UGH

Yesterday I finished the basement. It didn't take long, but boy was it physical! ALL my muscles were sore by the time I was done. I was very pleased that I only hauled one garbage bag of trash out of there.

However, I was NOT pleased at one find.

One of my goals with reorganizing the basement was to put all our Christmas decorations in one place. So I moved boxes and crates all to one spot. My stepdaughter had tried to attempt the same thing, only she put the boxes she was moving into a pile next to the pool table, and I didn't want that because it limits the space around the pool table for people to navigate in order to get the best shot. ;)

After I moved her boxes to be with the other boxes, I found a familiar crate.

A while back, I had gone through all the clothes I had been selfishly keeping "for when I lose weight." Of course, it's been about 9 years since I've lost anything except my tiny 10 pounds, so I decided I'd be mature and get rid of (donate, mostly) most of those clothes. I kept a few choice pieces for inspiration, for sentimental value, or because I bought them when I had less children and more money so they cost too much for me to want to part with. I whittled it down to this one crate.

The problem with this crate was instead of a bottom, it had kind of a plastic mesh. It was fine to keep the clothes aired out, but you may remember our basement flooded pretty badly that one time.

I specifically remember telling a teenager to check that crate and get out the wet clothes so I could wash them. This teenager specifically told me they did it. At the time I had SO MUCH laundry because of the flood that I thought nothing more about it (my brain barely functions enough to keep me alive, I swear).

Until of course I found it underneath a ton of Christmas decorations.

The crate did not smell (to me: I have a pathetic sense of smell. I can barely smell anything most of the time), so I opened it up and I'm betting you can guess what I found.

UGH.

So I washed them anyway (I'm nothing if not optimistic) and dried them, but most of it was garbage by the time I was through.

I saved four shirts and a skirt, but I really don't think even they will make it through many more washes.

I am very irritated with the teenager that lied to me but there's nothing I can do about it now. I probably shouldn't be keeping clothes I don't fit in anyway.

****NOTE*****
After I washed and dried the ruined clothes I did run a cycle in the washing machine with just bleach to clean it (I also left it open all night to completely dry the inside) and I did thoroughly clean out the dryer with the vacuum to get out all lint/destroyed pieces of cloth out of all the exhaust JUST to make sure.