The House Loses Weight

After I set up Camille's bed on Wednesday and dropped her off at school, I decided that I would not get on FB or just sit on the couch reading a book and relaxing like I usually do. Neither of those are bad things- especially when I almost always have three children with me and I only get 2 1/2 hours a week at home alone (I'm not complaining, just saying that's how it is).

Instead of taking a nice relaxing break, I decided to put on a Podcast and clean our our linen closet. I have no idea why I chose the linen closet, except I suppose that it A) Very much needed to be cleaned out, and B) It seemed easy enough to be able to accomplish.

After two hours and two huge stuffed garbage bags later, the closet now looks like this:

In order to truly appreciate this, you have to understand that previously if you opened the closet door, things fell out. If you needed a towel, good luck finding one! You had to dig through sheets, pillowcases, and random boxes of Band-aids. Now, you open the door, and I know exactly where everything is. It's so beautiful that I will frequently open the closet door and just wonder in awe at the Zen a clean closet can provide.

I was slightly upset about being so productive by not getting on FB- it means I really need to cut down on all the time wasters in my life. I instituted a new rule for myself: I will only check FB one time a day. It's too time consuming, and too depressing. Mostly too depressing. 

Then, I harnessed my inner Danielle. Danielle is my best friend, and is a master at decluttering. So much so I have for real contemplated flying her out to help me declutter and organize.

I went on a rampage through the house. Just from the basement I threw away 2 huge bags of trash, donated three huge bags of toys, and another bonus 2 bins of toys. The girls will be very upset when they realize I got rid of their Build A Bears, which are truly awesome toys, but I am so sick of them ending up all over the house! I just had to get rid of them! 

Our basement  has quite literally never been this clean:

I organized the shelves in our living room which has been a disaster- more like a floor to ceiling high "junk drawer" than anything else. Pictures I printed off were just thrown up there as a place to store them as that's where I keep the scrapbooks. It was a mess! So, I cleaned it out. Now it looks decent, though not perfect. I still need to organize it a bit better.

Then, I did something I have been wanting to do for years: I FINALLY got plate hangars and the girls not back to school pictures printed and hung the girls hand prints (from 2 years ago) on the wall with their pictures. 

I read something on FB (yes, the irony!) that said, "The best way to organize is to get rid of stuff so you don't need to organize it." Then, I read something else that said that unless you need the money, don't try to sale it- just get rid of it. If you try to sale it, it takes too long and you lose motivation. 

I also read a bit on a minimalist blog that going through your whole house takes about 9 months. After today- after having such success and dropping off EIGHT huge bags of stuff at Goodwill, trashing 4 bags, and getting rid of so much more, I thought- "No way would it take 9 months! Look what I did just since Wednesday!"

But, then I realized how much more work there is to do. I have not touched the girls closets and rooms, the kitchen cabinets, the office- eek! The office! Not to mention the garage, which is a nightmare no matter how you look at it. It's overwhelming to say the least.

Nevertheless, I feel very accomplished. 

Hopefully there won't be too many tears when the missing Build A Bears are discovered.