Striving for January Clean

Back to reality. The kids have returned to school, Chris is back to work, and I find myself buried under a mountain of Christmas. The dry, nearly bare tree has been stripped and carried outside, but there is still so much more to do to reach that lofty goal of "January clean". That is a term that Chris and I coined early in our marriage, referring to the kind of clean and spare feeling a house has when all the the decorations and gifts have been safely stored away, and we are left with an uncluttered home. Chris loves January clean. Honestly, so do I. It seems that is practically the only time of year that we actually achieve that level of tidiness in our house, and in the years since we've had children it has been harder and harder to hit that goal. It feels like the 7th of January is a very late start, but that's what happens when you travel at Christmas. Today I'm trying.

I've been bringing gifts upstairs to be put away, and packing away tree decorations left on the table when I took the tree down yesterday. I still have to drag out the home decorations boxes and gather the remaining gifts that need to be returned this afternoon, along with their receipts. This is on top of unpacking that still hasn't happened, and much laundry to do!

All this to say I am checking in with my blog, but I can't stay. I have a number of blog posts already composed in my mind during the seemingly endless hours of driving home from New Brunswick, but I can't write them now. Not until I reach January clean. I'll let you know when I do.