The last couple of weeks have been incredibly busy as we've prepared our house to sell and to move to Virginia.  We have pruned, painted, purged and polished!

     While pruning back my entire garden, I found one last rose to enjoy before we leave. I was so busy I didn't capture a picture of it until it was at this point. I planted several lovely varieties of antique roses in my garden, because they are exceptionally hardy and require little care.  That is why they are called antiques.  One of my favorite nurseries here in Texas has been the Antique Rose Emporium which specializes in antiques, many of which have been cuttings from roses found thriving on the side of a lonely road or in grandma's old flower garden.

     We primed over the wall murals I had painted in each of my kids' rooms and their bathroom. Then my husband repainted the rooms in a neutral color. These murals were a lot of fun to do.  My kids have enjoyed them immensely over the years.  It was heartbreaking to paint over them.  However, since I am no Rembrandt, they had to vanish before the buyer saw them!  There was an Under the Sea theme in my kids' bathroom.  I took ideas from Donna Dewberry books.  Since I am no artist, I need all the help I can get and her books are wonderful to break down painting techniques into simple steps.  Someday I hope to take lessons.

After painting the walls I found a shower curtain to match...

For a window treatment I used fish netting filled with seashells.

     My daughter had a garden theme.  Again, this was based on a Donna Dewberry design.

     My son, who loved trains when he was a toddler, got trains puffing their way through the Colorado Rockies!  This was my very first wall mural.  I was originally inspired to do this when I saw Matt and Sheri, from Room by Room, do this on HGTV.  They did a race car mural in a boy's room and Sheri showed how she used a children's book for inspiration.  For my son's walls, I used pictures from Colorado from our vacation, and train pictures from children's books.  I used his foam block set to trace basic shapes in pencil on the wall and I painted over that.  You can see pictures of it here.      

     It took several layers of primer to cover over the paint. My husband did the bathroom and said after he primed one coat, you saw eyes looking at you everywhere.  My mom helped me prime the kids' rooms.  Walking into the kids' rooms with only one coat of primer felt surreal.  In my son's room, one coat made me feel as if I was in the middle of a blizzard in the Rockies.

In my daughter's room, it felt like a foggy morning in the middle of a garden...

     I've also been doing a lot of purging.  I've had piles for trash, donation to charity, regifting, and books to sell to Half Price Books.  It was hard to let some things go.  But I knew the house would sell better without the clutter.  Also when the surveyor from the moving company came, he estimated that we were close to our allowable limit to have a paid for move.  

     Additionally, my kids don't do well with clutter.  Although I've had most of the house clutter free, a few areas like their rooms certainly were not.  In college, while earning my teaching degree, I always did my extra assignments on learning disabilities.   While teaching,  we often had workshops on learning disabilities.  Then my children required special services for learning delays when they were growing up.  All that to say, I've had drilled into me that clutter makes it difficult for these kids to function.  Actually, I think I can go out on a limb and be brutally honest and say clutter makes it difficult for anyone to function.  Even though I have always had an easy time learning, I function better without clutter.  Of course life happens, and there will be a degree of piles starting to accumulate.  However, when they reach a certain point, I couldn't take it anymore.  I felt weighed down and burdened and couldn't deal with today until I dealt with the clutter of the past.  Nevertheless, I never had every pile in a permament home.  There were always at least a few piles that were looking for a home...for years.  With this move, I was definitely motivated, at long last, to deal with those piles to try to sell the house. 

     Furthermore, I've had the words of financial economist, Larry Burkett, ringing in my head.  He basically encouraged getting rid of excess.  In fact, he brutally called it hoarding.  gasp  That was a shock to me when I first heard it.  I've thought about it quite a bit over the years, and the idea of my hoarding things that I never use, taking up space we really did not have, well, it wasn't doing any of us any good!  But it could do someone else some good, especially someone who didn't have us much as we did.  I have a favorite charity around here, and it was for them that I started purging.  If something wasn't nice enough for me to want to buy, it went into the trash.  I strongly encouraged the kids to do the same.  Actually, I did it for my daughter and my son took note and pretty much did it for himself.  I showed them that trash was trash and things unused were given away.  When they saw what was left, they were quite surprised.  They saw there favorite things remained and the things they never got to were going to someone else who'd really appreciated them.  

     We purged the bookcases.  I limited my daughter to her bookshelves.  Nothing could be on the floor anymore.  She loves Adventures in Odyssey CD's.  Those went into cute baskets that she already had but no one ever noticed.  They now have shelves of their own and look cute for all to see!  I had her keep her big girl books.  When she read Pride and Prejudice last autumn, she said she wanted all of the Jane Austen books. There aren't many, because the author did not live a long time.  I gave her a lovely set for Christmas, hoping to inspire her to read big girl books.  Overflowing from her shelves were tons of little girl books, many from very popular series. Many she had read, some she never has.  When she has free time, she scrapbooks.  So the scrapbooking supplies went into a box and up into the closet.  No more art projects in this house.  There is no way to keep the rooms clean when my kids delve into art.  Back to the books, I told her I'd sell her little girl books at  Half Price Books and she could keep the money.  If she ever wanted to read one of the books again, she could find them in a library.  Well, okay.  She took a look at her books and estimated they were worth $30.  Well, she was right!  I took them in and got $30 for them!  In the end, she made nearly $80 from selling little girl books.  Her room is now uncluttered and great classics, junior and senior levels, now sit on her shelves.  

     My son made about $10 at Half Price Books.  My husband decided to get in on the action and sold a few of his books (he really isn't a bookish guy) and got $5!  I have even purged the shelves and I have more to take in.  I've made over $150 on books that weren't hits with the kids or me, and that I'd never use again.  We still have a lot of books, but the best books are in the bookcases now.  I became such a frequent seller at Half Price Books, I discovered this tag on my box when I took it home for another load.  I guess I am now considered an employee!  

     While purging, I ran across a few things.  Sadly, I found the file of my kitty's papers.  Amongst the papers I found her collar and tag, which she hadn't worn in years.  I think she figured out that if she crawled under our old sofa sleeper, the collar would catch on one of the wire rungs and she could slip out, because that is where I kept finding it.  I always got a new collar for her that matched the new tags each year.  The color always had a bell on it, so I could keep better track of her.  She'd go "ting, ting, ting," down the hall.  Whenever I'd find that collar under the couch, I'd go looking for her and she'd go streaking through the house so quietly...it was as if she loved being, ahem, without anything on.  When I'd put the collar on her she seemed so dejected and the next day I'd find the collar under the couch again.  I finally gave up and that collar has sat in the file since the winter of 2000. 

     I've also had to consider what to do with a few fun Texas items.  This one was on the garden shed.  Hmmm...that wouldn't work in Virginia.  

     Then there are these fun Texas sayings.  Obviously they won't work in Virginia either.

     Of course we had to have a Texas flag.  Nope, won't work in Virginia.

     All of this work has been definitely worth it!  It's been extremely easy to keep the house clean now.  I do believe the kids are more focused.  I have minimized the things I'll have to find new homes for once we arrive in Virginia.  And I wouldn't be surprised if I find a few Virginia things for our new home.  Wonder if I can find any great signs in Virginia, such as "General Washington slept here."  "Lafayette made his Grand Tour through here."  "Patrick Henry vehemently spoke against treason here." or "Thomas Jefferson wrote something extremely important here."