Clothes, clothes, clothes, books, and papers!

So, the other day I was watching PBS with my daughter and Sid the Science Kid comes on. We learn that the show is on recycling and reducing waste. It starts out with Sid throwing away a much prized toy robot that has lost both of its arms. The toy is clearly broken. I silently commend him for throwing it out. Then in walks his mother and asks him what he is doing. He explains and then she guilts him into removing it from the trash saying that maybe it can be used for something else. I'm thinking HOARDER! And then the plot gets worse. Later in the show the kids are digging through the recycling bin learning about things that can be recycled. This is great, however, then they are encouraged to remove things from the trash to see if they can reuse them and make them into new things. And this my friends is why America is consumed with garbage and houses are overflowing with trash. I fully support recycling, but when something is broken or no longer worth saving get rid of it! Don't keep it in your house to cause clutter and disorganization, just let it go.


This would be Sid the Science Kid



And now on to the projects I have been working on at home:



This is one of my 4 bookshelves full of books. This one is primarily for textbooks.


I thought that it would be a great idea to keep all of my textbooks because I figured they would be a great reference for me one day. (The "I might need them one day" mentality). I have now come to realize that I have not touched these textbooks in over 3+ years now and that what is going to happen is that they are not going to serve as a reference for me after all, but rather as something else to add to the clutter in my house. Not only that, I have found that some of them are still worth money! The older ones that I have from undergrad are, of course, obsolete and therefore no one wants to buy them back, but I found that Amazon has a Textbook Trade In program online and it's super easy to use! You don't even have to pay shipping for your books. You just enter the books ISBN, see if they are buying back and how much the will give you for it (they give you credit on your account to buy from Amazon, not cash). If you want to sell it then you just print the slip and drop them off at a UPS store! Here is the link: Amazon Text Book Trade In. I figured it's a great way to fund some Christmas shopping as I love ordering from Amazon anyway!



The books that I traded in on Monday - 5 books got me $191.22 credit at Amazon.com




This is a bookshelf containing every single paper for every single class I had in grad school. It also contains half the work I did in undergrad and even some from high school!



Grad School in a Nut Shell! This is over 2 feet of papers from grad school that took me over 6 hours to go through last weekend. These are all going to be recycled!




All of the empty binders left from my grad school purge! I will donate these somewhere as they are all still very nice and someone can certainly use them!


Another major project that I have worked on since last week was going through all of my daughter's clothes and getting them organized. She is almost 11 months old and I have everything she has ever worn plus clothes that people have borrowed to me. I first started by going through her dresser and closet. I pulled out all of the clothes that no longer fit her. I got her dresser set up in a way that made sense to me and in a way that it is easy to quickly put outfits together for her. I wanted no more piles of clothes on the floor so I hung everything up in her closet or put it in her dresser. I designated the bottom drawer for things that are too big for her yet so that they are not mixed in with the clothes that currently fit her.

One pile of clothes

More clothes

Yet more clothes

And the end result of all the clothes that no longer fit and needed to be gone through and either sold, donated, or packed away for another baby

The end result. I'm quite proud! All of the clothes are packed away nicely in hopes that they will be used one day again if we have another baby girl. Don't worry, there are a few gender neutral and boy items in these bins too! I also have a few boxes for garage sale or donate, so don't worry. And I have two bags of items to return that were borrowed.

Upcoming projects:

• I have gone through about half of the kitchen cupboards and re-organized and gotten rid of items we no longer need. I plan to finish up the kitchen so it is all done in the near future
• I have about half of the book shelf of 3 ring binders cleared off I want to work to finish going through all of those items that are remaining
• I need to sort through all of my clothes in my dresser and closet and get rid of what I don't wear any longer
• There are doing a winter collection here at work and I would like to go through all of my winter gear and see what I have that I no longer use and donate some of these items along with scarves that I have made

What projects are you working on in your house at this time? What do you have for upcoming projects? How do you tackle an overwhelming project to get an end result that you are happy with?

Spring cleaning in the fall

I finished the book "It's All Too Much" last night. I feel like I have learned so much and it has completely motivated me, given me hope, and empowered me to make changes. For years I have wanted the skills for decluttering, but I never knew where to start or how to do it. I have made many failed attempts to organize and get rid of things, but I feel confident that THIS IS THE TIME! I have been working on the house since the beginning of September and already I can see the gains I have made. My main goal when I started all of this was for Natalie to be able to have her 1st birthday party AT OUR HOUSE. I have 7 more weeks until her party and if I keep going at this rate I know I can have the house ready in time. I had an unexpected day off of work with a sick little girl today so I took advantage of organizing and declutting while she napped. I primarily worked in the kitchen today. Here is an example of what I got done:

Food Cupboard BEFORE



Food Cupboard AFTER



All of the food that was old and had to be thrown out


I went through each cupboard one by one in the kitchen (I didn't finish all of them yet, but got through over half of them today). I took everything out, wiped out the shelves and only put back the things that we currently use. If anything had not been used in over a year I put it aside. I now have about 5 boxes of "things" that need to be sorted into sell or donate. I fortunately have been throwing things along the way so I don't have to sort a throw pile also because that step is already taken care of! I feel incredibly accomplished and so happy with my progress.

Today every time I hesitated about getting rid of something I said to myself, "do you want a clean house or do you want these things?".  The answer was always, "I want a clean house". If I thought, "But what if I need this one day?" I then countered that with, "then I will buy it when I need it if that day ever comes - EXAMPLE - pie tins - I've never made a pie in my life and quite frankly I don't really ever aspire to ;) So...out they went!

Have you every gone room by room in your house clearing out all of the things you haven't used in a long time? Is it hard for you? Do you have the urge to hold on to things thinking that you one day may need it?

There is still hope for me

Beginning last weekend  9/10-9/11  I decided that since I am back to working 5 days a week that I am using my weekends for ME! Usually I feel obligated to do things on the weekends that other people want me to do, but I am going to do my best to use my weekends as I want to since they are mine and the only reprieve from work that I have. So, for the past 2 weekends I have stayed home and the only time I have left the house was to go to church on Sunday morning (my choice). I spent all day both Saturday and Sunday clearing out the house. Now people probably do not find that to be something that they would enjoy doing on their weekend off, but to me it is incredibly rewarding as I can visibly see the difference I am making and it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I feel like I am finally getting somewhere and I know that with continued hard work and dedication that I will unleash our house of the mounds of clutter laying around and get rid of things that are not needed.

I have made great progress in my "It's All Too Much" book as well. I only started it last Friday 9/16 and already I am 2/3 of the way through it and Peter Walsh has great advice! I have realized that while I do have a mini hoarding problem (as does a vast majority of the rest of our nation), I am not doomed. Some of the positive things I found as I was reading the book I made note of and these are some of the reasons I am not doomed:

1. I do not have an issue with shoes. I actually have the minimal amount of shoes a person would need. I have 2 pairs for work (brown and black), a pair of tennis shoes that I wear often and a couple pair of flip flops of which I wear often! I in the past had other shoes that I was not wearing and easily was able to get rid of them (aside from one pair of flip flops that I absolutely adored, but were beyond repair - that was hard to throw them out, but I am on the search for a pair of the same brand, probably won't find them though because I bought them like 8 years ago. Sigh...). So that is good news for me! While I hold on to many things and over buy certain items SHOES are not one of them!

2. There is nothing underneath my bed and I mean nothing. Some people use the space under their bed to store things but I am proud to say I store nothing under my bed!

3. Junk mail - It comes into the house and goes right into recycling. It does not sit in piles on the table for very long and I feel that while I do have massive amounts of saved paperwork that none of it is junk mail. That's an easy one for me so I just rid myself of it immediately.

Now after listing some of my strengths I do know that there are going to be some troublesome areas.

1. First of all my books - I am saving that for much later because I know there is going to be some issues when it comes to weeding out my collection. In all honesty I know that I have way too many books, way more than anyone could ever read in a lifetime, however I have somewhat of a sense of pride in my book collection, but all my bookshelves (4 to be exact) are stock full and not another book could fit - so what have I done - I have not bought any books in the last 6 months. Was it hard? Incredibly, but to help I unsubscribed to email updates from my favorite book vendors and refused to peruse the isles of bookstores. I now read the books I have and/or go online to my library account and order the book through my library consortium and it arrives usually within about 3 days and I can pick it up right at my home town library!

2. Another problem area is going to be most anything that was given to me as a gift. I feel an incredible sense of guilt getting rid of a gift even if it is something I don't need, don't use, or don't even like. So, if you want to help me with this area please give me permission to purge gifts you may have given me that I no longer need. I would be ever so grateful to be released of that burden.

3. Stuffed animals! For some reason over the years I have come to the conclusion that stuffed animals are like pets or something. I don't mean this in a crazy way like I feed them or pet them and talk to them, but I find an emotional attachment to my stuffed animals and feel that I need to give them a good home. What that has come to is having a collection of about 100 stuffed animals when I probably only need about 3-5. There are a handful of ones that I would never get rid of like the bear my dad gave me when I was very little or the monkey that my mom gave me and a few select ones that Justin (that would be my husband) gave me, but overall my collection needs to be decreased and this is going to be a hard endeavor.

Along the way I'm sure I will come across more strengths and difficult areas and will talk about them further, but for now - my weekend progress...

We have lived in our house for almost 6 years now, I JUST hung up the first pictures on our walls. And I did it all by myself! About time! These are beautiful paintings that my husband's grandmother did.





Bin full of papers BEFORE
(Note stacks of papers beside the bin as well)



Bin full of papers AFTER







This may not look like much of an improvement, but believe me, IT IS! I could not see the floor before the stacks of papers were so abundant. Here's to progress!



Are there things that you have in your life that you wish you could let go and get rid of? What are some of the things that you treasure and never would dream of getting rid of? Have you made progress in any area of your life lately that you are proud of and would like to share with others?

It could be better. It could be worse.

My First Blog Post! I never thought I would be a blogger, but here I am. As of recent I have "stumbled" upon an amazing and inspiring blog of my good friend from high school and started thinking, maybe I could blog. Check our her blog here Goal! Getter! Gurt! As you will see from my friend's blog she has made significant changes in her life over the past several years from organizing, minimalizing, re-prioritizing and even revamping her entire wardrobe! Recently she achieved her ultimate goal of starting her own business and just got it up and running! Check her business out here Minneapolis By Bike She has inspired me so much by reading all of the changes she has made to make me want to STOP THINKING and START DOING!

In all honesty my main goal in having a blog at this time is for myself. Sure it would be cool to have followers along the way, but at this time I just need a more tangible and visible way to track my progress as I work towards some major projects that are underway in my life at this time. I will briefly touch on these "projects", but will go in much  more depth as I blog more.

FIRST PROJECT: Out, out, and away - clearing out the billions of things I don't need but for some reason hold on to that now clutter up our entire house.

I have recently become very overwhelmed with the amount of material items in our house, but for a lot of different reasons have only made minimal success in clearing things out. I have realized that I can't do this alone and so I have turned to the literature for help. I picked up a very good book from the library recently called "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh. I started it yesterday and am already on page 53 if that tells you anything.

It is my hope that this book and others like it will help me to let go of things, gain a better relationship with and understanding of emotional attachment to material items and purge many things from my home so that it feel more like a HOME rather than a storage unit, full of things I never use or look at.

Some of the problem I will admit is just lack of knowledge, there are things I could get rid of today but I just don't know where to take them. I don't need them, but I don't know where to donate or sell them so that someone else can enjoy them. So, I keep them boxed up for the garage sale that I will have one day (but never have), hence taking up more space in our house.

What are some websites, blogs, or books that you have come across that have been helpful with organizing and decluttering your life?

Are there ways that you get rid of things you don't need? Where do you donate them or sell them? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!