The Life Cycle of a Minimalist

I ran across this post in my reading and love it...apparently I'm moving between #4, #5 and #6....and haven't moved past those yet.

I've been trying to simplify and declutter for over a year now.  I'm not 'there' yet...where ever 'there' actually is.

But again, as far as I'm concerned, it is more about the intentionality of the process than the end product.  So I'm ok with that.

And I'm trying desperately not to be so hard on myself and the unattainable goals that I tend to set for myself.

Poop & tubs do NOT mix well......

Why does it seem like the nights that go horribly wrong are the ones when I'm currently flying solo or are awaiting Daddy to get home?

I mean....the ONLY other night I can remember when Jacey decided to give us a 'floater' in the tub (when she was bathing with her sister, mind you) was a night that Daddy wasn't home yet.

Until tonight.

Not cool, Jacey.  Not cool.

Luckily, she was by herself this time (I'm not sure Tatum has recovered from that trauma).

Looking for a silver lining........the kids bathroom will get a very good cleaning tonight!

Birthday cakes for certain celebrations for the weekend will have to wait.....

Clutter control (March 25 - 31)

25 - We reorganized the clothes in Kellen's room and got rid of a few items in there (outgrown sleep outfits that he's held on to for way too long), t-shirts he's outgrown, etc) - 12
30 - After Jacey wore one of her pair of jeans-turned-into-almost-capris, I realized they were, in fact, too short for her. *sigh* - 1
31 - Hubby had warned me that the toaster was broken, but we hadn't gotten around to throwing it away. It is now in the trash (shhh...I did it before he got home and I wonder how long it will take before he notices). - 1

Weekly total - 14 items
March total - 67 items

Clutter control (March 18 - 24)

20 - 1 shirt that we realized Jacey has outgrown (I could have sworn I just went through that girls clothes!!)
21 - 3 items (including a random, non-insulated drink container that sweats horribly that I've had sitting on the kitchen counter for some unknown number of weeks....have I just been oblivious to this??? cleaning around it???  who knows, but it's gone now.)
24 - 2 pairs of shoes (1 each from Kellen & Jacey)

Weekly total = 6 items
March total = 53 items

Clutter control (March 11-17)

12 - T-shirt purge (got rid of 3 shirts...1 just moved from the 'wear' pile to the 'sleep shirt' pile)
13 - Random clean-up around the house -4

Considering it was spring break, one might have thought I would have been slightly more productive...It seemed as though I was, but apparently it was in purging items from my home. I did trash-to-treasure things like turning lonely socks into bunnies for Easter instead.

Weekly total = 7 items
Monthly total = 47 items

I think it's time for another t-shirt purge...

3/13 Update: after doing some additional laundry, I came across a few more t-shirts...so I've adjusted the numbers accordingly below.

Remember my old post about purging t-shirts to a more manageable number?  Well, I think it's time again.

My t-shirt count is 21 23 shirts (at least that are currently clean, folded and in my drawer - and I'm pretty caught up on my laundry as of *right.now*), and this is true t-shirts, not the girl-cut t-shirts (I know, I know...I actually differentiate between the two).

They actually (mostly) fit when they're all clean and folded in my drawer, but still....how many t-shirts do I need? I wear them on the weekends and occasionally on a Friday to work...occasionally.

In going through them, it's obvious I end up still wearing the same ones over and over again....maybe it's the way they feel?  Maybe the way I feel like I look in them?

I honestly have no idea. But I'm thinking it's too many t-shirts. Especially when I'm not wearing them all.

So, there seems to be some that I have a twinge about getting rid of....race shirts, etc.  Apparently I need to make some sort of keepsake item with those (a shadow box for my race shirts and medals? suggestions from other runners would be greatly appreciated!!). Others I will officially move to the 'sleep shirt' ranks. Yeah, they're that bad. Still others I'll move to the 'craft' pile for wreaths and possibly some flip flops for the girls and I.

So, the end count is....17 19 t-shirts.

Clutter control (March 1 - 10)

So this post will cover about a week and a half for the month of March...

Saturday the 10th was a fairly relaxing day...the weather was drizzly, and we had NOTHING on the agenda.  Let me repeat that.

We had nothing on the agenda.  [It's so rare it was worth repeating]

So I decided to pull Tatum's shorts, skirts, pants, capris and dresses out and she did a fashion show.  It was really just a fun way for her to try on all of these things so I could see what needed to come OUT of her section of the closet and go into storage for Jacey or get purged because it was a little too loved. Then later on in the day we did her tops.

I then pulled ALL of the socks out from Jacey and Tatum and we played the match game.  I am sick and tired of having mismatched socks....so am bound and determined to put an end to that. I went through the clean socks, matched them up, and them put the mismatched ones on the dryer so as I finish laundry, I can continue making sets.  Once that's finished, I'm know which of them truly are lonely. Of course, of the socks that are matched, it seems that over half of them are too small for Jacey's seemingly huge feet.  So out they went.

We matched socks, and now have a pile of socks currently mismatched.  After I get through doing laundry..(and figure out which ones are truly lonely, like I mentioned)...we might make some puppets (that Tatum has been asking to make) out of the lonely socks.

After all of the clothes purging (with just a bit more to go, I might add...but Jacey is in no mood to try on her shirts or dresses)....Matt decided to clean out the garage. And the purge total climbed. We started a 'mission box' and went to town.

And in our random purging, I ran across a pair of shoes that Jacey has outgrown that I really haven't wanted to admit she's outgrown.  And I put them in the bag to donate to our friends.  I showed them to Matt as I was doing it and we both got our sad faces on for a few minutes and were saddened that she was outgrowing those shoes.  Maybe we can find them in a bigger size and pretend she really isn't growing up after all.

Weekly total = ~40 items
March total = 40 items

March goals....

In looking at this month...and considering that I'm feeling like God's current instruction and discipline includes asking telling me to slow down and begin to take better care of myself, I think I'll concentrate on the following:

1. Continue my running goal (average 1 mile/day) [nevermind that I haven't run at all this month because of said back]
2. Continue with February's purge goal
3. Continue with date nights with Matt (once a month minimum)
4. New this month....SELF CARE!

I'm off to a late start this month with solidifying this goals...but here we go.

Clutter Control (Week of Feb 26-29)

Here is the recap of the home stretch of the February goal of clutter control.  I was getting ready this week to host Tatum's birthday party (scheduled for at the house...yikes!!), so was gearing up to be a REALLY good excuse to go some last minute purging and cleaning up, right??

Right.

Well...it didn't really work out that way.

My back ended up going out and then Jacey ended up getting an eye infection....so the house ended up getting a quick spruce...but not the deep purge that I wanted right before her party....and then we moved the party to the park anyway, but that's a different story.

But this is life...and I live in the real world.  And I do the best that I can.  And I'm trying to do better about not beating myself up about things.

My goals are lofty...and I'll try to reach them...really I will.  But if I don't....I still tried, and it's the effort along the way that's really important.

Because all told, I ended up purging over 200 items from the house in the month of February (granted, lots of it was candy....but still - I got it out of the house!).

That's over 200 things that my house didn't need anymore.

Even though I wasn't as consistent about it as I wanted to be or had intended to be, that total is WAY better than averaging 5 items a week for the month, huh? *grin*

Total Weekly Count = zilch, zip, nada, goose egg
Total February Count =228

February recap of this project
Week 1, Feb 1-4
Week 2, Feb 5-11
Week 3, Feb 12-18
Week 4, Feb 19-25

Clutter Control (Week of Feb 19-25)

We're drawing near the end of the Clutter control month here....and I haven't maintained consistency like I had originally hoped.  My purges are coming in spurts.

I already mentioned and Kellen and Daddy did a great job of cleaning Kellen's room....and in doing so, they came across a cute outfit that Kellen had outgrown...It was his Easter suit, complete with tie. So on Sunday, we took it to church and passed it on to another couple whose kiddos can use it for their boys. (We'll count that as one item.)

Sunday was also the donation day for the Princess Project, so three dresses that had been bridesmaids dresses in their former life were donated to this project. Hopefully in this phase of the dresses life, they'll be utilized by a high school girl so that she can wear a dress to her prom. I was still able to wear them, but every time I tried to, Matt simply saw them as bridesmaid dresses and couldn't get past that mental mindset.

So off they went.  Better to be used and worn again than for me to wonder, 'What if I could wear it to.....'

Then on Saturday, I went through ALL of the shorts, skirts and pants in Jacey's drawer to see what fit/didn't fit her.  And I ended up purging some items from that drawer. (The girl is just a skinny-minny and some of things she inherited from her sister were for a completely different body type....'nuff said, right?) That totaled 18 items plus one pair of shoes she's managed to outgrow.


Total weekly count =23
Total February count = 228

Clutter control (week of Feb 12-18)

Continuing on with February's clutter control theme.....I will say that this week was a little better (from my perspective at least).

A group that I work with was having a yard sale on Saturday, so we were able to donate our old BBQ grill for them to sell, and I played 'middle man' for another friend as she went through a her boys toys in her own purge mode (her toys don't play into my count)....Another friend had given me two large garbage bags full of clothes for Jacey not too long ago, so I (finally) went through those, pulled out the stuff I wanted to keep for her, and donated the rest for this particular sale.  I have NO IDEA how many items were left in that bag, and they weren't in my posession all that long, but still....let's just say ~75 items left the house in those bags.

I actually had to work an event on Saturday, but when I got home, I discovered that Kellen and Daddy were deep cleaning Kellen's room.  Deep cleaning.  As in, there was an ENTIRE garbage bag of STUFF ready to be dumped out.  Trash, broken toys, papers, wrappers, and I even think there was a banana peel.  Don't ask.  I didn't begin to even count, but let's say that was an easy 50 items.

Total weekly count - 126 items
Total count for February = 205 items

Clutter Control (Week of Feb 5-11)

To continue with my February goal of clutter bustin', I took some additional items to Kellen's Kids Klub (newspapers...no real count on those...we'll say a weeks worth).

I also re-purposed some existing candy into Valentine's Day treats for each of the kids to give away for next week at their respective parties (the candies will be out of the house, so that counts, right?? ;) ) [See posts here and here for Valentine's Day ideas]

It wasn't the best of weeks for managing our clutter.....

If I count the individual candies, then we're at 63 items....add in a few days of newspaper and we're at 70 items for the week. (I just realized HOW MUCH CANDY THAT IS!!!)

Total count for February is 79 items.

Clutter Control (Week of Feb 1-4)

Remember my February goal for clutter bustin'? 

Well....here are pictures of (some) of my first attempts to purge unwanted and unnecessary things out of the house. 

There was another one or two that didn't get captured in photograph form, but you get the point.  Luckily for me, Kellen's Kids Klub wants and uses magazines, newspapers, old toilet paper and paper towel rolls, etc., so some things can be reused rather than thrown away (yay for going green!)

My 'official' count was 9 items.

What have you managed to purge this week?

February Goal for Clutter-Bustin'

It may not seem like much, but I will be purging 5 items a week for the month of February in an effort to contain clutter and purge items.

I feel like I just did this, but in my efforts to get organized, I am continually coming across posts that insist you cannot organize clutter.  I agree.

I have decided NOT to organize what I do not want or need.  

Instead, I will get rid of those items.  Yes really.  I will.  And they can't be 'trash' items (you know, empty milk cartons, etc).

So, even though the first week of February is a short week, it counts.  So my deadline is February 4th to purge 5 items from my home. 

I'll post a count update and perhaps even a picture of the items (assuming I can remember to take a picture before they're recycled or thrown out).

Care to join me??  Come on....you know you made some sort of New Year's Resolution to get more organized....

Our vacuum sucks!

And I'm certainly glad that it does!

Matt and I received our vacuum as a wedding present from his Nanny.  Unfortunately, it hasn't been working as well as I would like it to for a while.  It's a twin chamber bagless upright - a good vacuum - so I've been cleaning what I can on it, checking the brushes on the bottom, you name it, trying to figure out why it wasn't working at its initial power.

And I couldn't figure it out.

Then one day, I was walking around in Wal-Mart, looking at prices for a steam cleaner for the carpet (not buying one, but considering that the vacuum isn't doing such a hot job I wanted to see what options were out there for some deep cleaning action), and I stumbled across replacement filters.

Um, yeah.  We've had the vacuum for over ten and a half years and the filter has never been replaced.  I have cleaned the filter in various ways such as putting a bag around it and knocking it senseless on the ground and taking a cleaning toothbrush and 'brushing' it off, but replacing....never even crossed my mind.

So when I saw the filters, a lightbulb went off.  But of course, I couldn't buy one then, because I wasn't sure of which one I was supposed to get.  And I made a note to myself on my Blackberry.  Fast forward a month or so (I really wish I was kidding) and I finally remembered to check the specifics on the vacuum and put the information into my Blackberry note for the next time I was at Wal-mart.

Which was Monday.  So I replaced the filter.  And while I was at it, I rinsed out the HEPA filter, too.  And cleaned out the 'twin chambers'.

Who knew that a ten year old vacuum could look almost brand new?

Now that I've shattered any notion that I had it 'together' on the home front (as if anyone who reads this might think that anyway!), I just want to say....I'm really glad that my vacuum now sucks again!!

Operation: Girls room clean up!

So in what seems like a not-so-recent illness bout of Jacey's in June, I attempted to do some reorganizing.  I wanted to tackle the girls room.  Well, more specifically, their bookshelf.  So I began this project in June.

Here is the "before" picture.  Crazy, right?

So I went through all of the hair and head accessories.  There are some headbands I have for Jacey that would leave all kinds of marks on her big ole head.  So I quickly purged through those types of things.  You know, the small bows made for babies with just a little hair.  Can't use those - especially on a little girl with no hair!

I hung up all of the bows (how in the world we manage to get so many royal blue, red and purple bows is beyond me!) and realized that I need another bow hanging solution.  That's a project for another day, though.

Then I tackled the books.  I did a quick purge for any books that were messed up (=9), then decided to inventory what was left.

There were 93 books.

93!

And this is *just* the girls room!

That just seems like an absurdly large number of books to me.  So I'll probably go through them for another purge and donate some.  And just in case you were wondering, the Dr. Seuss books are in Kellen's room...so I can't even blame that number on those kinds of books.

After some discussion with some friends, I think I've realized what bothers me about the books, and it has to do with the quality of the books we have, not so much the quantity.  Anywho....

Next up, the toy bins.  Do we need that many toys?  Many of them are for Jacey, and after looking closely at them, I realized that many of them were not age appropriate.  They were all too little for her.

*sniff* *sniff*

My baby is not so much of a baby anymore.

*sigh*

At any rate, here is the finished product.  Tatum played dress up this weekend, so the dress up bins on the bottom aren't 'staged' for photography - this is how they look.

All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out.  I am thrilled that Tatum likes to play dress up so much, and I wouldn't dream of impeding her creativity, so I don't mind the craziness of those bins.

Now....for the rest of the room!

Purse purging

In a post earlier this week I talked about my friend coming over to help me finalizing my closet purging.  What she also helped me do was go through my purses.

I love purses.

And shoes.

She had already helped me go through my shoes many months ago and I threw out quite a few pairs that haven't been replaced.  (As a side note, I now believe that my hubby has more shoes than me, and I think this is just hilarious.)

Have I mentioned how much I love friends like this?

Anyway, in our going through purses, she pulled out a few and stuck them to the side.  She put the ones I knew she would in the 'keep' pile, and some of the ones she put in the 'no' pile I felt a little twinge over.  She suggested I look through them and be sure they were cleaned out before I made a final decision.

As I was pulling things out of one of them, I came across a list of gifts from a baby shower that had been thrown for me.

It brought back such fond memories.  Sweet, right?  Especially considering that my sweet baby Jacey is now a year old.

Except that this gift list wasn't from a shower held for Jacey.

Oh no.

It was from a shower held for TATUM.

Yes, Tatum.

Over four years ago.

That clinched it.

Any doubt I had about whether or not to let go of that particular purse was gone, as it was crystal clear that it had not been used in over four years.

But it made me wonder....why did I feel that twinge when I initially thought about getting rid of that purse?  Why is it, for that matter, so hard to get rid of most anything, even things we don't use that much?  Or haven't used, in the case of this particular purse, in years?

These are the things that clutter our closets, fill our homes, cause us stress, require cleaning, yet we can't bear to part with them?  Why?

In the past few weeks as I've been getting rid of things it's been so nice to pass them on to other people who can use them.  It's hopefully blessed others and helped them, which causes me to feel like I'm doing good, it's made my house look better - cleaner and more open, it's made it easier to keep things clean around the house, and it's caused me to want to keep purging.  The more I get rid of the more it seems I want to get rid of...like a weird purging cycle.

So my question for the day...what are you holding on to that's weighing you down?  (And you can go as deep with that question as you would like).  What kind of baggage are you carrying? Purge it!  Get rid of that excess baggage now and for good!

31 Days to Clean

Hmmm....

I've tried (and am fluttering) FlyBaby. I like the system as a whole, but if you've been following this blog for any length of time you know that I'm working on consistency in 2011.

I've tried my own random methods.

Perhaps 31 Days to Clean might be the source of inspiration for me?

Check it out...if you post about it today (using some social media method) and provide her the link, you'll get a free ebook!

We'll see....I'll try it out for a few months (you know, as long as it will actually take me to do it for 31 days.  I'm guessing that will take a bit longer than 31 consecutive days) and I'll review it!

Clutter Busting

I just read a great blog post about clutter busting....in 15 steps.  Take a look.  While I don't agree with all of the items wholeheartedly, most of these are great!

I can't wait to try them out.

Yes, I know...I'm excited about cleaning.

I'm weird.

We always did a major 'spring cleaning' when I was growing up.  Combine that with my desire to rid myself of clutter and my goal to do so this year, and I'm ready to go.  (Too bad I'm working my real job during spring break....)

What are your great decluttering tips?

De-Clutter check in

Just so you didn't think I had stopped my declutter attempts, here are some updated numbers for you.  I've been trying to keep up with the numbers, but can no longer say that I haven't forgotten something along the way.  And I certainly haven't been keeping up with the numbers of paper clutter that has left this house.  Wow...that would be a very large number, considering the amount of paper that come home with my older two each week!

Doesn't really matter if it isn't 100% accurate...because it's at least whatever I've kept up with and most likely, more.

Getting rid of more clutter is a good thing, in my book!

2/7
*8 items of clothing from Jacey
*6 pair of pants and 1 outfit from Tatum

2/9
*9 pieces of clothing from Jacey (7 one-piece outfits and 2 2-piece outfits)
*2 toys from Kellen

2/13
*bouncy seat that Jacey outgrew (I'm sure they'll get plenty of use out of that at the church nursery!!)
*17 pair of shorts from Tatum (she's grown a little from last year's shorts season, and yes, it's Texas, so we've already worn some shorts around here)

2/20
*Bumbo seat and tray (Jacey simply will not tolerate being in this Bumbo)
*5 onesies from Jacey
*1 workout top from me (It was one of my Rec tops from when I taught....in college!  It's actually in great shape, simply because I didn't wear it that often)


Total = 51 items
Grand Total = 218 items

See the last update here