I am FOCUSED on the decluttering. I am DETERMINED to get rid of stuff. I am PLEDGED to use what I have as much as possible. I am DEDICATED to clearing and cleaning and giving myself room to breathe, create, relax.
I am inspired by what I see in blog land. Beautiful spaces. Well appointed rooms. Dust bunny free corners. I could easily be discouraged by all that, instead I have chosen the approach above. The constant chaos is not restful to me. I has begun to bother me. The baggage of so much stuff is heavy and I am ready to shed parts of this skin.
Having said all that roaringly funny dialog about what I am and what I am not, here is the true confession. I AM A DOMESTIC DISGRACE. There ya go people. The picture below is the bookcase on my side of the bed. I read a lot. I look at magazines a tremendous amount (serious addiction here) My mom has said that teaching me to read has destroyed my financial future.
Many nights I take a stack of magazines to bed with me and just look at the eye candy - here's the result of that behavior.....
Note-this is actually after I managed to get enough out of the way to close the closet door.
I finish looking at lights out and toss them on the floor. That is not a problem unless the domestic disaster in me doesn't put them away. I wish this was only true about this area. Nope the whole house looks like this a lot of the time.
Well it is bothering me. Really bothering me. Causing nightmares about losing control. Keeping the girls from bringing boys home (never mind everything - let's keep it this way) Oops - sorry - got off track there....
Last night I was determined to get this corner cleaned and cleared. So I worked through the disaster and this is the outcome.
OMG there is a floor there. The shelf was made by the man way way way back in high school. The shoe box and the white box below it contain tear pages ( those will be filtered and purged as well) That is a project best left to a Sunday evening with some scissors, a glue stick, and a trash can close by.
Best of all -- I threw some things away -- and I packed a box for the thrift store -- and I found a little book that will be shared in a post all its own.
Now all of this was accomplished in a terrifically short time frame. I am breaking in slowly. Absolutely cannot allow domesticity get in the way of a bag of yarn that was screaming for my attention. All those screams were interfering with the girls being able to hear the tv.
Now I have a question -- just how do all of you manage a clean house, a well cared for family, and creative bliss. Am I the only domestic disaster out here???
Have a wonderful day.
7 comments:
My thing is books and magazines. I've always lived in small spaces, a 900 sf cottage, a camper van, a sailboat, and now a two-room apartent. In this apartment I have four 6' bookcases and 3 smaller bookcases. Oy.
What I do is set a limit on bringing home stuff that won't fit somewhere. If there's no room on the bookcase then I either don't let myself bring the book home, or I take a book out and give it away to make room on the shelf for the new one. Period. Same goes for art supplies. I dedicate the space for it and then stick to filling but not overfilling it.
Now to be a bad friend: you know there's a free for the taking magazine bin at the library don't you? Be still my heart. In the lobby. All kinds. Free. For. The. Taking. Oy!!
No you are definitely not the only one. I have areas of beautiful order but I am a piler. So where I live the most; bedroom, workroom, kitchen, there is almost always a pile of stuff. I ma feeling like you this year. It is time to get rid of the too much stuff.
Since I had the house appraised yesterday, I had to do something with all the piles. What else? Shove the piles in the closets! Of course, I heard the appraiser open one of the closets. And then he broke out into roaring laughter. Sigh.
I think the key is a little and often - otherwise you just fed up with it!
Looks like my house! I'm glad I'm not the only one who has trouble getting a handle on overflowing piles of magazines and books. I've also slowly been working on cleaning out my house, but it's a slow process! You just have to make an effort to do a little bit every day.
No my friend, you are not the only disaster out there. I don't think there is anyone on this planet who hasn't had the same magazine situation hiding their floor at one point or another. I like to look at it as art! ;D
Nancy
My trick is called "closets and the garage" - a dear friend that dog sits for us told me once - holy crap you can get a lot of stuff in your closets!!! And she's right. And my garage houses a free standing pantry, three metal shelves (one for storage, one for food storage and one for fabric), three packed to the gills bookshelves and 6 of those iris rolling carts algo packed to the gills. When I can't fit anymore stuff in the garage then I start purging.
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