Cleaning Spree

When we initially moved to Houston in June, our lives were pretty crazy.  Z was preparing for his first of many medical board exams, and I had just begun my new job.  Thankfully, my parents drove all the way to Denton to pack up my things, and then drove down to Houston to help us unpack two people’s household items.  After my parents left Z and I had just realized how much stuff we individually owned.  We were in need for some consolidation.  Since then, our kitchen cabinets went out of control and we simply owned too much kitchenware for two people.  Then the wedding happened.  Getting married meant receiving more gifts.  Although we didn’t set any registries and tried to let our guests know that gifts were not necessary, our friends and families were simply generous.

Among the precious gifts we received was this new china set that Sheng and Alice got for us.  Alice, my future sister-in-law, has always had the eye for grabbing gorgeous things for people, and she did it again for us.  I loved the vibrant color blocks and imagined how gorgeously these plates will complement our homemade dishes.  However, we literally had no room for more kitchenware. Thus began the 10pm kitchen cleaning spree at the Beh’s residence.

We began to take out every single kitchenware and discussed whether we wanted to keep it or not.  After quite a liberal decision to let go of lots of things, the shelves ended up with a much cleaner, organized, and manageable look.  There was no need to keep a 10 people household worth of kitchenware, at least for now.  We may need more later when our household gets bigger in the future, but we simply didn’t need this much right now. 

A lot of the plates that were owned were quite random – some were passed down by other people, others were bought at thrift stores for a really cheap price.  I contacted one of my students whom recently moved to Houston for her new job to see if she wanted some, but any remaining items will be donated to Goodwill hoping to find their next owner.  However, we did order more wedding favors (stemless wine glasses with our names on it) than the actual number of guests, so we decided to keep 10 of them.  We still have two dozens more, though. 

Lastly, Z turned completely OCD tonight.  We own a nice silverware container but moves around every time we open/close the drawer.  Z finally was done with this nonsense and began to cut out cardboards to create another storage area right next to it, so the container wouldn’t move around.  For some reason I found his manner to be hilarious.  Compared to most men he is quite invested in our kitchen, so it was cute to see my husband working on his do-it-yourself project using cardboards.  I’m glad I won’t have to hear him complain about how the silverware container moves around all the time.  It is kind of scary that he is becoming more and more like my dad.  I guess it is kind of true that all daughters find their husbands like their fathers. 

Our next cleaning spree is our closet, as the world knows that we own a lot of clothes as well.  I have a tendency of keeping old clothes with hopes that I will fit in them after losing some weight.  Don’t we all believe that??   I think it’s time to let go of clothes that haven’t worn for 3 or more years and anything that makes me look like a 15 year old.  If you feel like you need to have a cleaning spree, always watch “The Hoarders”.  It’s an excellent way to motivate yourself and ponder whether you own unnecessarily amount of stuff.