My Clutter Companion Revealed

There is a particular item that abounds in my house that I find to be a very helpful thing in staying organized while simultaneously allowing me to let myself off the hook of truly getting clutter under control.  Let me share it with you now.

As seen in my master closet.

A peek inside.

This is part of my collection of reusable bags - the rest are in the trunk of my vehicle so that I have them on hand for the grocery store.  They look very innocent, don't they?  Many times I find them to be an excellent organizational tool.

This bag stays packed and stored in the master closet or laundry room.

This bag may be unlovely, but for $0.10 at a yard sale I find it to be the perfect thing to keep towels, bathing suits, shampoo, etc. corralled in one place for my youngest's swim lessons.

A well used and much loved storage solution in our house.

Our wonderful babysitter and friend, Heather, gave these personalized bags to each of the children for Christmas this past year.  The bags stay on the back of their seats at the kitchen table and allows them to keep the effluvia of childhood (rocks, stickers, crayons, drawings, books, toy cars...you name it, they probably have it stashed in there somewhere) controlled and in one place.  Whatever doesn't fit in there is supposed to find a home elsewhere in the house.

But there is an insidious side to my love of - and reliance on - bags.  They can be found hanging all around my house and, in the spirit of being honest in this space about what I am working on, here are some photos that I took this morning.

Bag of random things (knitting, books, opera glasses from our last trip to the theater, etc.) hanging on the office door.

A bag of stuff that I am giving away to a specific person from my master closet clean up and a child's coat that needs to be hung up in the coat closet - this is hanging on my linen closet door in the hallway.

This one is really embarrassing.  It is a bag full of toiletries and random crap waiting to be put away from a trip in January.  This is hanging on the closet door in my bathroom.

Remember that box of stuff that I mentioned from my closet clean up needing to be dealt with?  Well, here it sits - with a bag full of stuff on top, of course - untouched and at the end of my bed four days later.

I find that I often get to the end of a clean up and run out of steam, or I put straightening up off to the last minute and then quickly need to get a space in order, and my solution is to shove stuff in a bag to be put away "later."  Later usually doesn't come right away and then I end up with these bags looming over me as a giant undone "to do" around the house.  And the worst thing about my willingness to shove stuff in a bag and put it off until later?  This is the worst part.

In my daughter's room.

This is the front of my 5 year old's wardrobe.  As a parent I feel terrible because I know that I am the one instilling this habit in her.  And I know that I can't realistically expect her to get her room cleaned up without using this technique when she only needs to look around the house to see me modeling the behavior.  I don't want to parent from the "do as I say, not as I do" perspective, so I know that this change needs to start with me.


Does anyone else struggle with tucking stuff away for later like this?  What has helped you break the habit?


"Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means." ~Albert Einstein

Pyrex Giveaway - Thrift Share Monday and Project Simplify Hot Spot #2

You will rarely find me at the mall and my trips to big box retail stores are increasingly minimal - I try to go only when I have an immediate need for something specific like printer paper or new socks.  I do shop at Costco and am too easily swayed by impulse buys there - I'm working on being more mindful about how and where I spend my money.  I like to support local businesses and buy handmade.  I also love to shop second hand.  Whether it be at yard sales, thrift stores, or consignment sales, I am much more likely to be found shopping here than at a traditional retail store.  Thrifting is recycling at its finest, saves money, rescues items from the landfill, and is great fun.  Most of my children's clothes - and a fair number of mine - come from second hand sources.  If there is something cool and unusual in my house, it is probably thrifted.  Thrifting allows me to purchase high quality items for my family that I wouldn't normally be willing to spend money on.  And did I mention the fun factor?  The thrill of the hunt, the excitement of finding something particularly special/rare/unusual, and the satisfaction of finding something that I need for a fraction of the retail price.  Of course, what makes second hand shopping exciting can also make it challenging from a clutter perspective - it is too easy to justify the purchase of an item because it is high quality and inexpensive (beautiful vintage serving bowls and platters are a particular weakness of mine).

One of my favorite blogs is Apron Thrift Girl - Selena has cultivated an amazing community of thrifters on her blog and I particularly enjoy heading over there on Monday for her Thrift Share posts.  As of the time that I am publishing this post, there is not a new Thrift Share post up for today, but you can go here to see last week's post and get a flavor of what her blog has to offer.  Update: I'm linking up to today's Thrift Share post.  I've not participated in Thrift Share Monday before and as I'm working on purging extraneous items from home I am more focused on getting rid of things than buying "new" things.  So I am going to approach Thrift Share Monday a little bit differently this week and offer a giveaway of previously thrifted items that now need a new home.  Like many thrifters who enjoy buying vintage items, I have a soft spot for Pyrex.  I have become much more selective about what vintage Pyrex I will buy, but I recently found that I had too much of it - I wasn't using all of it and my cabinet was practically overflowing.  Today I am offering up two pieces of Pyrex for two lucky winners.  Just leave a comment on this post between now and Saturday and I will draw two names randomly to win one of these two pieces.

Giveaway #1 - a small casserole dish (472-B) in the Shenandoah pattern

Giveaway #2 - an oval divided dish in the charcoal snowflake pattern

On the decluttering front, hot spot #2 for Project Simplify was announced this morning over at Simple Mom - paper clutter.  I feel both excited and overwhelmed by this week's challenge because I have more paper clutter around my house than I can imagine getting through over the course of the next five days.  But that's what is great, for me, about this project - it gives me a specific goal and a specific time frame within to work.  I look forward to sharing my results with you on Friday and hope that you'll consider, to borrow a great turn of phrase from Tsh's post, unleashing vengeance on your papers, too!

What I'm Reading: The Happiness Project

I love books. I love holding them and turning their pages. I love discussing them with friends who have also read what I'm reading. I love introducing people to great books that they haven't read before. I love checking out what other people have to say about the books that I'm thinking about reading. I love exploring things that interest me by reading a book - and often more than one - on the topic. I love reading complete fluff when I just want some relaxing time to myself. I love, love, love books! So it won't be surprising to anyone who knows me that I spend a lot of time reading on topics related to parenting, simple living, spirituality, creating family traditions, decluttering, taking care of the Earth, and just about anything else that speaks to my soul and helps me along this path of striving to live more intentionally.

The book that I am reading at the moment is "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. I had considered reading this book for some time, but after seeing some of the reader reviews over on Amazon I decided against it. I'm not entirely sure what changed my mind, but I ended up reserving a copy at the library about six months after first researching it. It is in high demand at my local library and I was on the waiting list for a number of weeks. The book finally ended up in my possession where it stayed until I had to return it to the library, unopened and unread, a month later. This is an example of having those good intentions, but not following through (the fact that I have a sizable "library" of my own with many books that I have not yet read certainly contributed to the fact that this book sat untouched in a stack of "to read" books). Well, I put myself back on the waiting list and I've been steadily working through the book for the past two days. I should probably admit here that the book is now overdue and I can't renew it because there are holds on it, so my plan is to finish it quickly so that I can return it for someone else to check out.

Although I have not yet finished the book - which I find to be an interesting look at the concrete steps taken by the author in an intentional bid to improve her life in subtle, yet important ways - I was struck by her description of the varieties of clutter in her home. As I think about the barriers that I have constructed to living the life that I desire for myself and my family, having too much stuff is one of the most obvious. So many times I have found myself saying that we can't go do something - spend a sunny afternoon outside with the neighbors, check out the local science museum, tackle that yummy recipe that I've been saving for ages, etc. - because I feel compelled to pick up the house. A life full of saying "no" because I need to pick up, put away, or otherwise organize stuff is not the life that I want for myself or for my children. And that brings me back to the varieties of clutter that Gretchen Rubin outlines in her book. Without further ado, they are:

* Nostalgic Clutter - made up of relics from one's past

* Conservation Clutter - made up of things that are useful, but not to the bearer at the present time

* Bargain Clutter (and its cousin Freebie Clutter) - results from buying unnecessary things because they're on sale or gifts, hand-me-downs, and giveaways that aren't being used

* Crutch Clutter - things that are used, but shouldn't be (i.e. worn out items)

* Aspirational Clutter - things that one owns but don't actually use

* Outgrown Clutter - things that once were in use, but now are stored without purpose

* Buyer's Remorse Clutter - things that should not have been purchased but one feels must "use up" to justify the purchase

While I certainly have enough clutter to encompass all of these varieties, one of the two that I think I most struggle with is nostalgic clutter. I have a deep and abiding interest in family history and I'm lucky to have both a mother and mother-in-law who also care deeply about family history and have saved innumerable items from the past to share with others in the family. My children love to play with a stash of vintage buttons that my husband's grandmother and great-grandmother saved and used in their own sewing. I am blessed to have photos from several generations past along with fascinating ephemera from the daily lives of my ancestors. I also have useless crap that serves no purpose other than to sit in a box because someone couldn't bring themselves to throw it away. To be fair, lest it seem that the problem is something that I've simply inherited, this crap-in-a-box phenomena is heavily comprised of things from my own childhood that I've saved and art projects and memorabilia galore from/for my own children. I'm determined to either put this nostalgic clutter into active use, find a specific place for it in my house, or find a new home for it (with siblings and other family members if they want it or someplace else entirely if family doesn't want it). Not only do I not want boxes of stuff sitting around my home taking up space, I don't want to blindly pass along boxes of family stuff to my kids someday.

The other variety of clutter with which I most struggle is aspirational clutter. Whether we're talking about books that I've thrifted (Did I mention that I LOVE books?) but not yet read, cookbooks filled with awesome recipes that I've never used, more craft supplies than I will ever use at the rate that I've been crafting/knitting/scrapbooking/etc. for the past ten years, I've got tons of lofty aspirations and a whole bunch of stuff. When I shared with my husband in the car today what I think are my two biggest trouble areas with clutter, he agreed with my assessment. He also went on to add that he thinks that I shop for food with more aspiration than actual plans and I have to agree - my good intentions are how we end up buying food that goes bad or cool kitchen gadgets that never get used.

So in the spirit of sharing publicly, in this space, what I feel the need to work on to help lead a more intentional life - and considering the fact that I am committed to continuing with Simple Mom's Project Simplify - I find this discussion and thinking about clutter to be helpful. Do you struggle with nostalgic or aspirational clutter? What have you found to be an effective way to purge and control this type of stuff?

"Get rid of things or you’ll spend your while life tidying up." ~Marguerite Duras

Project Simplify - Week 1 Results

We're at the end of the first week of Simple Mom's Project Simplify - week one's hot spot was our personal closet and wardrobe. I didn't take any before pictures of my wardrobe drawers, but here's the before photo of my closet in all of its cluttered glory.

As hard as it may be to believe - and I wouldn't just looking at this photo - I cleaned up this closet about a month ago. Even with the decluttering that took place then, I still managed to pull out three garbage bags full of clothes and other items to donate or give away during this past week. One of the most helpful ideas that I took away from Tsh's post was to try on every piece of clothing and, although it took more time, this was one step that made a huge difference and allowed me to really get rid of clothes that no longer - and perhaps never did - fit right or look great on me.

One item that I was surprised to find so many of was hangers - check out what was left over after cleaning up. Not all of these 150 or so hangers had clothes on them before these pictures were taken, but many did. While I kept a handful of extra hangers so that we've got them on hand if and when either my husband or I add new clothes to our wardrobes, most of these are on their way out the door.

Without further ado, here is my closet now. I still have a few random things sitting in a box that need to be put in their proper place, but overall I think that I can declare this week's decluttering a success.

I'm linking up to Tsh's Week 1 Results post. For some great inspiration, check out before and after pictures from the closets of oodles (that would be the official number, of course) of Simple Mom readers.

"Present Me is tired of holding onto Future Me's crap. Future Me will just have to deal with it." ~Stephanie in the comments of Unclutterer.com's 4/29/09 Uncluttered Aphorisms post

25 Goals for 2011

I am a list maker. Lists help me organize my thoughts and focus my energy and time - if I don't lose them in a stack of paper on my desk or send them through the wash in my pocket, that is. If I am going to approach my days with more intention and spend time on the things that I value, then I should have an idea what some of those things might be. So what better way for a list maker than to create a list? So here it is, a list of 25 goals for 2011:

1. Knit something for each of my children to wear.
2. Plant a vegetable garden this spring/summer.
3. Plant a butterfly garden.
4. Complete my Virginia Master Naturalist certification.
5. Run a 10K in under one hour.
6. Grow seedlings for a portion of the vegetable garden.
7. Scrapbook regularly – paper or electronic (once a month?).
8. Put my craft room into working order.
9. Purge, purge, purge!
10. Write letters via snail mail to my friends and loved ones (once a week?).
11. Teach the big kids to knit.
12. Learn how to sew using my sewing machine.
13. Spend time delving into family history and combining documentation from my family and my husband’s family.
14. Partner with the local elementary school to share environmental education opportunities with the students.
15. Incorporate more handmade gifts into our family and holiday celebrations.
16. Plan ahead and sign the kids up for summer camps that allow them to explore their passions and new things.
17. Create a family mission statement.
18. Volunteer as a family.
19. Explore museums and historical sites around town.
20. Shop at local farmers’ markets regularly throughout the spring and summer.
21. Start nature journaling.
22. Go geocaching and create a local cache.
23. Have our backyard certified as a NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat.
24. Go to the theater with the kids.
25. Train for and participate in my first triathlon.

I've been struggling with this list of goals - notice that they are goals and not resolutions, this may just be semantics, but they feel different to me - for the past couple of weeks and I'm okay with the idea that it may change in some way between now and the end of the year. One of the things that had me tweaking the list time and time again was having things like "Develop/nurture a family culture that embraces whole foods" or "Focus on self-care" in the mix. Worthy and important things for me to focus on, but hard to check off a list. So I did what any self-respected list maker would do, I started a second list. I'm not sure where that list is going, but I'll be sure to share once I figure it out.

Project Simplify

After the initial energy I put into starting this blog, I've stalled and haven't been back to this space in half a year. During that time I have made some progress towards living more intentionally and creating/nurturing the life that I want for myself and my family, but not nearly so much as I would like. So I'm back on the blog bandwagon in hopes that by laying my efforts out here in the open, I can keep myself motivated and focused on what is important to me. I'll be sharing some of what I've been doing, books that I've been reading and inspired by, and what I'm going to do in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Today is going to be a short post, though, because I'm joining Tsh over at Simple Mom for Project Simplify and I'm already busy working on hot spot #1 - my closet and wardrobe. The "before" picture has been taken and I now have every piece of clothing out of my closet to be touched, tried on, and sorted (keep, donate, or toss).

I have actually been working on decluttering and generally divesting myself of "stuff" around the house in earnest for several weeks now, but I thought that joining this challenge would help move things along by setting specific goals and time limits. It is hard to feel at peace and spend time doing the things that I love when I am surrounded by chaos, so I feel strongly that this is an important step towards living the intentional life for which I yearn. I look forward to sharing the results of cleaning out my closet and wardrobe on Friday (I'll even resist the urge to share a "before" picture that looks better than where I actually started!).

"Begin each day as if it were on purpose." ~Mary Anne Radmacher

My nemesis...dinner

One of the things that I feel passionately about is the food that I feed my family. I believe strongly in the importance of buying and preparing locally grown, organic foods whenever possible. And yet, we eat out so often that last night when coming back from a dance class with the kids, one of them asked what restaurant we were going to when I answered their "where are we going" query with "to have dinner." Part of it is that I don't plan ahead. I get to 6 o'clock at night before I even think about dinner many nights. At that point the kids are either busy playing or are getting cranky and it is often too late to make the dinner that I would like to feed myself and my family.

I like the idea of planning out our meals a week in advance so that I know what I am going to cook and I can be sure to have all of the right ingredients on hand. On the rare occasion that I've done this it has been fantastic. So what exactly is the problem here? I think that part of it is the paralysis caused by my perfectionist tendencies - if I can't do it just right and go all out, I don't do it at all. In the case of meal preparation, I would love to shop at the farmer's market every week to pick up seasonal produce and plan my menus based upon what is available locally. Unfortunately, between the demands and activities schedules of three children and two adults combined with the general lack of planning that goes into my days, I have only found the time ONCE in this entire season to make it to one of the local markets. Then there are the menus themselves, I have so many great cook books that I don't even know where to start when I think about planning meals for an entire week.

So I think that a good place to start is...well, anywhere. Rather than try for perfection, I'm going to commit to one baby step each day. I took a couple today by cooking a big breakfast for the kids (our regular weekend fare of chocolate chip pancakes and cream cheese scrambled eggs) instead of relying on my regular easy "meal" of cereal and by trying to get my recipe notebook in order. I got the idea for a recipe notebook from a friend and, when I use it effectively, it is a great tool in the kitchen. When I get a recipe from someone else or seek out a new recipe online that the family enjoys or when I find something in a magazine that I'd like to try out, I simply categorize it and put it in my notebook. This is where I keep most of our favorite recipes and is my "go to" resource for quick meal ideas. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up with its maintenance and it was overflowing with un-filed recipes to the point that the binder itself broke and random bits of paper fell out every time I pick it up.

So...baby steps for now.

"It is not good enough for things to be planned - they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.” --Walt Kelly