My Life: Beautiful Chaos: Girl, Clean Your Car

Okay, folks. It's the time of year again... the time when we're all getting our crap together.

The school supplies are organized. The clothes are clean and neatly in drawers ready to be lived in by your tribes. The groceries are stocked and the meals are planned and you, my friend, are ready for another fabulous school year. Well, maybe... but anyway, as I got into my planning and organizing for our school year, I was feeling pretty good about my efforts until that is... I got into my mini van. As I slid open the door for my little ~~savages~~ children to get in, my awesomeness balloon literally deflated right in my face. I can't even begin to describe to you the disgust that shot through my entire body as I took in the sights and smells (I know, ewww). Do you know the definition of disgust? I just looked it up and it really fits perfect. The definition reads, "a feeling of revulsion or profound disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive." And friends, it was certainly offensive and possibly hazardous to our health.

Our family spends most mornings and early afternoons getting edubacated (yes, we homeschool and yes, I spelled that wrong on purpose -- it's a joke, people). By 4pm almost everyday we are in our van and headed to our dance studio. Now, I want you to know, I love our vehicle. I carry no shame in my minivan game. When my oldest was 3 (7 years ago) Matt and I purchased it with cash money that we had been saving up for 3 years!!! In fact, I blogged about it WAY back then and you can read about it here.

These days we spend a lot of time in that silver bullet and we really like the van we have. It's got plenty of space for all of my ~~crazies~~ children and all of the necessities that come with us... AND it has cup holders on tap! Who doesn't need 15 cup holders???? Haters gonna hate but I'm gonna keep riding into the sunset in my sweet minivan, but... I digress.

The point of this blog is to share with you how freaking gross our van had gotten, why it was basically my own fault, how we are putting an end to that atrociousness in the Sanders Fam and to challenge you clean your vehicle (and to keep it that way too).

After, spending 2 hours cleaning out aka throwing trash, shoes, clothes, toys, books and other nastyness out the window all the while huffing under my breath, looking like a mad women, I finally had a van that would be presentable to take to a car wash, but nope! I decided I had let it get this way by allowing my ~~wild beasts~~ children to destroy our family car and now I would be the one putting in the work to restore it back to a place of joy upon entering. Now, let me say this, usually when we clean the van out it's a team effort. We all contributed to the mess, we will all contribute to the clean up, but this time... I knew I wanted to do a REALLY REALLY good job therefore, I needed it to have my undivided attention. After another hour of vacuuming and wiping and spraying and hosing down, we finally had a presentable, comfortable and clean van. I bought 2 little trashcans. One, I bungee corded it to the middle console and the other I placed in the back row so the amazingly awesome children I have could put their trash in it's proper place. I thought about banning food in the van after the icky amount crumbs I discovered while cleaning but we live in our van. The truth is, we WILL be eating in our van, taking that away would only make my life harder so that meant we needed a place to put the wrappers and cups and straws and sporks. I also put two tubberware drawers with plastic bags and other supplies we need or use and a cute basket to keep things like umbrellas and running clothes (bc just incase).

Now... we've cleaned our van out many a times only to find ourselves back to driving around in a dumpster within a week. How then are we going to break this rut of filth?? Well, let me tell you. I'm trying this new thing where I actually keep promises I make to myself (I'm reading, Girl Wash Your Face and personally want to thank Rachel Hollis for the motivation). I've come to the conclusion that it is possible to keep my van clean but it's going to take some work on my part.

We called a family meeting. Talked about keeping promises and discussed how it important it is to me that we keep our van clean. The kids all agreed to work hard and do their part in taking out things they bring in, throwing trash in the garbage cans provided. We're almost 3 weeks in (this is a long time in the clean minivan game) and the van is still clean!! Yes, we will still have do some monthly maintenance like vacuuming and changing out the trash, but we are doing a fantastic job of keeping our word and keeping our family vehicle clean and I'm so proud of us.

I've also given my husband (who keeps his car immaculate and always has because you never know when you're going to have to give your boss a ride) permission to do a van cleanliness check whenever he wants to. This means at any point he can check the van and proceed to post his findings on social media. He might find some pleasure in this too because he does not approve of a messy vehicle!

So that's my challenge to you! Clean your car, come up with a plan to keep it clean, follow through and enjoy it!

If you're already a "clean car" person, good for you. I apologize that you've now wasted your time learning about how disgusting my minivan has been for the last 7 years. I would however, like to assure you I excel in a lot of other areas! In fact, I'm annoyingly organized and I actually enjoy doing laundry (I know I'm a real weirdo, but I wear my weirdness with pride, ya'll)!

Cheers and happy cleaning!!

The

Process

(You have no idea the amount of random stuff I found. I also found 37 pens and pencils as well as over $10 in change.)