Back at it!

Well, after a several week hiatus, here I am again. First, I had to stop on the spare room because my book club was coming for a Christmas lunch. Then, I had to take time off to Christmas shop and wrap presents. The room was a mess for a few weeks because of all the presents and wrap in the room. Then we went to Palm Springs for a few days for our anniversary (Dec. 17). When I returned, I had a whopping cold and cough that kept me down for a few days. The next I knew it was Christmas Eve and we were off to my step-daughter's and Christmas Day we were with my sister.  The Saturday after Christmas we were driving to Colorado to see my step-son and his family so I was busy packing and sorting out my cold weather clothes. We returned from Colorado on Jan. 3 and here I am finally ready to tackle the room. I spent yesterday de-cluttering the kitchen counter from all of the stacked up mail and newspapers! So wish me luck!

Little by Little

Well, today it was baby steps but still an accomplishment. I cleaned off the top of my chest. It was so cluttered before that it was hard to find the top! I found several little post-it notes that Bob had written and when I showed them to him, he had no idea what they meant! They were probably there for over a year I am guessing!

I can't do much more today because I am so busy getting ready for my luncheon for my book club in 2 days.  It is supposed to be a Christmas luncheon so I am trying to get the house decorated. I don't want to do too much because we will be one right after Christmas but I still want it to look festive. I am busy swapping out Thanksgiving decorations for Christmas decorations! At least we have the tree done!

A Little Progress

Today I concentrated on my desk top, which was horrific. I have a wooden desk top sorter box that was jus overflowing with papers. I sorted through that and moved to all of the papers on top of my lap top. It is amazing how easily I can discard stuff when I am in the mood. Many days I just wind up moving papers around without really dealing with them. I wish I could spend more time each day but I am also trying to get ready for Christmas!

Here I am again!

Well, here it is December two years after my last post and my spare room is in disarray again! Last week, I had a great conversation with my good friend Barb Carr who described in detail how she de-cluttered and re-organized her craft room.  I listened most attentively because I needed a fresh outlook and an incentive to tackle my room.  Barb works full-time ( and I don't) so she gave herself an hour or two each day and actually set a timer.  She was fully organized in one week! What an inspiration!

So I am posting pictures of the room as it is currently and will try Barb's technique. I plan to begin today and do at least an hour or two each day to get this room back in order!  Wish me luck!

Ta Da!

Well, about a week before Christmas, I finally got my spare room in order! I had the motivation to get it done because we were hosting Christmas Eve dinner for the family and one of our granddaughters and our grandson and his girlfriend had not seen our bedroom/bath remodel and the girlfriend had never seen our place so I knew a house tour was in order.  There are still a few things that need to find a home, but it is so much better.  It has been a constant struggle because it is the only room I have for all of my projects.

I had to break away from decluttering the room to decorate for Christmas and to Christmas shop and wrap presents.  That set me back because the spare room was the storage place for the presents and the wrapping.  However, once the tree was up, I could wrap and put presents under the tree.  It felt so good when I could put the wrapping away!

I have attached pictures of the room, but my decluttering still continues in this room and others.  Today I tackled several cabinets in the kitchen and am donating a lot of dishes and pots and pans, etc.  I was just sick and tired of having to sit on the floor by a cabinet and pull everything out to get to a pan or dish that I needed.  I am on a roll!

Sunday, November 27,2011

It may not look like it yet, but I am finally making some significant headway! I have finally realized that it is just not about the clutter. It is much deeper than that.  It is about my procrastination and why I cannot come to terms with why I feel the need to have so much stuff.  I have had two big cloth bags of stuff for 2 years that I finally tackled. Whenever company comes and I have to clear the kitchen counter as well as the stuff in this room, I dump it all into bags.  I finally sat down and went through them and I had stuff from 2009! Fortunately, it was nothing that would get me into trouble but it was very disturbing to face the fact that I should have either dealt with the stuff or thrown it away! I also overbuy all of the time.  I have too many greeting cards, too much wrapping paper, too much scrapbooking material, etc.  There have been times when I have just bought compulsively! 

I took a big leap yesterday and finally donated all of my video VCR tapes. I finally admitted to myself that because I have a DVD player, the likelihood of my hooking up my old VCR and watching any of these tapes is nil.  I feel so ashamed and embarrased at the number of movies I had that weren't even taken out of the plastic wrap. I don't know why I felt the need to have these movies, even though most were classics, because I am not one to watch a movie twice and I can't even keep up with what is currently on tv!  That was a big step for me to admit this and actually donate them to Goodwill.

I still have clutter but I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is still taking me a long time to find a home for everything. Things are going slowly because I look at every piece of paper and ponder what to do with it! I would drive Peter Walsh crazy!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

For the past two days I have been going through a huge stack of catalogs that have been accumulating for months.  Most had dog-eared pages where I had indicated things I wanted to order. I am now trying to whittle that down to things I definitely plan to order for Christmas. It has been quite a task but I am almost through.  This is another part of the purging process that is necessary to get this room in order. I am trying to promise myself now to let that get so out of hand. I need to curtail my spending so why do I save all of these catalogs?  I think in most cases it was just a way to get the catalogs off of the kitchen counter. In going through this process, I found so many duplicates. If I had routinely purged, just once a month, this would not have happened. I am finallly beginning to face my faults. The next step is to change my patterns.