Lighten Your Load

Are you like me?  Do you have WAY too much "stuff"?  Things that really don't make sense to have or seemed like a good idea, at the time, or you forgot you had, or, ahem, bought someone for a Christmas gift a few years ago?

I can't be the only one, right?

Yesterday I had a day off from work and I took full advantage of it.  BigB had the car since I wasn't working and I had kept both kids home from school as they were are fighting some kind of bug (yes, Bug has a bug). With the kids both being home, I had 8 hours of uninterrupted work time. Ok, I interrupted it long enough to make them lunch and check some extremely important {ahem} things out on the internet - like your blog. {grin} So, I guess what I mean by uninterrupted is that I didn't have to leave the house to get Bug at lunch and then leave again to get Jellybean at 3:30.  That's not that much time but it seems to really cut into my accomplished list.

Anyway, I am excited to share with you all/y'all (? - Grin) my accomplishments for yesterday.

Are you ready?

For sure?

Ok, I won't put it off anymore...I only wish I would have thought to take "Before" pictures because it did not look like this before - not even a little...

The container cupboard.

How do you get so many mismatched lids and containers?  I had way more than this when I started and I tossed most of it because they had no matches.  I can tell you, if I don't get any Rubbermaid containers for Christmas, I will be putting them on my next shopping order.  It looks a little sparse, no?

Um, the top of my fridge looked more like a junk drawer in a garage or something...there were some VERY strange things up there.  Oh, you see that picture?  That is a picture of Jellybean when she was three years old, out at my brother's farm; she fell into the "mud" in the barnyard  Why quotations around mud?  Ah, it was not mud in its purest form.  You know being in a barnyard and all, with horses....

On to the pictures of sheer glee

My calendar, grocery list, meal plan section...the empty spot in the middle is where the meal plan will go when I have completed the next one. Usually the calendar is a LOT more colorful, as I have a different colored highlighter or marker for each of us but, I had just bought this calendar for the coming year and have yet to "colorify" it.

This pantry, and I hang my head with shame as I say this, would not close before yesterday.  Things were crammed and shoved wherever they would "fit".  The crockpots and other "sometimes" used cooking pots/pans had no home...sort of.  Some of them were in the linen closet and some of them were just left on the counter top cluttering up our daily lives.  I went through this pantry, cleaned it up (Do you know HOW many bags of macaroni noodles I had opened?) and voila, there was plenty of room for those pots that don't get used extremely often but often enough...

I got rid of 4 more bags of trash.  Trash? Trash including a small container of onions that got "lost" among the cramming and rotted, and that I have been trying to find 'where is that smell coming from' for the last two weeks.  Gross?  Yes.  Honest?  Absolutely.

I never dreamt we had that much useless clutter and garbage just lying around our house.  I have another bag of things to go to Value Village and...

There is STILL more...

I guess this is what falling into a funk falling out of a routine will do.  It's coming back though!  WooHoo!  Perhaps I can end this year off right and start 2010 on a totally different path!  I like that a lot!

Believe it or not, especially after reading what I have posted here, I really do hate clutter.  I feel like I am suffocating when I am around clutter.  It weighs on me and I feel "depressed", maybe; I don't know what word really but I think you will understand. When it gets too bad, I feel overwhelmed then I get into the mindset of "why bother?  I would have no idea where to start anyway".

Sometimes you just have to pick a spot and start.  Once you get one thing done, you feel a sense of accomplishment and it will drive you to carry on.  That, my friend, is when, and only when, you begin to make a list of what needs done.  Not before hand.  It will overwhelm you too much. 

Make that list and break it down into as small of goals as you can.
Don't put:
→ clean kitchen
→ clean living room
Not when you are in that place of "where to start" anyway. And not if you are like me.

I like crossing things off a list.  Checking things done. I feel great when I can look at a list and see so many check marks - like "wow! I did a lot!" kind of feeling.  I like breaking things down into smaller goals so they look less daunting.

'Organize Tupperware cupboard' seems a lot more attainable than 'Organize Kitchen'.

Oh, and once you get a few checkmarks on that list you will have SO much motivation there will be no stopping you!  I am off to organize some more...now that our tree is up...

On second thought, I am pretty sure I am glad I never took 'before' pictures...I still have a bit too much pride...