I am on day two of spring cleaning while on spring break, and so far, I’m making some decent progress. Along with general cleaning, I’ve been going through closets and cabinets in an attempt to find more space for all this, er, ah, “stuff” that we have accumulated over the 15 or so years we’ve lived in this house, and I’m finding all kinds of things I had forgotten about.

Some of my finds are on the weird side. For example, I discovered a slew of small candles tucked away in a cabinet. Now, the thing is that I never use candles because I have dogs and cats running around the house, and burning flames and pets just don’t mix. I’m guessing these were all gifts at various points in my life from well-meaning friends who do not own pets themselves.

Here are some other odd items I have found and discarded either on the trash heap out front or will discard via Goodwill later this week: a rotary dial phone (those suckers are heavy too!); a fax machine (we have no land-lines in our house any more and from what I remember some of the buttons on this thing don’t work anymore); a chocolate fountain that has never been opened (and my husband and I are constantly battling weight problems so this thing has to go!); a stack of VHS tapes, some used some not; an assortment of cloth place-mats (which I rarely if ever use); a box full of old checks from the 1990s. Well, I think you get the picture!

On an up note, other than my house is finally coming together slowly but surely, we’ve been discovering some jewelry stuff around here that I’d totally forgotten about. Recently, for example, my husband was cleaning the soldering area we have set up in our garage and found a whole bunch of unfinished charms we had cast many years ago. They require some filing and polishing, but I plan to get them out and up on my Etsy site. With the cost of silver these days, these babies are worth something. Pictured above is one from the stash that I already have cleaned up, a little sterling silver gator charm. Now my husband is the filing person around here, and I do the polishing, so that means I’ll need some cooperation from him on this venture.

Another find was a fairly large bag of finished jewelry. I think I was carrying it around about 3 or 4 years ago when I was working at another job. People always wanted to see my jewelry and now and then would buy a piece or two, so to keep it out of the work place, I would bring it in a bag and allow them to take it home or look through it during lunch in the break room. I need to go through it, but some of this might also go up on my Etsy site or even here on my blog.

Today, I tackle the kitchen. I don’t think I’ll get the entire room completely cleaned (spring break style cleaned at least), but my goal is to find some space for my husband’s new hobby of making beer. He’s got this stuff all over the kitchen to the point I can’t get to the  pantry without falling over little beer kegs. I’m going to clean out some cabinets and see if I can make room for all his beer stuff. Who knows what I might find?