Friday, June 11, 2010

“Decluttering” Our Lives

My family has embarked on a journey to declutter and simplify our lives.  You hear a lot about organizing your house from experts. They even have television shows that help families to get rid of their junk.  Well, I wouldn’t mind someone coming in and clearing out all my stuff for me and giving me a lesson on organization.  Better yet, I don’t need the lesson, but if they’d give me all those neat organizational containers I’d be very happy.

So far no one has called to take care of cleaning up my house so we decided to go it on our own.  I just look around and begin to feel claustrophobic with all the stuff closing in on me.  Anyway, this is all part of our family’s plan to “declutter” and “simplify” our lives.

We started with our little barn.DSC02080  We built it before we even moved into our house.  The plan was to have a place to store boxes as we began moving things.  Well, it filled up with boxes, bikes, tools, lawn equipment, furniture and it all stayed there.IMG_7068All of this was in our barn, along with a riding lawn mower and push mower.  Where did this all come from?

WB decided to build a workbench and some shelves.IMG_7066  Probably should have done that in the beginning, but I’m sure we were a little busy moving into our new house and he was dealing with a hormonal pregnant woman to boot.

It took all day in scorching heat.  I got a few breaks as we found boxes of photos that needed sorting and organizing.  But WB is no stranger to hard work and he kept going.  He’s my little Energizer bunny.  Wait, I don’t think he’d like that comparison. He’s a Gladiator, yes that’s better, my mighty Gladiator.

At the end of the day we had several piles of items for our Boy Scout church garage sale, a full dumpster and this IMG_7074

a clean barn.  I can see the floor.  WB and I can practice our ballroom dancing in here.  Well, we don’t ballroom dance, but we can turn a mean two-step. 

Honestly, we’re sleeping better at night now.  Something about having clutter in your life, it takes over.  Not just your house, but your attitude and really, your well being.  All these material things begin to weigh a person down.

As of today we have “decluttered” four rooms in our house.  We have five more and the attics. It’s a cleansing process and it feels so good when I can look at each room that has been “simplified”.  I’ll keep you posted!