While the Firstborn Is Away...

...the mom will play.

That is, if you count organizing a storage closet as play.

Which I do.

:)

Here's the deal: in Josiah and David's room, right next to Josiah's bed, there is a door that leads to the secret world of Narnia.

Oh, wait.  Wrong closet.  ;-)

We call this closet "the suitcase closet" for the obvious reason that it's where we keep our out-of-use suitcases...as well as various other items that don't have a home elsewhere and wind up shoved in there, too.  For quite a while, I'd been wanting to clean it all out and organize what was worth keeping; but that particular task had never risen close enough to the top of my priority list to actually get done.

Until yesterday when I decided that with Josiah away on his choir tour, it would be the perfect chance for me to pull everything out of that closet and get to work.  I knew Josiah wouldn't be needing his bed anytime soon...

...which was a good thing because it got sort of buried.  :)

It was shocking unusual rewarding to see the closet that empty and clean!

As the project progressed, I was grateful for my cheering section.  Can you spot him?  :)

David has been doing a terrific job making his bed neatly every day for the last while (motivated by his desire to be a Navy SEAL someday), and that was a convenient place for Benjamin to hang out...

...and cheer me on.  That smile of his sure is good motivation.  :)

In the end, I discovered some things I could get rid of, some things I could put somewhere else in the house, and...

...more space for the stuff that really belongs in that closet. Oh, I DO love organizing!  :)

Seeing the huge suitcases we used to take to Israel when we lived there reminded me of the joys of filling each suitcase to the brim, pressing hard on the lid to make sure it could zip shut, then carefully weighing it to make sure we didn't go over the limit.  It also reminded me of the time (at least once...might have happened more than that) when our scale didn't exactly agree with the airport's scale, and I had to unzip the suitcase in the airport and take out some of the contents to get it beneath the limit.  That's not embarrassing at all.  ;-)

Yesterday by the end of the day, not only was the suitcase closet organized...

...but also Josiah's bed was covered with freshly washed sheets and quilt.

We're all ready for our boy to come home!!!!!  :)