Category: 30 Simple Days

Decluttering

Decluttering again. 10.19.19

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

This is the space that I am devoting to documenting my decluttering journey.  You can find all of the other posts here.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here.

This past weekend Liv and I finally made it to the Salvation Army to drop off another car load of stuff that can now go and fulfill its destiny at someone else’s home.  Let’s see what we sent away last week:

Hayden has started tentatively clearing out some of his stuff.  The poster didn’t bother me one little bit….

But his “weapons”…..

He gathered up most of his swords, rifles, light sabers and other various things from his childhood and I seriously wanted to cry.  Never fear, there are LOTS of other things from his childhood that will never leave the house, but still….

ANOTHER backpack, and an overnight bag.

Belts, belts and more belts.  Along with their closet holder.

I started clearing out my cutlery drawer because we have WAY too many forks, knives and spoons.  My tip for you, if you feel like you have too many of something is to remove it from its home and stick it in a box for a week.  If you don’t reach for it, then you probably won’t miss it.  There are exceptions to this rule however.  Like getting rid of all of your winter pajamas in July….and then realizing in November that you really don’t like sleeping in a tank top when it’s 30* outside….

More extras from the kitchen….

Does anyone keep their grilling spatula and tongs in the fancy box that they came in?  This has been sitting in my dining room – empty – for a couple of years….

More candles for the candle making lady along with MORE extras from the kitchen.Books that have been devoured and deemed okay to let go of.  Also, this cool egg lamp, but no one liked it at my house.

More culling from Liv…poor My Little Pony.

Belts, and wallets….Do you change out your wallet often or do you have the same one that you’ve used for years?  I always end up going back to a particular red leather wallet from Osgoode Marley that I love.  (Yes, I bought it at a thrift store for $1.00, but if you are looking for something that will last you DECADES, this is an excellent investment)  But, it doesn’t keep me from trying out a new one every now and then.

Dresses and shirts….

Pants and capris….

I somehow forgot to get a photo of the magazines that left last weekend.  But they are gone and more will join them this week too.  I think I may be making a dent in my magazine collection.  It helps that I haven’t renewed most of the ones that I really disliked.  Cosmo anyone?

That’s it for our donations last week.

What have you hauled away recently?  Do tell.

Decluttering

 

Decluttering again.

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

This is the space that I am devoting to documenting my decluttering journey.  You can find all of the other posts here.

I’m back into the groove of getting all of the things that we don’t love and want to surround us out of the house.  It’s been quite a while and the donation pile has grown substantially.  Like, its turned into Marjory the trash heap on Fraggle Rock and its taking over my bedroom.  No worries!  It’s almost FALL and I’m in a decluttering mood again, so it will all find a new home soon.

Let’s see what’s going to live with someone else:

As always, we have too.many.things.  Such as coffee mugs.  And a standing rib roaster that I’ve never in the seven years I’ve owned it used.  My poor digital crock pot.  I broke the sleeve in it, but there is nothing wrong with the crock pot.  I asked them before I donated it, and they said no problem.  Someone will pay a couple of dollars for it.  And wouldn’t you know it, two days later I found a sleeve at a yard sale.  Oh well.  It’s a good thing I already had a backup. 🙄. No, I didn’t buy the sleeve as another backup, but I had to force myself to leave it there.  Yes, I know I have a problem….

I’ve been going through my cookbooks again.  I told my Mama, if I haven’t picked it up in the last year and I know that they have it at one of my local libraries it is going to go live with someone else.  I’ve also been burning through my magazine collection.

Another spare colander and more candles for the candle making lady….

More extras:  a vase, a diffuser that only works as a nightlight now, and an extra digital photo frame.

Even more candles, bowls, and knick knacks.  I bought this tuna squisher because it looked more useful than the one I’ve had for the past 24 years and it wouldn’t go into the tuna can!  Can you believe that.  So maybe it’s not a tuna drainer.  Any ideas what it was actually for?  ( I looked it up and apparently you are supposed to cover the top of the can with this type of drainer.  With mine I can set it inside the tuna can to squish the heck out of the tuna like I like to do.  Life is all about preference, isn’t it?  Hahaha.)

More extra bowls, saucers, and baking pans.  I’m trying my best to cull everything down to what I need and want…..

Two MORE lamp shades, I swear they are multiplying in my hidey holes.  A knife block that I hate having on my counter.  I use one of these in my kitchen drawer and I LOVE it.  I also have discovered that I am a knife hoarder.  The things you discover about yourself as you are decluttering….  More candles, corn on the cob holders that no one uses but me and Hayden because Denton and Liva cut theirs off the cob – oh and I have another set of 24.  Just in case we have 12 people over to eat corn.

And last but never least, MORE CANDLES and jars.

That’s it for our donations last week.

What have you hauled away recently?  Do tell.

 

Still Decluttering…..

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

This is the space that I am devoting to documenting my decluttering journey.  You can find all of the other posts here.

I completely forgot to post this, so everything you see here was donated, oh about a month ago.  I hope that you didn’t want to come to my house and get any of this stuff…….

Denton and I have started in the garage.  I don’t even know where this school desk came from!  I think it must have been stuffed in the back by the previous owners.  Yes, we have owned our house for over eleven years.  Why do you ask?  Also, I convinced Denton to part with ONE of his three weight benches.

More randomness from the garage.  Headphones that no one in my house will wear.  And bookbags……

Shoes that Liv says are too small, a Roku that hasn’t been used in I don’t even know how long, and other things that do not need to live at my house any longer.

The ever revolving stack of magazines.  I am still culling my cookbooks.  It is painful you guys…. But necessary.  I am going to go through them all again later this summer.

We ended up with two copies of Inception with our last movie haul, so someone else can enjoy this copy.  I am still replacing the doorknobs in our house.  More candles for the candle making lady.  A hamburger press – I found another one that I LOVE.  How do I describe this thing???  It has a spring type thing that allows you to pop the burger out of it after you form the patty.  It works like a dream.  So this patty maker can go live with someone else.  And they can bang it around and mutter while trying to get the perfectly round or square patties out of it.

Also, I am donating some of our multitude of dog supplies.  This harness I bought was laughable when it came to size.  No way it would fit Oreo.  The aqua colored leash has a matching collar and it’s pretty cool.  It lights up.  But I figured that I didn’t need to attrack more attention to myself and Oreo at night when he does his business at the edge of the Little Woods as we call them.  There are ….. things ….. in there that I don’t want to come out at night.  Blinking and flashing lights might just be too much temptation. 

More of my beloved cookbooks.  That I haven’t opened in many, many moons.  They can go live with someone else now.

Extras.  I always seem to have extras of everything.  I don’t need them.  I don’t need them.  I don’t need them.  Maybe if I tell myself that over and over I will stop buying all the extras.  I had to force myself to walk away from a very lovely crock pot the other day…..

Clothes,

More clothes….

And dishes.  I still have too many of everything as you can see.

That was everything that went to my local Salvation Army, sometime in May.  The donations have slowed down tremendously at my house, even though it doesn’t look like it from everything above.

I am gearing myself up for another task later this summer, now that I feel like I have my house under control – somewhat.  Do you have to do that?  Gear yourself up for things?  I am a planner; flying by the seat of my pants is not my preference in any situation.  Especially ones that need to happen a lot.  Anyway, that’s another conversation for another day.

What have you hauled away recently?  Do tell.

 

Decluttering/30 Simple Days ~ 04.16.19

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This is the space that I am devoting to documenting my decluttering journey.  You can find all of the other posts here.

Note:  This post may contain affiliate links.  Check out what that means to you here.

I got a phone call from one of my sweetheart’s earlier this morning.  He calls me regularly and tells me he loves me every time we start to hang up the phone.  I’m going to call him Bob and he is somewhere in the vicinity of 90 years old.  He is an amazing man.  The little snippets of his life that I am privy to are unbelievable.  Example:  When we first moved here to our tiny town, he and I were having a conversation one day and he asked me where I was originally from.  When I told him the name of my tiny hometown he said “How about that!”  He was in a foxhole in Korea in 1951 with a man from my hometown.  What are the odds?

We talk about everything and anything.  Today’s topic was decluttering.  Bob is doing what sounds like Swedish death cleaning to me.  He isn’t dying.  He is hale and hearty, and seriously could live another twenty years.  He’s active; he golf’s two or three times a week, drives to see one of his remaining sister-in-laws in Detroit almost every year and cleans his own home every single week from top to bottom.

But he said he’s tired of being surrounded by THINGS.  Things he has to dust and clean every week.  Things his family have already told him they don’t want.  And when he finally does go home to heaven to be with his beloved wife, who’s been gone for over a decade, he doesn’t want to leave his family with all of this stuff.

This entire conversation was prompted by him questioning whether or not our local Salvation Army would take the crystal he was tired of dusting each week in his china cabinet or if he should just chunk it into the garbage!  I assured him that they would definitely take it and that he needed to get one of his grandkids to come over and check to see what it was worth first.  He still has his mother’s china.  Which thankfully is going to one of his great-granddaughters who actually wants it.

All of that to say – our conversation renewed my zeal to get ALL THE THINGS out of my house that we don’t love.

Let’s see what’s going to live with someone else this week:

I told my brother that things are getting serious now.  I’ve started in on my Christmas stuff.  Also, Denton has joined Hayden’s bandwagon of only wanting black socks.  I have no idea whose is whose now.

I also sat down and made a huge dent in my travel books.  I think I only have five left now.

Note to self:  Don’t buy the book until you hear back from Daddy.  He texted me after Hayden and I had already checked out and said “Yes, I have this one.  You bought it for me.  I love you.”  Hahahaha.  So don’t be surprised when you see this in my latest book haul.  Never fear, it can now go to live with someone who doesn’t already own a copy of it.

More extras of things that we don’t need…..

Even more extras…..

And the clothes……

I have started making myself reach for things that I haven’t worn in years.  If I don’t want to put it on my body, it goes straight into the wicker go-away basket.  If I do want to try it and then decide after wearing it for the day that I don’t like it, it didn’t fit well, or it just isn’t my style anymore – same thing, straight into the wicker go-away basket.

My goal this year is to completely pare my wardrobe down to only the actual things that I love and I know fit me well.  That might turn out to be only 14 items, but I’d seriously rather only have those 14 items in my closet than a bunch of stuff that I have to shove past to get to the things I actually want to wear.

Woohoo!  My wicker go-away basket is empty!  It may only stay that way for a day or two, but I haven’t seen the bottom of it in a while.  I am loving this get it all out of the house every week thing. It’s working out very, very well.  Everything has been bagged up, and put into the Pilot to be carted away tomorrow morning.

What have you hauled away recently?  Do tell.

 

Decluttering/30 Simple Days ~ 04.10.19

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

This is the space that I am devoting to documenting my decluttering journey.  You can find all of the other posts here.

Note:  This post may contain affiliate links.  Check out what that means to you here.

Another week down and I actually dropped off everything once again at my local Salvation Army TODAY.  Progress is getting it done, people.   It was completed late according to the schedule I have running inside my head, but it’s a task that I can still check off in my planner.  I cleared another load of stuff that wasn’t being loved out of our house and someone will gain a new treasure this week.

Let’s see what’s going to live with someone else today:

Another lamp.  A bunch of photo frames and come calendars that I found…..

A door snowman and more candle supplies for the candle lady.  A bottle of Axe that Hayden will never, ever use.

OH look – another brand new bottle of Axe, a nightlight, my old wallet, pants hangers, bicycle helmets that won’t fit anyone in my house anymore and a whirly-whistle thing.  That thing is actually pretty cool, but no one plays with it sadly.

Posters, wall pieces, and photo frames we no longer need….

A throw pillow that I don’t want on my bed anymore, another lamp shade, miscellaneous towel holders from the bathroom, and two flower pots.

Another stack of magazines…..

Two shelves, a curtain rod I found in the garage, two wall plaques, some leftover yard sale stickers and a random pot with it’s own shelf….

One of the light fixtures from the garage and my beloved Nuwave.  I LOVED this appliance you guys.  I even took it on vacation – twice!  I used it outside to sear our steaks.  That was its purpose in my life.  To keep smoke out of my kitchen and to keep my fire alarms quiet.  Searing steaks is a serious business at my house.  I’ve perfected our steaks now.  Turn the heat up to screaming hot, put the steaks on (half frozen) for three minutes – flip and in another minute and a half they are ready to come off and rest.  But this process makes a LOT of smoke in my house.

Enter my Nuwave.  Problem – my Nuwave only works on Low, Medium and High now.  Every time I put it on the sear setting it glitches out.  I’m sorry Nuwave, you’ll have to go live with someone who doesn’t need you to sear a steak.

Random shoes from Hayden’s closet…..

Clothes….

More clothes….

And last but not least, more clothes……

Aaaaaand that’s it for this week.  It’s all been bagged up, and hauled away this afternoon.  What have you hauled away recently?  Do tell.

 

30 Simple Days: April

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If you’ve been visiting with me for long, you know that I thrive on routines.  It’s the only way I actually get anything done.  My routine can and will be disrupted; but, if I have steady, doable things lined up, then they will probably get done.  Eventually.

One of the new habits that I want to be more consistent with this year is getting the donations out of the house.  Are you still there?  I know that every time I announce one of my monthly habit builders that I lose some of you.  I understand why.  Normal people already know these things.  In case you’re new here:  Hello!  My name is Tracie and I’m NOT normal.  Welcome!

Decluttering isn’t an issue for me anymore.  I’ve got a definite routine where that’s concerned.  My problem is that all the stuff that I’ve gone through sits patiently in my house.  Waiting to be taken away to be given a new life with someone else.  So, for the entire month of April, every Tuesday is going to be Donate Day.  If I can get this firmly entrenched in my brain, the rest of the year should be a breeze.

I learned a long time ago not to put my donations out in the garage.  They will just live there.  Permanently.  Just off the top of my head I know that right now there are things out there that need to be taken away:  a computer that we used three computers ago; a box of clothes that Liv stopped wearing in the second grade; at least two light fixtures that I replaced five or more years ago…..The list could go on and on.  Out of sight is out of my mind.

Yesterday, I took the week’s donations away and it made me feel so good to get it all out of the house.  I know that eventually I will get to the point where there won’t be so much to take away each week.  My house stays in flux most of the time.  I bring things in to try and if they don’t stay, they need to be rehomed.

Example:  about six months ago on trash day I noticed that one of my neighbors had put out with their garbage a big black art piece framed with glass.  Hayden has an art print by Brassaï that I got him for Christmas a few years ago and I knew that it would be the perfect frame for it.  I called her up and asked if I could snatch it.  She immediately said Sure!  I brought it in and propped it up downstairs and forgot about it.  Although I have to walk past it every day, and I would think “I need to frame his poster”, it still didn’t get done. 

Fast forward a few months and Denton calls to tell me that he was building a fort of some kind downstairs using that frame as one of his “walls” when it collapsed and shattered into 9 zillion pieces.  – Don’t ask, I have no idea what he was constructing or why, I think it had something to do with Batman…..  –  That frame and art print have sat downstairs waiting to be delivered to their new owners for weeks now.  I didn’t want the art print, it was going to be donated at any rate, I just wanted the glass and frame for Hayden’s print.  Sigh.

Hopefully making every Tuesday my donation day will keep my house free from all the things building up into a monster.  Routines are good things:  trash day in my house is Wednesday, so I take the recycle away then too.  Usually.  Hey, by the way, my local recycle center has started taking plastic and glass again.  Glory, Hallelujah!  Now we have somewhere to take all of that plastic recycle that’s been sitting in my garage.  Along with the other things that need to go away.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

31 Simple Days: March Update 03.24.19

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It’s time for another update!  I would love to tell you that I’ve walked for 30 minutes every single day this month, but that would be a LIE, so I won’t.  I have actually walked every day, but most days I haven’t made it to the thirty minute mark.  Ten minutes here, five minutes there….  Yes, it adds up, but I have to say, when I am consistent with at least 30 minutes I can tell a major difference in the way I feel.

The weather is finally edging it’s way towards Spring.  Yay!!!  Which means, longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures and lovely smells to entice me outside more.  This should help with getting more steps into my day.  In case you didn’t know – I LOVE SPRING!  I want to live where it’s spring all year long, with a long, long fall too.  Just in case you were wondering….

On one of our many quick ten minute walks yesterday, we saw five jets in the sky at once.  I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me.  How many jets have you seen at once?  I said on my Instagram page that these are the burning questions in my mind, hahahaha.

In other news, I have made great strides in my endeavor to put things away.  Honestly people, you wouldn’t believe what active decluttering does for my space.  And my peace of mind.

Example:  I took everything, EVERYTHING off of my bathroom counters and made a specific space for all of that stuff.  If it didn’t have a home, I either found it a place to live or it went to live with someone else.  Now my drawers will actually close, the counter can be cleaned at a moment’s notice – which is amazing – and it just makes me happy to know that my toothbrush is in the left hand drawer (have you seen that episode of Mythbuster’s?!) and that my glasses are hanging on my magnifying mirror because otherwise I can’t find them when I take out my contacts.

It’s very, very satisfying for everything to have a place.  I am slowly going through my entire house, which will take me approximately forever, but it’s still progress.

Three months into this year and I’m still doing my dishes.  It helps that I have made a huge dent in the decluttering in this area too.  If I don’t own it, I don’t have to clean it.  Which makes me happy.  My routine at this moment, which could change, is that I make sure each morning to run my dishwasher.  This does many good things for me.  It gets all the dirty dishes out of my sink, which can be clean for the day and it ensures that we will have beautiful, shiny clean dishes to eat supper from that evening!  Winning!

Is it a perfect system?  Nope.  Do I do it every.single.day?  Most days, I do.  Which is shocking to me, and horrifying to most of you, I know.  But, it’s my reality and I’m happy with a kitchen that is clean 95% of the time.  Also, my family isn’t complaining which is a good thing, because my response would be “go clean the kitchen”.  They are keeping mum about it.  I take that to mean that they are happy with my system too.

So.  I am reporting success with my habit building so far this year.  It’s not perfect, but that’s life.  I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in all the areas I’ve tackled so far.  Also, this could be spring fever talking instead of my brain.  Either way, I’m happy.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

31 Simple Days: March Update

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I wanted to do better with updates this month, so here we go!  I’ve been walking for at least 30 minutes every single day so far this month.  I have to say, having a dog that needs exercise has helped tremendously in this endeavor.  If Oreo wasn’t so gung-ho every day to do our mile and a half loop, I would definitely be sitting somewhere comfy with a book in my hand.

It is COLD here in Virginia right now.  I’m not complaining too loudly, because – SUMMER is coming.  Lord help me.  And as long as I dress correctly, I don’t even feel it most days.  One of the ladies in my neighborhood who I meet almost every time we are out, either in the neighborhood or on the trail, pulled up beside us yesterday and rolled down her car window to talk to us.  She said, “Girl, you are dedicated!” and I responded, “No, no I am not.  Oreo is!”  Hahahaha.  It was 19* I think.  But it looked so beautiful.

Rain, sleet, snow, sunshine, warm or cold, Oreo is ready at least four to five times a day to go find an adventure.  You never know what you are going to see.  Or what friends you will find.  He loves the new golden doodle that lives down our street now.  But he does NOT love the wrinkle dog that loops around our way sometimes.

I can’t wait for everything to start greening up.

One of the benefits of getting outside every.single.day is that my pants are slightly looser.  I hope by the end of the month that they are a LOT looser than they are now.  It would help if I didn’t shove an Oreo cookie in my mouth while I’m cooking supper, but.  Most days I just feel like I need an Oreo cookie.

If you want to keep up with our  daily walks, you can usually find a photo on my Instagram.  I love it over there.

So, are you walking or running or doing something completely different to make your pants looser in the month of March?  I would love to hear about it.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

31 Simple Days: March

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I cannot believe that we are entering a new month.  This year is flying by.  Another month means I need to teach myself to stick to another habit.

I’m doing pretty well in the dishes department.  I manage to run my dishwasher at least once a day, which has changed how clean I can keep my kitchen.  It’s amazing.  I also am beginning to be able to put things in their place now that I am getting rid of the chaff in my house.

Now that we are entering March, I am going to start building a routine that I am dreading.   It involves my Under Armour shoes.  I am not looking forward to this month, which is why I chose one of the months this year that actually has 31 days in it.  I’m going to need every single one of them to turn this into a habit that I will be able to stick with.

I also wanted to wait to start this journey because I didn’t want to be a cliché.  Again.  I’ve made promises to myself over the years where exercise is concerned; started things at the beginning of the year and fizzled and burned out before the end of January.

Every.single.time.

As I’ve said before, this year I want to make permanent, sustainable changes in my life.  So for the entire month of March, I am going to walk.  Every day for at least 30 minutes.  If I can’t do it outside with Oreo –

then I’m going to have to buckle down and use the dreaded treadmill.

I actually like our treadmill.  It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and it does it well.  I just seriously dislike walking on it in the house.   I know that doesn’t make any sense – Hi, I’m Tracie and I’m a walking, talking contradiction most of the time.  Walking outside with Oreo doesn’t quite feel like exercise.  EVERYTHING about walking on the treadmill feels like exercise.  Which I hate with a passion.

One thing that I have found that makes is slightly less traumatic for ME is to actually dress for it.  I used to just wear whatever I had on at the time (more than likely my comfy yoga pants and my crocs 🙄), and let me tell you, that makes it much, much worse.  If I change into workout gear – and my supply is pitiful – it does something to my brain.  It doesn’t make the actual exercise any less horrifying, but it switches something inside me to say “Let’s get this done and over with!”.

Also, listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video dramatically cuts down on the torture for me.  I can take myself out of the misery slightly, and I am not constantly looking at the time shouting “3 minutes!!!!  It has to have been an hour already”.  Never mind the fact that I set the timer for 30 minutes, but you get the point.

I am just the opposite if I’m outside with Oreo or the kids and Denton.  I am trying my hardest to be present.  That means paying attention.  To conversations, either with the family or the dog.  Don’t you talk to your dog?  To nature, even now in the dead of winter there are things to see.  Yesterday we saw six white tail deer.

They walked across the street right in front of us.  This is the only one I caught on camera.

Things are already getting ready to burst into Spring and I can’t wait.  The trees are getting buds on them, and everything here is getting a faint green sheen to it.  It’s lovely.  But you have to look for it right now.

I take my phone in case I want to snap a photo, but I don’t scroll through Instagram because I can do that another time.  I’m soaking up the last of this cool winter weather.  I know that Spring is going to be short and sweet.  I can’t wait!  Also, I figure that if I make walking every day part of my routine NOW while it’s still cool, when the weather turns into the boiling, roiling surface of the sun we call summer, it will be ingrained in my brain and I’ll do it anyway.  At least that’s the hope with these routines I’m developing.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

28 Simple Days ~ February Recap

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This year, I have decided that I need to dedicate 30 days each month (28 days in February!) to make simple changes in my life that I can stick with.  Permanently.  I didn’t want to set a bunch of goals and fail miserably at them a few months from now.  Like I have done every year in the past.

Hello again!

We are in the last week of February now and I thought that I would give you a better insight on how things have progressed this month with my new habit.

To recap:  I wanted to spend the month of February putting things away.  And to be able to put things away, they need a place.  I like order.  Order gives a calm space in the chaos that is life, in my humble opinion.  Also, I am a control freak.  You can’t control life most of the time, but you can control your response to all the things.  Hence, I like order.

One of the first things that I realized at the beginning of the month – and I don’t know why I was so shocked and surprised by this – is that I needed to step up my decluttering to make this happen.  Now if you’ve been hanging around with me for very long, you know I am not a novice when it comes to decluttering and sending things away to live with a new family.  I’ve been doing this diligently for over eight or nine years now.  It’s a never ending process.

Even though I mentioned it in the last post, I still didn’t realize the scope of how much stuff I still need to go through and get rid of.  You can see my last donation haul here, and it’s a direct result of sending away the things that I know I don’t want in my home anymore.  But.  You knew there was a but coming didn’t you?  This is going to take me a lot longer than 28 days to complete.  I have worked every single day of February somewhere in my house for at least five minutes decluttering something.

That my friends, is the gist of it all.  Very tiny chunks of my day.  I get overwhelmed very easily when it comes to all the things.  First there are a LOT of things.  If I decide to KonMari my house, things are going to go horrifyingly wrong in a hurry.  You’ll notice when I do KonMari something, it’s a micro segment of what normal people would do.

I KonMaried my purses and I was actually okay with that.  It was a task that I could carry out and accomplish within a reasonable time frame.  Otherwise, things would be pulled out and piled around my house for weeks.  That’s seriously not an exaggeration.  Ask Denton how I know this.  Actually don’t, he might tell you in detail.  I need limits.  So I don’t declutter my kitchen.  I declutter a DRAWER in my kitchen.  It’s something that I can do while I’m cooking supper and not turn my kitchen into a disaster zone that won’t allow me to function.

Every day this month I have decluttered something so that I can put things where they belong.  Like this:

I spent about 2 minutes going through my wooden spoons, culled out what I knew that I never reach for and stuck the lot in a crock that was gathering dust.  Now it has a function and a reason to sit there and be pretty.  My favorite reason for having beautiful things.

I am learning new things about myself throughout this process too.  I am not the type of person to buy all matching containers and then come home from the grocery store and switch all the cereal into the beautiful matching containers.  I just don’t have the patience for it.  But I also do not like looking at the cat treat box that comes from Wal-Mart.  We need a safe, out of Batman’s reach container for them, but I hate those plastic, ugly containers that they come in.  When I found this guy, I snatched him right up.

Form and functionality.  I love it.

As with January’s habit builder, I didn’t plan to have my entire house sorted out by the end of February.  This year, I am trying to teach myself routines that I can stick with forever.  This way, once I have my belongings sorted out and culled down to only what I love and know that I want to clean every day, it will be easier to spot newcomers who do not belong.  Because let’s face it.  Things are not going to miraculously stop coming into my house.  I see new things that I want to try all the time.  But once I determine that they are just not a good fit, hopefully it will be easier to send them on their way.

I found permanent places for quite a lot of stuff this month, but there is still a lot more to go through.  I have many, many lovely things that I’ve collected over the past 25 years, but as lovely as they are, most of them are going to grace someone else’s home soon.  I am not aiming to be a minimalist, but I definitely want to have less stuff.  

I want what I think most people want:  A comfortable, clean and welcoming home.  Now that I’ve finally figured out for myself how to get that, I am on a mission to get it done.  Five minutes at a time, clearing out the clutter to make a place for everything, so that everything can be put in its place.

I know that I will reap the rewards of teaching myself this new habit too.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  Let’s build some habits and routines!

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

Tracie