff!

But the days of ducking the avalanche had to come to an end. I needed my missing mitt.

A smart wife starts with the easiest project….

“Honey,” I called in my sweetest of wife voices. “Have you seen my missing mitt?”

“No.”

“Would you help me look for my missing mitt?” (Please imagine a huge smile on my face at this moment of time.)

“Why?”

Now my husband does his fair share of things around the home. He also knows about my quest to ensure that all the “deep cleaning” projects on Cindy’s Porch are “guy-proof” (and he’s only going to fall for that one once LOL).

Front Hall Closet Two Commercials Later!

“Because I can’t reach the top shelf,” says I. “And while you are up there, can you just take EVERYTHING off the shelves and put it into the family room?”

“Which closet?” he asks with worry in his voice.

“The front closet,” I reply. You can hear him sigh in relief. In my home, NO ONE wants to go near the “hard hat only” closet.

It took one commercial to get everything out of the front closet. I found a pile of missing piano books (wahoo – those are mine!), a pile of missing guitar books (that kept my husband motivated – those are his), a pile of kid magazines (that I bought at a garage sale for $1.00), my missing paint shirt, a recorder, my safety vest (for our evening walks – it’s dark out there!), two scarves, three toques, two mitts (neither of which matched, nor were they baby blue), three family board games, SIX ten-packs of gel pens (I told you I was a sucker for gel pens!), a container with three new tennis balls (where were those in June??), a head band, piano lesson notes (from three years ago), our emergency back pack with a $5.00 bill in the pocket (I put that into the cash stash), my husband’s home-made knitted scarf, two pairs of beach shoes, a guitar tuner, another recorder (good grief!), a harmonica, a bass guitar effects pedal, my sunhat (where was that in July??), a pair of socks, and one great big dust bunny!

Front Hall Closet - After! And yes, that is EMPTY shelf space (but no missing mitt).

It took less than one commercial to vacuum up the dust bunny family and wash down the shelves and the scuffs off the back wall where the shoes were tossed.

Then I hung up the coats that belonged (I checked all the pockets first) and put away all the shoes. Another commercial done. Then I settled into the family room with a good TV show and my pile of “stuff” from the front hall closet.

The piano books, harmonica, and guitar stuff were put away into the cabinet in the basement where we keep all our music gear.

ATTENTION Music Teachers: please cover your ears for this paragraph. Ready? I tossed the two recorders into the trash. These things belonged to my husband and me when we were children. They sounded like a moose in mating season back then, and they still sound like a moose in mating season when my kids had to use them a few years back. I know that school music teachers do their best to introduce the joys of music to a variety of children, but why oh why does it have to be with the recorder?? And would you believe, we found a THIRD recorder in the music cabinet (eyes rolling to the top of my head).

The paint shirt went to the painting supplies, the tennis balls went with the rackets, the summer stuff went back onto the top shelf of the hall closet (I will be able to find them next year), the games back onto the bottom shelf (family game night coming up on Friday), and our winter gear onto the bottom shelf where we could find it.

The SIX ten-packs of gel pens are going to be given out as Halloween treats.

Front hall closet done and no missing mitt.

---

"Hard Hat Only" Closet - Before

SHOP at home FIRST! Closet #2...

“Honey,” I called in an even sweeter voice than before. “I didn’t find my missing mitt.”

“That’s nice dear.” My husband had his nose poked into a guitar book that he hadn’t seen in a couple of years.

“Honey,” I tried again, “I think it is in the other closet.”

“That’s nice dear.” Then he lifted his head. The implications of my missing mitt were becoming clearer. “Which closet?” he asked.

“THE closet.” I replied. “I can’t reach the top shelf.”

Now, when you ask your guy to empty out the “hard hat only” closet it is best that you don’t watch. Ignore the grunts, the groans, the bangs, and the words best described with stars, pound signs, and exclamation marks. Remember to say “thanks” when he is done.

It took one commercial to empty the “hard hat only” closet and one commercial to vacuum and wash it out.

It took the rest of the show for me to sort through the pile my husband dumped onto the family room floor. The pile included…

"Hard Hat Only" Closet - After

One suitcase, and ironing board (a wedding gift – hardly used), two grandma knitted toques from when my husband was a little boy (remember that single strand of yard that came in pumpkin orange, golden yellow, and deep brown?), the kid’s red hiking backpacks (I tossed those into the washing machine), the missing hiking safety whistle (wahoo!), three pair of kid’s splash pants that were now too small, left over plastic Easter Eggs from our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt (yes, I checked for chocolate! None. Whew!), a broken kid’s umbrella, an ugly rain coat, my winter pant coat (I moved that to the front hall closet), three adult pack backs (I tossed those into the washing machine too), my husband’s “where did you find this?” favorite ball cap. Another “wow, I didn’t know we still had this” second favorite ball cap. And then a third “oh, I have to bring this to work” ball cap (eyes rolling to top of my head), $1.26 in change (I put that into the cash stash), two bunny hugs (hoodies) that didn’t fit anyone, my buffalo wool siwash (I’m not sure that is spelled right), a bunch of miss-matched hangers, another broken umbrella, a plastic basket filled with mitts, hats, and scarves, a fly swatter, and a shoe horn. A shoe horn? I haven’t used a shoe horn since I was a kid!

AND …… drum roll please….. MY MISSING MITT!

I put the kid clothes that didn’t fit into my car to be donated the next time I go by the drop off box. The broken umbrellas and torn gloves went into the trash. The hats, mitts, and scarves were sorted out for each family member (wahoo, we have enough for winter). I put an extra set for each of us into the car in case of winter emergency. The ironing board was put back into its resting spot, as was the suitcase, steam cleaner and vacuum cleaner hose. The backpacks were wash, dried, and put away until next spring. The extra coats were hung up in the basement. And I re-united my mitt with its mate in the front hall closet.

As for my husband’s ball caps? He took one to work and I put the rest back into the "hard hat only" closet so he could re-discover them the next time my mitt went missing.

Take care of you,
Cindy

Last Note from Cindy OK, you have made it to the bottom. If I can clean out the “hard hat only” closet in the space of one television show, so can you (big smile on my face!). This is the challenge. Pick one closet in your home. One that has a bunch of “SHOP at home FIRST” stuff in it. You decide. Either haul out everything that is in the closet all at once, or just do one shelf at a time. Sort through the things you want to keep and toss the stuff that is trash. I like sorting through the stuff while I am watching TV. Just make sure you put away everything before the show is done. If you want, you are welcome to send your Before and After photos. You are going to save money when you SHOP at home FIRST. But first, you have to know what you have in your home!

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