365 Out

I am not into making resolutions for the new year, but I am all for setting goals for myself. As this year started up, I was floundering at getting some focus in my life. I seem to have the normal routines down, but being a working SHE, I feel that I need a bit more going in my "stuff" filled life. I need a guideline to keep me engaged in the quest for more peace.

So I thought about setting some expectations for myself. I thought about doing a daily fling, but that is more of a short term solution, and often is a task that goes by the wayside in the world of the work week. I had also read about the minimalist that challenged others to reduce their belongings to just 100 things. Well, that may have been possible if I only had me to worry about, but it still had me wondering if I am still way to thing heavy. So I came up with a couple of guidelines for the year that hopefully will not be too tough to accomplish, and that I will be able to follow through with over the course of the year.

First, nothing new into my space without losing two things in the same general area (could be the physical area where the new item is going or just from the general area of my life).

Then, over the next twelve months I will lose 365 additional items.

AS FLYLady says, "You can't organize clutter." And my favorite CEO (Cynthia Ewer, Organized) in Houseworks and Organized Home, the one-in, one-out rule and going on a no-buy diet are good ways to keep clutter from coming back into your life once you get it under control. So since I think I still have too many things in my life, and I know the reality that I won't completey curb obtaining new things, this new commitment seems to be the answer for me. Baby-stepping all the way to less "stuff" in my life. 

I have steadily, year by year, reduced the amount of stuff that I possess. I have slimmed down from closets and a shed stuffed with boxes and tubs of things that really were in the way with day to day living. Even so, I am really going to get serious about getting down to a lot less stuff. I don't think I will ever get to the point where I own just 100 things, but I do want to have the things that I need or love close at hand. The rest has just got to go.

As with most goals, the beginning seems to be going smoothly. Christmas gifts came in during the last week of the year, so I gave myself a jump start getting rid of  several no longer loved things 

*Kindle and two new books in, six books out---nice thing is that new Kindle books will not be clutter in my house

*Kindle cover in, two more books out---okay, I know the Kindle cover actually is an accessory, but since it won't always be on the Kindle I need to make some more room

*Travel mug, giant cocoa mug, soft throw, penlight key chain, stationary and memo pad with magnet on back in, 6 more books out (what can I say? I was on a roll with the book declutter)

*Blu-ray player in, DVD player and a no longer watched DVD out

*Necklace tree in, an unloved candle from my dresser and a broken necklace out- not sure why I was saving the necklace, since it can't be fixed but it was a favorite

*New bottle of perfume in, empty bottle out as soon as I finished with the last drops, along with passing along a small tube of scented lotion that was sitting on my dresser, unused for way too long 

Last week I went shopping and bought a new 6 quart crock pot as I needed to replace the 16 year old model, a 5-quart that had questionable temperature on low with one broken handle. I think limiting myself to getting rid of the old crock pot and an old cookie sheet (now too dark for baking cookies) was hard to do. My kitchen is in a very full state at the moment and I will enjoy lightening that load as time goes by, but it's not the time to do more just yet.

I will say that shopping is becoming a new kind of experience for me. Contemplating that I will have to get rid of two items in order to bring something new in is making me think twice. So unless it is something that I need to replace or something that I really have planned on getting for some time, I am sure I will just skip the shopping altogether.

Mail in, twice the magazines out. I haven't been counting the junk that went straight to the recycling.

I still need to focus on the 365 additional things out...so far six home improvement idea magazines are out...that leaves 359 more things to go. I can so do this.

Summer Challenges!!!

It's been a while since I updated my blog. Busy, busy, busy...that's my life. I am enjoying slowing down a bit and focusing on some personal and home goals during this brief, but much appreciated, break from work.  

I have purchased the book Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Rooney Doland. I bought it several months ago thinking I could focus on one day in the book for seven weeks, but even that proved too much of a challenge for me. I only made it through the first two "days" in the book and it took me over two weeks to complete them. So I am going to begin the process again and follow through with it during the next week and see how far I get.

I have several other goals I want to explore over the next two months as well. I have a large stack of books to read, and I haven't even started after almost a week of surplus time. I did get caught up with The Tudors series on Showtime. I had been recording the new episodes since April and just caught up on them this week. Bittersweet. There are only two episodes left, and I wish the series would continue beyond the reign of King Henry and onto those of his children. I really love that show. Oh well, I'll have to find more good novels to read. Did I ever mention I am a big connoisseur of history? I love reading both biographies and historical fiction, but will also spend time reading fantasy, science fiction novels as well. Another item on my to do list is to get back into working out daily so that I can be in shape to run again. I miss the level I was working at even a year ago and how healthy I felt. I need to get that back on track to enjoy some new energy. And the last goal I have is staying connected to the people who mean so much to me. I really enjoy keeping up on Facebook, but have also attended many family and friend events over the past two months, taken a few day trips, as well as welcoming family over to visit on many occasions in May. I am planning a trip in July to visit family and national parks in the Northwest with all five boys, but Joe will stay behind to work. That should prove interesting, as I have not taken a vacation without Joe, aside from many day trips with my sisters or kids. Joe has taken several "fishing trips" with the boys, including a productive trip to fish for sharks, crab and salmon with my cousin in Washington several years ago.

My life and home are buzzing along pretty well, with daily and weekly routines and my ability to delegate some of the household tasks to my husband and children. But every life and home can do with a lightening, a decluttering, and simplifying by dealing with less stuff. For today, I am going to reread the chapters I have read previously and begin the "Day 1" tasks which include decluttering and organizing my clothing closet and drawers and working on getting my office and desk streamlined. I hope to report back with progress later. Onward and always upward!!!!!

Clearing off Space

My dining room table is the hub of my family home. It is where we come together daily to enjoy a meal or two. Whoever is here can be expected to our family sit down meal. When it is time for the meal, sometimes everyone is there rather quickly, eager, and hungry. Sometimes we wait for a member to finish up an activity or get into the house and the beginning of the meal is delayed. The television is off (or at least paused). Conversation stops as someone leads a prayer. We talk about the food, we talk about anything, we talk about nothing, but most meals can bring us closer as we come from our respective places of our modestly large home.

Then comes a project, one of mine usually, and the sanctity of the dining room table is lost. It is covered with something that needs attention. Something is there that no one but the person working on the project can deal with. Meals are shifted to the kitchen. Much more cramped, but we are still together. It happened just this week. My dining room table had been covered since Sunday afternoon with empty boxes and craft supplies. There were also two boxes that need to go out of the house altogether. Why was all of that still sitting there today...interrupting the family meals? I did a fifteen minute rescue this morning before work and it is mostly cleared. Just 15 minutes; and why didn't I deal with that Sunday? I needed to reclaim the space for my family. Fifteen minutes and it was nearly all cleared (except the boxes that needed to be loaded in my van). Why did I let that little job junk up the family dining tradition for so many days? Come six o'clock the dining room table will be the center of a meal again.

Clean Sweep

It seems that organization of stuff is a never ending battle for me. Don't get me wrong. The amount of clutter I am dealing with today is still much less than what I was dealing with five and ten years ago, but I still have "things" that have to be dealt with. Much of the clutter comes from postponing dealing with things. I tell myself that I am too busy to deal with things or that other things are more pressing at the time. In the end the reality is that if I don't deal with things as they come into the house, or as I finish using them in the house, that those are what become the source of clutter.

Over Christmas break, I did do a lot of getting rid of stuff and managed to declutter and organize the walk in closet in the bedroom now used by my 7 year old. I limited my storage area to one side of the closet so that Raymond would have room for his clothes that hang up, his shoes, his travel bag and a two drawer file cabinet for his projects and materials (he puts me in the mind of da Vinci's notebooks, as he writes on any and every scrap of paper he finds. He loves spirals, planners, notepads, scratch paper and blank sheets of copy paper; and fills them with writings and sketches on a daily basis). The storage side of the closet has about a four by four foot square floor space and there is a shelf about five feet up that has another three feet of space above it that covers two walls meeting at the back corner. This is the area where I am storing a few pieces of baby furniture until we have someone small in the family again. I have also packed large plastic storage tubs with each holiday's decorations, labeled the tubs and recorded their contents in my planner. I have also added to my to do list finding a pressure rod and curtain to cover that side of the closet so that Raymond is not even looking at the floor to ceiling storage on that side of his closet.

My walk-in closet in my bedroom is realtively clutter free. I have my hanging clothes in there. A long shelf with my folded clothes and another shelf that has my iron and photography and video equipment and supplies. The ironing board, my shoes, one medium sized box of summer clothes and a very large gift bag full of gift wrapping supplies are all that are on the floor. I still need to go through my clothes this Spring, but the closet is relatively clutter free. The closet off the utility room in my pantry has been decluttered several times in the past year, and basically has very little clutter since it is difficult to even open the door as the dog crates are stacked right next to the closet.

So I have one storage area left in my house; the very large linen closet in the master bathroom. The bathroom closet has been the catchall of late for paper clutter, office supplies, scrapbook supplies and various computer components and software from the past decade or two. Today I was working on the linen closet "clean sweep" style. I pulled each item or container out one at a time, trashed the items that were obviously trash, had an area to round up donations (as I will not ever be doing a yard sale), a tub for items that will need stored in the new craft area, and a tub for items that need to be filed or put away in a specific place somewhere else in my home. The object of the first round of decluttering was to get rid of trash and items I don't use, as well as to group together like items that are staying in my home. I set my timer for 30 minute sessions and then took a 15 minute break between to deal with kids, have a cup of tea or take care of other things going on in the house.

I focused on decluttering the items on the floor first and then worked on the shelves from the top down. There are items on the shelves that needed to stay on the shelf, so they were dusted and straightened. There was no sense in moving something away that actually belonged on the shelf.

These are before pictures of the linen closet. The gold colored tubs to the far left are empty and were used to sort and eventually store items from the closet.

After five 30 minute sessions, the closet looks good, items that are stored are in marked tubs and their contents are recorded in my planner. The main purpose of this closet is to house the linens on one side and my library on the other. I do most of my reading in the bedroom in my reading area, so the library area is close by and I can rotate books in and out of my bedroom book shelf when I feel the need.

Here is the closet after the declutter. The craft and scrapbook supplies have found a new home in my new craft area. I also found a couple of boxes of books that will go to school. I didn't realize that they were even in there.

After the declutter, I had to take care of the items that were not going back into the closet. I had to set the timer for two more 30 minute sessions to get this completed.