That awkward moment when your teenager has a cleaner bedroom than you do

This past week was spring break, and, since Eric and I like to take our vacations when the weather doesn't suck, the girls spent much of that time at home. Abby went a little stir-crazy on Thursday and cleaned her room (going through her shelves, drawers and closet in the process) and then went into her bathroom and started going through all the products et al she has in there and organizing that. I tell you what, people, kids are kind of awesome.

She told me that she just likes things uncluttered. And I was like, that is awesome. DO IT. It makes her anxious to have piles everywhere. She probably has the cleanest bedroom of any teenager anyway (her room is waaaay cleaner than my teenage bedroom ever was... and cleaner than my bedroom is now--and it's pretty clean, because piles make me anxious, too).

Abby is very good about discerning what can be reused and what needs to be tossed. Unfortunately, many of her items, especially from the bathroom, ended up in the trash. Because she is not very good about purchasing products with minimal packaging that can be recycled.

What she decided was reusable went into my cute little reading retreat (remember when it was clean? Yeah, not so much anymore), so that's a complete nightmare, but then, if I were being honest, it's already a nightmare because that's our decluttering dumping ground. Periodically I will list some of the better items in the classified section of our newspaper (work perk), and that has gotten a few things out of there. But there's just so much.

Kind of overwhelming. But not for her, just for me--she doesn't have to look at the piles. :)

Blerg. P.S. I don't even know a Kelli.

Anyway, it's apparent I need to teach Abby that 1) It's okay to buy self-care products, but we need to be careful about our purchases (packaging/recyclability) and B) To put her unwanted, reusable items in trash bags, then take said bags to the basement to await that glorious day when we will load up the car and bring all that crap to the annual church rummage sale.

But hey! Clean room! Without being asked!