52 Weeks of Organizing - #34 Setting boundaries and limits

As I alluded to last month, I've been working on decluttering and organizing an area of my home that has presented a real problem for me.  It is a space that has basically never been picked up and organized in the 8 1/2 years of living in this house.  It is the space into which I have habitually dumped all the stuff I didn't have a specific place for.  It is the space that I would dump my favorite clutter companion - bags full of crap random things (many of these from frantic clean ups before someone came over the house or when I would get 95% of the way through organizing something and then give up, dumping the last 5% of randomness into a bag).  It is what I called my "hoarder" room.  While we certainly have never found anything as horrifying as a dead animal in there - something that is not uncommon on the hoarding TV shows - I have to admit to the fact that IronMan once found a burrito in one of my bags (shame!).

The space in question is the finished attic area of my home.  It is large and, honestly, it was poorly finished by the previous owners.  With its low sloping ceilings we are somewhat limited by the furniture that we can place up there.  An out-of-the-way space in the house that didn't have a clear purpose - along with my propensity to accumulate and not manage clutter - provide the perfect storm for completely trashing the room (and, not surprisingly when one person is responsible for making an area unusable and the other is very neat, it also serves as a source of domestic disharmony).

Without further ado - and more than a little embarrassment - here are a handful of before photos.  Some of these pictures were taken earlier this summer and some were taken last September.

Stuff sitting the base of the stairs - sometimes for months - waiting to be taken up and dumped with everything else...the stairs had stuff trailing up them as well.

Inside the small attached room that was unfinished when we moved in, but plumbed for a bathroom.  About seven years ago we put up drywall, added carpet, and I had big plans for this to be my scrapbook/crafting room.

Laura over at Org Junkie talks about setting boundaries and limits in this week's post for her 52 Weeks of Organizing challenge.  Specifically she says - "So often people don't pay attention to the space they really have available.  They figure if their space is full, then they must just need more space.  And yes, sometimes this is true.  However, more often than not, what we should be thinking (and what would be painfully clear if we had established limits and boundaries), is that we just need less stuff."  What is painfully clear to me - and to all of you seeing these photos - is that I have not set appropriate boundaries and limits and that I need a whole lot less stuff.

As you might guess - and anyone who has ever had to share living space with me can attest to - I have struggled with clutter for my entire life.  From my bedroom growing up, to my dorm room at college, to each room I called my own in the days of apartment living (I'll dig up some old photos to share with you sometime) - my personal space has always been beyond messy.  It has been an exhausting way to live and it has been very difficult to overcome.  With the energy that I have focused on this issue lately, am I all the way there yet?  Probably not. Am I closer to overcoming my clutter issues and regaining control of my home than I've ever been?  Absolutely.  There have been some exciting and hard earned changes around my house during the last few months that I am happy to be able to share here.  I'm particularly excited to share the steps that I've taken and what has inspired me to achieve success on this journey.  That is all for another post - or series of posts - though.  For today, I will simply leave you with some "after" pictures of the hitherto ignored space that you can now find IronMan, all three kids, and me spending time in on a daily basis.

I'm linking up to this week's post for the 52 Week's of Organizing Challenge. Come on over and find some inspiration for dealing with those little, and not-so-little, home management issues that may be hanging over your head.  In the meantime...happy Thursday, friends!

"You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow.  Intention without action is useless."  ~Caroline Myss

I'm still here, I'm just elbow deep in clutter

Happy Tuesday, friends!  Although I regret that my post frequency has been spotty lately, I don't regret what has been calling out for my attention these past few weeks.  Of course, our time spent supporting IronMan as he completed his big race was very special.  Beyond that, though, I have been working very hard on decluttering an area of my house that has been my proverbial Achille's heel for years.  The progress I made - and how it has been done - has been a big deal for me on this journey towards living more simply and intentionally in many ways and I look forward to sharing it with you soon.

This is what I'm in up to my elbows...not so fun but so nearly done that I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel!

I'll be back on the blogging bandwagon within the next few days.  In the meantime, have a GREAT week!


"You can't organize clutter; you can only get rid of it!" ~FlyLady

52 Weeks of Organizing - #25 Don't just think about it

After participating in Simple Mom's Project Simplify this spring, a fellow blogger introduced me to Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing challenge. This week Laura, the Org Junkie herself, touches on an issue near and dear to my heart (well, in my face and troublesome anyway)...procrastination.  She challenged readers to pick a small space in our house, an area that we've been avoiding because we either think it will take too long or that we're stumped about what to do with it, and get it organized.

I'm pleased to share with you a little organizing job I undertook last week as I turned my attention to my kitchen.  Anyone who has eaten at my house knows that we use cloth napkins (and if you are a grandparent who has been kind enough to stay with the kiddos while Running Man and I have been away, you've probably been frustrated by the lack of paper napkins and towels).  I switched over to cloth napkins several years ago and between that time and now we've amassed way too many.  Let me present to you exhibit A - the two drawers of cloth napkins and tea towels that are so stuffed to the brim that I had a hard time opening and closing them.

With about 15 minutes of effort, this is what I managed to purge.

And this is what my only remaining drawer of napkins looks like now.

I used the empty drawer to store Miss Intrepid's PlanetBox and our reusable snack bags in close proximity to her siblings' lunch boxes.

Two unorganized drawers down, a couple dozen throughout the house to go. In the meantime, I'm linking up to Org Junkie's 52 Weeks: #25.

Happy Thursday, friends!


"The best way to get something done is to begin."  ~Author Unknown

Summer Fun Thrift Share Giveaway

For the second week in a row, I'm a day late with Thrift Share Monday, but Tuesday isn't too far off the mark so I'm just going to roll with it. Congratulations to Ryan for winning last week's giveaway for the mid century teak snack trays!  You can check out her thoughtful, honest, and periodically self-depracating posts about life and family over at her blog The Woven Moments.  She has an engaging writing style and I always look forward to what is coming next (one of my favorite posts - and one that I think every new mother, or friend visiting a new mother, should read - can be found here).

I haven't done any new thrifting between last week's Thrift Share post and today (I will share some goodies from recent thrifting adventures that I haven't previously posted, though), but I have been by Goodwill donation centers several times.  This past weekend Running Man challenged us to clean out the garage.  Although it started as a family affair, I have to shamefully admit that most of it was stuff that I had accumulated from one place or another and shoved in the garage to deal with "later"...procrastination, the bane of good intentions.  After soccer games wrapped up on Saturday Running Man, E2B, and Princess Wonder dragged everything that was just sitting on the floor (insert properly abashed look here) out into the driveway. I don't have any before pictures of the garage (they were too quick for me), but here is a picture of the embarrassingly large quantity of stuff once it had been dragged outside.

This doesn't even include all of the play equipment that we had stored on shelves and in drawers (much of which found a new home after the weekend). 

This is only one of several piles that was destined for Goodwill or the free/too-good-to-throw-away section of the local dump.

When all was said and done, I took three trips to Goodwill, one to the free section of the landfill, one to a family member's house to share goodies like a wagon and trike that my kiddos had outgrown, and - trying to purge with a purpose - I ventured to a variety of other places that I thought could make good use of the many things we weren't using.

Now that I've shared my junky garage clean up, onto those previously thrifted finds I promised.  The first is this little saucer.  It is a bit hard to tell from this photo, but the leaves on the flowers around the edge are green and robin egg blue.  I am a sucker for robin egg blue on vintage dishes - it just makes me happy!  I bought it because I bought a pair of tea cups some time ago that I had hoped would coordinate with this saucer, despite the fact that the patterns are different.

I'm not crazy about the design, but I really dig the colors!

They look okay together, but I think that I need to keep searching for a better match.  Does anyone know what either of these patterns are?

I found all of the books pictured below during the same trip.  Fostering empathy and compassion in my children is one of the most important things that I think I can do as a parent so I'm interested to check this pair of books out to see what they have to offer.

"A Thousand Small Sparrows: Amazing Stories of Kids Helping Kids" (you can read the story about Sparrow Clubs USA here) and "Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance in Preschool and the Early Grades (from a training kit for early childhood educators by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance Project)

These are a blast from the past - I remember the Mr. Men and Little Miss series by Roger Heargreaves from my own childhood.

Miss Intrepid is a particular fan of this series, so I was thrilled to find these three.    One of them might remind me of her just a bit (I'm looking at you, Little Miss Chatterbox!).

This next one was one of those finds that made me stop in disbelief - and then rush to the shelf in excitement - when I saw it.  I first read about the Tightwad Gazette on Apron Thrift Girl's blog.  After seeing this post I checked a copy of this three-in-one volume out of the library and really enjoyed perusing it.  I couldn't get through it in the time allotted to me as a borrower and I have been keeping my eyes open hoping to find a copy for myself that I could look through at a more leisurely pace.  So, as you might imagine, I was thrilled to see it sitting on the shelf at the thrift - I fully expect to recoup my $3 with some of the thrifty ideas just waiting to be discovered inside!

"The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle" by Amy Dacyczyn

And now for this week's giveaway - a pair of vintage roller skates made by the Globe Skate Corporation in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.  They are in excellent condition and I bought them about a year ago at my local Goodwill thinking that I could teach the kids to skate.  Fast forward to this past weekend when I found them, used only once in all that time, during our purge in the garage.  Could I use them to teach the kids to skate?  Absolutely.  Is it likely to happen?  Despite my best intentions, probably not.  Plus, we're not the most coordinated bunch around here, so in the absence of anyone expressing a serious interest in learning to skate we'll not risk any sprained ankles for the summer.  Which leads to this week's giveaway.  These skates are really fun and funky and I want to pass them along to someone else who can put them to good use this summer, even if that means using them for purely decorative purposes.

The skates measure approximately 3" wide and the length can be adjusted from about 8"-11".  The red leather straps appear to be original and are in great condition.

I tried to do some research on the Globe Skate Corporation, but other than eBay and Etsy listings for other vintage skates, I came up with a blank.  Does anyone know anything about the company?

Gratuitous red wheel shot because they're beautiful and they remind me of the wheels on the roller skates of my youth.

The simple mechanism on the bottom of the skates that allows you to adjust the length.

If you would like win these skates for yourself or a friend, please leave a comment between now and midnight on Saturday, June 11th.  I will randomly select a winner (we've been employing the have-a-kid-pull-the-winner-out-of-a-hat method around here) and notify them by next week's Thrift Share post. I'm linking up today to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday (congratulations to Selena for her five year "blogiversary"!).

Happy Tuesday, friends!

"I have recently taken up two new sports: roller skating and ankle spraining, in that order.  I am getting quite good at both."  ~Miles Kington

Project Simplify - Week 5 Results

This week marks the end of Simple Mom's Project Simplify, though not the end of clearing clutter out of my life...both literally and figuratively.  In the coming weeks - and likely months - I will be featuring my own personal hot spots around my home as I tackle them.  But of course, being on a mission to live my life intentionally goes much deeper than having an organized and clean home.  It is a logical place to start, though, so without further ado here is this week's hot spot...my linen and master bath closets.

Before pictures:

Wow...this is actually my hallway linen closet.  As you might be able to guess, this was so full that I would literally shove things wherever I saw a space and hope that the door would shut.  Admittedly not the best organizational plan.

The closet in our master bathroom - it could also be known as the place that towels go to die, apparently.

During pictures:

I don't know what Miss Intrepid enjoyed most about this clean up - playing with the games that we took down from the closet or helping with the label maker.

I thrifted this vintage Memory game from the late 1960s in an op shop while living for a short time in Wales.    The pictures on the cards are just beautiful!

After pictures:

This is what is heading out of my house...woo hoo!  Those are a lot of games.  And a lot of sheets.  And towels.  I realize that most of the towels have been cut out of this photo, but take my word on this one.

I now know that games fall under the category of aspirational clutter for me.  I enjoy playing games as a family and - as is clear from this pile (which doesn't even include what we've kept) - I have good intentions for us to play them often.  I don't know that we've held a family game night more than once or twice since 2011 dawned.  We had more games lurking in our closet than we will ever play and, truthfully, many of these games we've never played.  Some we received as gifts, some belonged to Running Man or I when we were children, and many were thrifted.  For example, I bought the Chinese game of Go at a yard sale nearly a decade ago thinking that Running Man and I could learn to play it together.  True, we've been known to play cards when we're out to dinner (yeah, we're cool like that), but the two of us don't otherwise spend quality time playing board games.  In fact, this is one of those games that we've never played.  So why do we still have it?  Reminiscent of my guitar, I have been holding onto this idea of me/us that doesn't actually match reality...a reality that I'm happy with.

This is the hallway linen closet now.  I got rid of things that I didn't know I had and things I certainly didn't need.  Now I not only have much less stuff to contend with, but I can see it all and it is easily accessible.  Check out all of that empty shelf space!

And speaking of empty shelf space, I now have an abundance of it in the bathroom closet as well.

Another good, satisfying step in decluttering.  There is still a long road ahead and I look forward to sharing the journey.  I'm linking up to Simple Mom's results post and am heading over there now to check out the hot spots that others chose and the progress that they've made for inspiration.  Happy Friday, friends!


"I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home...I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby."  ~Nancie J. Carmody

Project Simplify - Week 3 Results

For the past three weeks I have been participating in Simple Mom's Project Simplify, a five week challenge that has us focusing each week and a different hot spot around our home.  This week's hot spot was our children's clothes and toys.  I had every intention of posting my results (so far) of decluttering the kid's belongings last evening, but my body had a different idea and when I lay down for "a few minutes" to let medicine kick in for a big headache I fell asleep for the night instead.  I'm feeling great today and ready to share my results.

While our days are typically pretty full, this week has been busier than usual with several days filled with things like volunteering for the science fair and serving as a chaperone on Princess Wonder's field trip to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (where, not surprisingly, she and the other girls in our group joyfully discovered a fairy house at the base of a large tulip poplar and a smattering of fairy dust on a rock along our path).  As a result, I have not yet gotten to all of the hot spots of children's clothing, toys, and books around my house.  "Not yet" being the operative words here.  With three little ones who I am trying to get involved in cleaning/purging their belongings, I have to be a bit more creative - and intentional - about the time that I carve out for the decluttering process.

So, without further ado, here are the before shots of Enthusiastic Explorer Boy's (E2B) closet and wardrobe drawers.

E2B's closet before cleaning it out.  Did I mention that he loves to build with Legos?  All of the bricks you see pictured here were purchased at yard sales.

The green bin and cardboard box that you see at the top of the closet are filled with off season clothes and clothes for the next year or two that were obtained second hand.  Although you can't see them, there are also two small boxes where I keep shoes (everyday casual, dress, and soccer cleats) that have also been purchased second hand for future wear.  Rather than pay full price for new shoes, I have been able to find high quality shoes for pennies on the dollar that still have years of wear left in them.  The most that I have spent for a pair of shoes at the thrift is the $14.98 I paid for a pair of Dr. Martens boots.  The boots appear never to have been worn and retail for $70 - they will be perfect for hiking in this summer.  While E2B and I were working on his closet yesterday, I pulled out a pair of Keen sandals for him to wear this spring and summer.  I paid $0.98 for them a year or two ago at the thrift as opposed to the $45 I would have had to pay new today.

I seem to have gotten off topic in my enthusiasm for extolling the benefits of thrifting.  Back to decluttering...

As a starting point, I asked E2B to look through his closet and drawers and take out any clothes that either no longer fit, that he didn't particularly care for, or that - even if they fit or he liked them - he didn't really wear.  He came out of his room with absolutely nothing.  I'm sure that a big part of this was due to the fact that he would rather be outside playing with his friends than inside cleaning with me.  Nevertheless, we stuck to it and were able to make good progress.

E2B's pajama drawer.  He is expected to put away his own clothes after they are washed and, as you can see, the concept of putting things away neatly is something we are still working on.  This drawer was very full even without the three pairs of pajamas that were in the laundry.

E2B's shorts drawer.  Other than to put in a couple of pairs of shorts picked up at a consignment sale recently, this drawer hasn't gotten much use for the past five months.

And here are the after pictures:

The top part of E2B's closet.  The bottom portion of the closet still needs to be picked up a bit,  but overall he has his Legos well organized.  After two hours of trying on and organizing his clothes I thought it best to let the kid get outside and play.  Picking up will happen over the weekend, though!

I decided to use the same technique that was so helpful to me in clearing out my own clothing and I had E2B try on everything in his closet and wardrobe.  He wanted to hold onto a number of shirts with sleeves that were definitely on the short side because he "really liked" them.  Rather than keep a closet full of long sleeve shirts that were too short, I told him that he could choose one to keep until this summer but that it was time for the others to be moved on to someone else who could wear them.  Allowing him to keep a favorite shirt, despite the fact that it didn't fit particularly well, along with pulling out other shirts from his bins at the top of the closet that were new to him was enough to make him feel at peace with getting rid of the others.

One thing that I insisted we whittle down because they were sitting on the top shelf of his closet were E2B's sports trophies - he had six of them sitting in there and I told him that we need to limit the number that he keeps to five.  He had a hard time picking the one trophy to get rid of and there were tears involved - because logic doesn't always hold that much sway with adults when it comes to our stuff let alone a seven year old - that made me waver.  On the one hand, I don't want to keep everything that comes into the house nor do I want to cultivate a strong sense of attachment to "stuff" amongst my children.  On the other hand, he is a kid and he is proud of his trophies.  

In his book The 100 Thing Challenge, Dave Bruno ultimately decided that he would not force his children to purge their belongings while he was on a journey to tackle his own consumer behavior.  This is what Dave had to say about reaching this decision after asking his daughters to part with some of their dolls and what came to my mind as I discussed getting rid of a trophy with E2B.  "The truth is that there is no direct correlation between a young girl's loving care for her doll and a grown man's greed for ever more objects of status.  When a child is forced to give away a cherished toy, it is more likely to damage her heart than build up her character.  That is not the same for adults who can learn a good deal about virtue when they restrict their covetousness."  In the end I proposed to E2B that we take one trophy out of his room and if he is still missing it in a week or two he can have it back.  If, on the other hand, he forgets about or decides that he no longer minds not owning the trophy then we will find a new home for it (Running Man actually can use them in his office where they routinely hold a variety of fun events in which winners are given repurposed trophies).

I'm curious to know what techniques others use to help their children purge clothes, toys, and objects like sports trophies.  Any suggestions?

E2B's pajama drawer after giving two pairs of superhero (complete with cape) pajamas to Princess Wonder - one of which she proudly wore last night - and at least six other pairs to a neighbor.  Really, how did we end up with so many pairs?  I think that they must multiply in the dark solitude of that drawer.

E2B's shorts drawer post-purge.  I now know that I don't need to buy any more shorts for this summer - he's set!

E2B's pants drawer after the purge (I didn't take a before photo) - even with an additional pair or two of pants in the laundry it is clear to me that I need to keep my eyes open for some more jeans.

In the end, we were able to pass along a bag of clothes that no longer fit E2B.  Even so, I think that he still has more clothes - especially shirts - in his room than he realistically needs or will wear.  We decided to turn all of the hangers around so that they are hanging backwards and will only turn them around the correct way once something has been worn.  After a few weeks we'll be able to see what is actually being worn and we'll hopefully be able to whittle down what remains even further.

There are two lessons that I took away from working our way through my son's clothes this week and I know that they'll only be reinforced as I tackle the girls' rooms.  The first is that my children have more clothes than they need.  Because I buy the kids their clothes about a year ahead of time through second hand sources, I am able to build up their wardrobes for a particular season before they need them.  The downside to this - the way that I do it, anyway - is that I don't know what I have already purchased and I end up with more of a particular time of item than is necessary.  So the change that I am going to make is that I will begin keeping an inventory of the children's clothing.  That I way I can make a more informed buying decision about a piece of clothing when I come across it in a thrift store, at a consignment sale, or at a yard sale.

The second lesson I learned is that I need to go back and take another look mid-season at the clothes out in the children's closets/wardrobes and those that have been packed away for future wear.  E2B has grown enough since this fall that certain clothes that fit five or six months ago are now too small and other clothes that were packed away because they were too big are now just right.

I'm linking up to Simple Mom's hot spot #3 results post a day late - I look forward to seeing the progress that other folks have made as well.  Come join us!

"Expensive clothes are a waste of money."  ~Meryl Streep

Happy Vernal Equinox + Spring Cleaning

With the first day of spring now upon us, I can officially call my continued purging of all manner of stuff from around my home spring cleaning.  I recently read Dave Bruno's "The 100 Thing Challenge" and it really helped me to think about some of the things that I had been holding onto in a different way.  I'll post another time with more about the book and what I found to be helpful, but I wanted to go ahead and share a couple of those hard-for-me-to-let-go items with you now.

Back in the late 1990s my parents gifted my brother and I each with a set of our very own golf clubs.  At that time I didn't know how to play golf, so I took a lesson and was happy to hack my way through 18 holes with my husband - who was then my fiance - or with my family (I can remember one time that the five of us were on three separate fairways even though we were playing the same hole...good times!).  If I'm honest with myself, I can count on one hand the number of times I've played golf in the last 11 years.  I haven't played even once since having children.  I don't have any burning desire to go out and play golf.  I don't know that I'll ever even play again.  So why have I been I holding onto them?  I'm not entirely sure.  The more I thought about these clubs, the more it became clear to me that there was a much better use for them than just sitting around in my garage.  Just because I had the space to store them didn't mean that I should continue to do so.  Well, I'm happy to report that this week my golf clubs made their way to a new home - I donated them to First Tee, an organization whose mission is to "impact the lives of young people by providing learning facilities and educational programs that promote character development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf."  A very good place for them to be, indeed!

If ever I'd like to play a round of golf again, I'm sure that I can find someone to lend me clubs for the day or I can rent them - I really don't need my own.  

The next item was harder to let go.  In my head, I'm an acoustic guitar player.  In real life, not so much.  For years I desperately wanted a guitar so that I could learn to play and nearly a decade ago my sweet husband bought me one to help make that dream come true.  I took lessons and even got to the point that I could play a simple song or two.  Fast forward almost 10 years to the here and now.  My lovely guitar sits in my house where it has not been played for most of that time.  I couldn't play a simple song now even if something important was riding on my ability to do so.  Unlike the golf clubs, I still have a desire to play the guitar and I think that I might pick it up again someday.  Might...not will.  Yes, I would still like to play, but there are a lot of things that I would like to do and there are many of those things that I am more likely to do in the near future.  So after debating with myself on this, I decided that - like the golf clubs - someone else could be getting use out of the guitar right now.  So on Friday this guitar and its accessories made their way to a new home with the YMCA music program.

If the time comes that I'm ready to try playing again, something that I know will be years down the road (if at all), then I can evaluate if my interest is serious enough at that time to buy another guitar.  And hey, I can always find one second hand!

On an entirely different note, I'm sure that many of you heard the news that last night would boast a "supermoon" during which time the occurrence of the full moon coincided with the lunar perigee (the night during which the moon is closest to the Earth and occurs once every 18 years).  We just happened to be at the beach for the weekend to cheer on my husband while he ran a marathon, so we were fortunate enough to see the lunar perigee over the ocean.  What an incredible experience!

As the moon was rising around 7:30pm EDT.

Just a short time later around 7:45pm EDT.

The moon, no longer looking reddish, reflecting on the ocean around 9pm EDT.

The waves were quite large this morning after last night's supermoon.

I hope that everyone had a magical weekend and I look forward to joining you for another week of Project Simplify with Simple Mom!

"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls."  ~George Carlin

Project Simplify - Week 2 Results

Today marks the end of the second week of Simple Mom's Project Simplify - this week's hot spot has been paper clutter.  I was excited to learn about this week's focus because I am highly challenged by paper clutter.  Between mail (mostly unsolicited "junk"), school papers, and the lovingly - and voluminously - created artwork of three young children, I seem to be surrounded by paper.  Tsh suggested tackling books while dealing with paper clutter, but books in this house will require a week of their own so I'm planning to make it my own personal hot spot after the five weeks of Project Simplify are over.

Overall I would only give myself a 4 or 5 on a scale of 10 for my work on paper clutter this week.  Part of it is that I didn't have - or create - enough time this week to attack all of the paper piles in the house.  Another part of it is that I physically can't get to some of it - in particular the stash of nostalgic paper clutter that I have set aside to potentially scrapbook (more on this when I get to #8 on my 2011 goals list, getting my craft room in order).  Because I have issues with paper in many areas of the house, I decided to focus primarily on the most visual, and certainly a significant, problem area...the office.  Or more specifically, my half of the office desk.  Okay, perhaps my paper has the tendency to take over more than half the desk.

Here is the before picture of my desk at the beginning of the week.  As you can see, I don't do a good job of sticking to a "file, don't pile" regimen.

Before: my less-than-organized desktop.

But wait, there's more!  Check out some of the paper clutter hot spots in my kitchen - the refrigerator and the door leading out to the garage.

Before: from homework storage to reminder notices to the children's artwork, a lot of paper ends up on our refrigerator.

Before: the garage door is sporting unusually low clutter volume in this "before" picture, but it is certainly cluttered enough.

Here's a peek at my work space after moving all of my paper clutter into a single big box to start with.  I liked the idea of holding a movie marathon with films that don't require great concentration - they provided the right amount of distraction when I needed it - while sorting through my paper horde.

More paper than I know what to do with?  Check!
A method of sorting to help pare down my paper clutter?  Check!
Remote control to keep those movies rolling?  Check!

One thing that I was glad to cross off of my perpetual to do list this week, and something that I had written on my add-to-2011-goals list just days before Tsh suggested it in her post, was getting registered on the DMA's do not mail list for catalogs, magazines, and other solicitations.  I also registered to stop getting pre-approved credit solicitations here.  Although this would have been a great place to start some time ago, my method of dealing with junk mail was to call each sender individually and ask to be removed from their distribution list.  As with many of my good intentions around the house, I have the tendency to set this mail aside to deal with it later only to find myself with a box full of junk mail awaiting my attention.  I feel very hopeful that joining the do not mail list/opting out of prescreened credit offers will eventually mean that there are fewer solicitations to deal with in this way.

Without further ado, here are my "after" pictures.

Wait!  Is that a desktop I see?

So nice to be able to open the fridge without the fear of cascading papers.

I got rid of the papers behind papers that tended to build up on this door.

One thing that I have always done with certain reference papers (group rosters, gym schedules, etc.) is to tape them to the inside of a cabinet in my kitchen.  If I ever need to access the information I can do so with a quick peek behind a closed door.  I realized that I still had this type of reference material on my refrigerator, so I decided to build upon a good thing and I moved some of the class schedules for my children from the refrigerator to the cabinet door.  My goal is to reserve real estate on my fridge for homework, progress trackers (i.e. piano practice sheets), and reminders for upcoming activities.

I find it helpful to be able to access phone numbers and other information that I commonly refer to quickly without needing to pull something out of a file or look it up on the computer.  As a bonus, I don't have to fight piles on the refrigerator to find them any more.

Although there is still much work to be done to conquer and maintain control over paper clutter in my home, this week helped me get off to a great start and I'm linking up to the hot spot #2 results post over at Simple Mom.  What helps you stay on top of the flow of paper into and out of your house?

**As a reminder, the Pyrex giveaway ends today, so please be sure to leave a comment by midnight tonight on Monday's post if you'd like to be entered to win.  I'll be randomly drawing the names of, and contacting, two winners on Saturday.


"The opposite of simplicity, as I understand it, is not complexity but clutter."  ~Scott Russell Sanders