Hallelujah Day

He whose baptism has been acknowledged!

Today at church Gunnar's baptism (which happened in Madison, WI on January 23rd-baptized by his Great Uncle Tim!) was acknowledged by our home congregation, which was very sweet and special.  Our Pastor Tim (not to be confused with my uncle Pastor Tim) welcomed him to the congregation along with another baptism happening today.  Pastor Tim raised him up to show the entire congregation which was adorable until everyone started cheering...and something about the echo of the church and the loud noise must have scared him a little because out came his little pouty lip (but there were no tears, thank goodness).

During the children's sermon today,  Pastor Tim told the kids that with lent approaching this was the last Sunday where we could say Hallelujah until Easter.

So I'm going to shout it out loud and clear for all to hear: HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH Praise God for all that is clean and organized in my apartment today!!!!!  Over the last two days John and I have tackled our front hall closet. This was a major undertaking. We have a very large closet but it must serve MANY purposes.  This is the first apartment we've lived in that didn't have a built in pantry, so this closet is partially used as a pantry. It also must house our games, coats, the file cabinet (for gift bags, cards, tissue paper, etc) the vacuum, boots, umbrellas, outdoor gear, place mats, tablecloths and napkins, tools, running gear, all sorts of bags, etc. Up until now there really hasn't been a system of organization in this closet. It's just been a MESS. There have been times when the door won't even close because things were scattered everywhere.

So following my dear friend Kelly's advice on de-cluttering (see here) yesterday I emptied out this closet and everything that I touched went into one of four piles: To Keep, To Toss, To Donate, To Store in our Storage Closet.  Amazingly we talked ourselves into letting go of 3 HUGE garbage bags full of items to Donate (that felt good!).  We also learned that my husband likes to arbitrarily hang on to the boxes that things come in.  After a little chat we came to the understanding that this was not necessary and the cause of much clutter (phew!). And we also brought a great deal of seasonal items and things we don't use on a weekly basis (one of Kelly's tips) down to our storage closet in our parking garage.
Once we had everything paired down we then determined how we wanted to arrange things in the closet and decided we wanted to buy some bins for the wire cubes we already owned. So a trip back to Target was needed and we finished the job by putting everything in its home today!!! And this is the cause for my Hallelujah chorus: