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12 days of Code Orange Revival wrapped up last night and they were all amazing.  It was amazing to see the work that all of the staff and volunteers of our church poured in to make this happen, to read crazy tweets of how long people (ourselves included) stood in line to get to experience this.  Last night when our Pastor introduced this video [sorry I don't know why I haven't been able to embed videos recently], he challenged us to see it not as a highlight reel of what had happened over the past 12 days, but as a preview of what was to come for the next 12 months (and beyond).  Live vicariously through the video for now, and I will let you know when all of the podcasts are available to be watched again!  I will watch TD Jakes several times over, but it will not touch how awesome it was to be there in person.  Emerson has been asking all week to go to "Elevation Blakeney" since it is not our regular campus, but I think she had a blast in the eKids rooms there.

And for good measure, since I have no pictures to include in this post, which is why most of you read this blog anyway, here is Emerson this weekend killing time out of the rain at Target while dad waited in line for T.D. Jakes.  We went on every aisle - this is her heaven.

We are getting back in the routine of our normal-ish life this week, and I am glad to say I am still going strong on Declutter 2012.  Last week while cleaning out the top shelf of my closet which just had old purses on it, I found my class ring from UNC, which I actually really like; and more importantly, my pearl earrings that Terry got me that I thought I lost shortly after Emerson was born.  They were in a pocket of an old purse!  I think so far they win the award for best result of decluttering.  Mostly so far I have learned that decluttering really isn't so hard or overwhelming as it feels when you do it one day at a time.  Example: At our house, the toothpaste lives in Terry's drawer in the bathroom.  Don't know why, it just always has.  Also living in this drawer are a multitude of other not so well organized things: old razors, deodorant, face lotion, fingernail clippers, a mirror, old packets of Benadryl, Nyquil, Claritin, chapstick, and the buzzers used to shave his head from which tiny little hairs escape.  It bothers me everytime I take the toothpaste out of the drawer, worrying that tiny little hair particles are going to sneak into my toothpaste.  It was so difficult to take the dust buster and clean the drawer and put the buzzers in a container so the tiny leftover hairs don't escape into my toothpaste.  Seriously, Ellen?  How could I have let that bother me two times a day (most days at least if we're being honest, some nights I am just too tired - I know, gasp!) for this long when the solution was that easy? It's because I thought if I cleaned out that bathroom drawer, I also needed to clean out under  the bathroom sink, and then I needed to replace cleaning supplies, and clean the bathroom, and that would lead me to think we needed a new shower curtain liner, and it just snowballs.  But no, it was just one drawer.  And it was easy.  And I have really enjoyed opening that drawer to get my toothpaste out now!  The rest of the week is storage piles and storage shelves.  That's going to be the laundry room and it does feel a little daunting because I don't have good storage, and I don't know how else to store it and organize it.  Wish me luck.  I'll try to do before/after pictures.