A Decluttering Collapse

I got off to a good start but life like to give us the unexpected. I should have expected it. I knew we were going to have to deal with a ton of boxes from my husband’s work, I knew it was coming soon, yet when it arrived it derailed everything. He had to prep computers for something like 300 students? It might have been more. So all the computers arrived and all the computer bags arrived… at our house which is just a regular house, where we live and do stuff. I think we have 1700 square feet for the five of us which is normally ok. The boxes took over. There’s an office-type space in the kitchen and it was full, floor to almost ceiling, with big red boxes. I wish I’d snapped a pic but I didn’t. Here’s the point I remembered:

This is when there were only 8 boxes left. You can see the windows and everything!

So each red box contains a bunch of little boxes containing a laptop and assorted cords. We have other boxes that contain laptop bags. We unbox a red box of laptop boxes, unbox each laptop, scan it, label it, etc etc, and put it in a laptop bag which gets labeled, then re-box the laptops in their bags by dorm assignment. Then we tape up the big box, label it, and get it to the school. As we do this we are left with all the individual laptop boxes which must be saved to mail them back in like 3 years, so the amount of clutter grows and expands and takes over everything… until we box up the little boxes and get them to the school too. I have a pic, again not taken at peak-boxage:

The boxes are on top of the dog crate and they were, again, up to the ceiling. There are more on the shelf there and there were even more taking over the counter in the laundry room and on top of the pantry cupboards.

At the point that I took this picture we had sent back over 100 of these little boxes already. Also, as we fill the big boxes with laptops we move them into the front hall until we can’t safely put any more in there, then we have them picked up ASAP.

We can squeeze by the boxes so it’s ok! The lighter boxes at the back are the boxes full of boxes. It gets pretty hilarious at certain points, like when I tried to bring groceries in.

A small sample of the recycling. We went twice a week to drop off cardboard and that was pretty much ONLY the boxes the laptop bags came in because we reuse the others to send the computers to the school.

We’re almost done at this point, I hope, so I can stop treading water and get back to making some progress again. I’m reviewing Sink Reflections; by Marla Cilley in the meantime, trying to keep my mojo alive. Soon the last of the boxes will be gone and I will restart my decluttering efforts and get this place in shape.

Note: the banner for this post is by: “clutter” by Sean MacEntee is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Decluttering Revived

After some very low-energy days I am back at it again. I baked a cake for my husband’s birthday yesterday, made french toast for breakfast and nachos for lunch yesterday as well. Today I have picked up the decluttering baton and worked on the front hallway. It was, of course, a disaster. I only snapped on pic of said disaster though so you will have to imagine the rest.

So, you have to imagine shoes Everywhere, dirt, sand, leaves etc. It was pretty bad.

Anyway, I spent some time picking up, sweeping, vacuuming, and setting aside some stuff to toss or give away, depending on the state of the item, and the entryway is improved if not yet finished.

The bags and boxes of stuff to give away is getting a little bit much. Also half the basement is full of foam computer bags connected to my husband’s work. It would be awesome to see all of it gone. There is just SO MUCH and a lot of it needs to go. Even all those damned shoes, we don’t need all of those and I’m positive that some of them haven’t been worn in ages and don’t fit anyone. Such a mess. I also need to sort through that basket of gloves, hats and scarves and get rid of the matchless, the ruined and the unneeded.

I let the dishes slip yesterday so I need to get back on that. I cooked 2 meals and baked a cake, prepped and ran The Slithering RPG for a bit of a celebration. The Fall birthdays continue! It felt bad giving my husband one skinny little book for his birthday, I think I will score him a bottle of the scotch he likes next chance I get.

My paints are all out in the shed and need to come back in the house for the winter. Bummer. I can’t let them freeze but I hate to bring more stuff into the house. In trying to get clutter under control I’m trying to use the library instead of buying books. It’s difficult. Books are my thing, my life, my weakness, my downfall when it comes to stopping spending. I’m doing fine at the moment, but I know there are books that I can get through the library and read and will still desperately want to buy anyway. Anything featuring both Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu is pretty much already bought. Whether it is written yet or not even conceived of at this time, it is as if those volumes are already in my hands and on my shelves. I always have a short list of books I “need.”

Everywhere I look, aside from the areas I’ve recently worked on, there is clutter. It’s depressing, draining and sometimes feels insurmountable. That’s why I need to take it one step at a time. If I do this slowly, and correctly, I might just get this all under control and have the nice, clean, fairly orderly, homey home I want to live in. I’m trying. Day by day, I am trying, and I can’t really ask much more than that of myself.

Late Summer Declutter: day 2

Yesterday was a good day. I got a lot done and made a nice difference in the kitchen. It honestly gave me a little lift when I went down to make the tea this morning. So, I am going to assign myself one small area a day, on days when that’s feasible ie Not Saturday as I am working all day then running a game when I get home, and I am going to put in my best effort to declutter and clean that small area. Today will be the pantry area, a part of the laundry room with cupboard up and down that is just buried in STUFF. I’ll post before and after shots because that’s what makes it vaguely fun.

The pantry area Before shot. How did I let it get like this? That is a lot of stuff…

this is a better pic of where I started today.

I forgot that yesterday I dealt with all the mounds of plastic and paper bags that were jammed behind the sewing machine. Also, this 2nd pic shows all the junk on top of the high cupboards too. It was a disaster and a lot of stuff was pure junk. The teetering stack of photo albums has no home yet, I want to see if there is a better way to store all the photos. Damn, albums are huge and awkward space-suckers! Anyway, here is the after photo…

Look! There’s a counter there it must have been there the whole time but it was completely buried.

So decluttering is going pretty well so far. I’m considering doing two small areas today because Saturday is a no-go as I will have no time to myself at all. I like Fall cleaning better than Spring cleaning. Fall cleaning I do knowing we’re going into winter where we’ll be shut inside a lot and I like getting our home ready for those long months. There will be snow and sand and salt tracked in, ash from the wood stove everywhere, and that winter feeling that can either be “feeling cozy” or “feeling closed-in.” I do my best to try to make sure it’s the former. Spring cleaning is different, for me, it feels more like coming out of hibernation and sloughing off layers. It’s nice to deep clean and get ready for the higher energy months I think I just prefer the feeling of easing into the quiet dark of my favorite months. ^_^

The kitchen counter is still clear. The cat’s dishes are back, clean and shiny, and the crock pot is turning last night’s chicken bones into broth, but otherwise it’s clear. I feel like I’m getting somewhere at last. I wish I’d started in March and not waiting till now to make a plan. Oh well, this is where I am and it’s fine.

Housework Intensifies

Yeah, so, being home 24/7 for 3 months didn’t cause me to magically whip my house into shape. 3 1/2 months of just me leaving the house for part time work didn’t help me to magically whip my house into shape either. I have finally come to the conclusion that I may need an actual plan, I may need to make a schedule for various chores and even slot in some vague times of day in order to get things done. I made a list this morning of all the things I’d like to get done today and then I scheduled them throughout the day. So far today I have:

Made tea and breakfast
fed cats
changed our sheets
run a load of washing
filled out school paperwork for our son
rescheduled a dentist appointment ….And…
Written a sympathy card for my cousin

I still have to:

Plan dinner
water plants
clean cat boxes
pick up prescriptions
make lunch… And…
Hand a load of washing

For longer term/ongoing goals I Really want to declutter in a major way. We simply have too much stuff that is here for no good reason at all. Just so, so much stuff. I mean, the house isn’t like anything you’re seen on “Hoarders” but it’s cluttered and some parts are really disorganized. It’s tough to know where to start, really, but I think I might go back to basics and start with Flylady http://flylady.net/ again. It’s such a gentle system, starting out with just cleaning one’s kitchen sink and progressing from there. It’s helped me in the past when I’ve let things get out of control though I do tend to drop it after a bit when my inner whimsy balks at the structure. I find a lot of value in a few of her ideas:

You can do anything for 15 minutes. (set a timer and do a chore for 15 minutes, stop when the timer goes off and move on to something else. You can return to the original chore later.) Set a timer on the next chore for 15 minutes… etc.
The last 15 minutes of every hour are yours. Take a break! Stop and drink some water or tea/coffee, read or call a friend. Get back to chores when 15 minutes are done.
When decluttering there are only 3 options for each item: 1. Keep it (and put it away) 2. Give it Away 3. Throw it Away. Find a box/bin/laundry basket and sort all the items into them. (1 for each: Keep/Give/Toss!) Very helpful to sort this way and then… Follow Through!
Shun Perfectionism. Doing some cleaning is a lot better than none! So run your vacuum quickly over the high traffic areas and don’t bother moving the furniture if you don’t have time. Do half the dishes! Wipe the worst of the muck out of the fridge, fold the laundry even if you don’t have time to put it away! Basically, anything you actually DO will make you feel a little better and improve things a little bit so go ahead and do what you can manage, it will help.

Those are my favorite ideas of hers, probably imperfectly interpreted, please check our her website for the real information. There’s also the idea of ‘habits’ how getting into a routine or schedule gives one the inertia to keep going, cleaning chores become automatic. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten to that point but it would be pretty cool if I did. Imagine the cleanliness. ^_^ I’m going to start today with one area and post before and after pics.

Today’s project: The kitchen counter to the right of the sink. (Before & After. Note: the cat was NOT disposed of, I cleaned her dishes and she left in a huff.)

Buried Alive Under Books and Craft Supplies

Does anyone else worry that they could easily become a hoarder? Is it just me? I have a lot of stuff, my family has a lot of stuff, we have too much stuff. There’s so much stuff in the world and companies are forever making more. Loads of things seem super-cool but when you collect too many of them they become … clutter and instead of making me happy all those things start to make me feel sad and stressed.

The house never really looks nice and presentable because clutter cannot be organized it can only be gotten rid of or just shuffled from one location around the house to another. I can hardly leave the house without coming back with a book, or two, or a whole bag I got cheaply or even for free somewhere. So there are books EVERYWHERE. I love them. To be fair to myself I am also good at getting rid of books. I often sort through them and choose several to pass along to friends, donate to a library sale or post on paperbackswap.com to trade for other books. I used to sell books I no longer needed to a used bookstore, I sold them by the box-full. My whole family are gamers so we also have a TON of games. We have board games, card games, video games, roleplaying game book and figures and maps etc etc. We have about as many dice as our local game store but you watch, next time I’m in that game store they will have some shiny new dice in a fancy new swirly color I haven’t seen before and BAM! I will buy them and hide them in the closet for one of the kids for Xmas! We also have pounds and pound of arts and crafts supplies. We have yarn, fabric, paper, canvases, pens, pencils, paints, clay and other sculpting materials, loads of saved lids, rolls, tops, boxes, cases, and other packaging and such waiting for us to be inspired. We will one day be buried alive beneath toppled towers of such things. Well, I don’t want to go out like that, so I have finally, seriously, embraced decluttering.

I started this past Tuesday after we returned from a short trip to the Cape. It was so nice in the cabin, there were enough things there, enough dishes and pots and pans to cook and eat, a couple of games and puzzles, a sane number of books. It was so peaceful not having to deal with what I’ve come to think of as “too many choices.” We didn’t watch shows or fall into our computers much at all. We sat drinking tea and eating bagels on the porch watching humming birds joust for the rights to the feeder. We listened to the wind in the trees and the ocean. We played a few games, we walked on the beach. Obviously, now that we’re home, we have to work and the beach is hours away. I can’t make what we had on vacation our actual way of life but I realized that one of the nicest things about it all wasn’t the ocean or the beach it was the simplicity. There were just enough dishes and utensils so they needed to be washed pretty immediately but even if we left them in the sink there were only so many so it never felt out of control. LIGHTBULB MOMENT!

I came home and looked at all the dishes we have. About 3 full sets of dishes; one that was bought for us as a gift and 2 that we inherited when family members died. We do not need 3 sets of dishes! I packed one set away because one of my kids wants it when/if they move out and get a place of their own and I can’t quite face choosing between the other 2 sets yet, but I’ve organized them in a saner manner for now. They all fit in one cupboard now. I was able to part with about 50% of our wine glasses and over 50% of our mugs. I culled the baking and serving dishes, table cloths, votive holders, decorative … things? I’ve been paring down my wardrobe and my book collection, our games, movies and CDs, even the craft supplies. It’s only been a few days but there is a difference around here already. I’m starting to feel a little less stressed by the clutter because it is shrinking.

Ideally, I’d like to end up with enough books, games, dishes, clothes, towels and so forth to just feel comfortable. I hope at some point to have things pared down to a point where even moving wouldn’t be a huge ordeal because packing would be the work of a few hours or at worst a single day. I know that is unrealistic in the short term so I am trying to set reasonable goals. So far I’ve only been tackling the kitchen, dining room and a bit of the laundry room. I don’t think I’m finished with those rooms but the progress feels good. Getting rid of stuff is good, not bringing it home in the first place has to be something I work toward. I need to STOP bringing home books and yarn especially. I need to find something that soothes me that ISN’T shopping. Retail therapy is awful and it’s only made me more unhappy.