Trying to Get the House Back...One Mess Leads to Another

The newlyweds and I have been running on empty.  But after a refreshing day away yesterday, enjoying a family friend's outdoor wedding and a lazy afternoon in the sun, I woke up this morning, energized to organize the house.


We are still surrounded by gifts, flowers, cups, napkins, mints, and all sorts of accouterments from Wedding #1, and a few gathering for Wedding #2.  
Add to that, the normal clutter of living in a busy house with 10+ people for the last few years and an extra busy summer, and there are messes everywhere.  It's bad enough for us to live in it all... And we have wedding houseguests due Wednesday night.

Before...

I started by sorting out what Wedding #1 stuff had to be saved out for Wedding #2, then set to packing away what wasn't needed.  I assigned the 2 youngest princesses to sorting out the wilting flowers from the numerous bouquets,

After

      


so we could arrange the still-healthy flowers into something more reasonable.  The princes took the rest to their next life as compost.







While they did that, I climbed up to add stacks of silver plates and napkins to the storehouse of similar things we already have.  This far out of reach upper cabinet shelf holds excess paper plates, the bamboo trays to support them, and a wide assortment of colorful napkins leftover from showers, birthday

parties, etc.  I hit the point years ago, from which we should never have to buy dessert napkins again, but we seem to anyway. 






 At least the silver napkins that Princess Sassy and Prince Steadfast will have to use for probably years to come, will be more useful than Hubby's and my green napkins, complete with our names and wedding date.  We have 3 such bags of them in that plastic storage drawer in the photo above.  The number has dwindled only by the 2 napkins-per-occasional-year the kids get out for our anniversary dinner.  Maybe we can use them for our 50th...

Before...

The few left over silver dinner napkins from Wedding #1 weren't enough in number to warrant storage in that high cabinet, so I took them to join the everyday napkins...where I found a growing mess that I'd ignored far too long.  

Things discovered in the drawer:
Markers, pillow case, paint brush,
and the brand new,
bought-months-ago dog leash!!

(After all, the drawer would still close, so why get in a hurry?) 

After!  Phew... One organized place
 in the house is better than none.

Tomorrow's project...

...gifts sorted, then put away, or boxed and stored, as necessary.