Operation: Declutter

I've always heard people say they need to declutter and thought hey, I can do that. I would go through the house, throw away garbage, stick a bunch of random junk laying around into boxes, stow it away, and call the house decluttered. I'm realizing now that I was completely incorrect. All that does is shift the clutter. When you move, all that clutter gets brought out and dumped on you all at once. That would be precicely why in the year we lived in Michigan, I didn't unpack probably 1/3 of the boxes that were there. Now we're back into our familiar house, where I accumulated the vast majority of the clutter, and I need to get rid of it before we move again. We're thinking that will be in 2 years. I don't plan to hold on to the clutter that long, though, so I'm aiming for 1/1/11 to have it done.

Since admitting it is the first step to recover, here goes: I'm Tiffany and I'm a borderline hoarder.

Step two is to determine the pathology of the illness. As with most things in life, I look at genetics. My mom has always been the type of person who doesn't throw things away. I'm sure she must have gotten rid of our baby clothes, because I don't think they're anywhere in the house. In High School I was the same size as her so we just shared clothes. I think she has most of those clothes still. The other day she came over wearing a sweater that I think I had my freshman year of HS. That would make it 16 years old. You can just imagine the sheer amount of clothes that woman has. She also never threw away things like sour cream containers. That didn't mean she didn't have Tupperware and other storage containers. In some ways it was nice. If we (or anyone she knew) needed a costume for something, up to the attic she went to get them down. And I pitied my friends who had only 1 or 2 swimsuits. I didn't understand why anyone would do that. I could have several friends over and we'd have extra suits for anyone who needed them. This is fine if you intend to live in a house for over 30 years, as my parents did. If my mom ever had to move, I think I'd be working or on vacation because it would be really hard for her to get everything packed up and moved. Not to mention she'd need a few 48 foot semi trucks.

I am working on letting go of things. Last year when we moved back to WI, I had to get rid of a lot. The patio set, outdoor swing, the first kitchen table set we bought, 10 totes (18 gallon) of baby clothes, books, furniture...lots of things I had to get over the "maybe I'll need it someday" and just embrace that one less box to pack up. I have looked for a few things (girlie receiving blankets. I never thought I'd be having another baby so soon and I'm sad I don't have Cadence's blankets now) and we do have to replace the outdoor furniture, but what we had didn't work the greatest anyway, so that's okay. I'm learning that letting go is okay.

I cleaned out the under the stairs closet and organized the art supplies under there. There are lots of empty shelves left, which is great. I started trying to work on baby clothes, but since those are housed in the attic it's tough. I obviously got out the baby girl clothes that we'll need for the next few months. I also gave away the 0-3, 3-6, and 6-9 month baby bly clothes to my friend Trixie's daughter Erin for the baby boy she'll be having sometime before October. I'm working on our room. We have an abundance of towels, lots of sheet sets, kids' too small clothes that never got into the attic bins, things we confiscated from the kids. No wonder our room is always a disaster area.

I'm very excited to go through and purge as much as I can bear. We have tons of kitchen stuff that I really need to say "will I ever use this?" If the answer is "probably not", away it will go.

I'd love to get the house finished by the 1 year mark of us living here, but with Lauren wanting to be held, Cadence making messes quicker than I can clean them, and homeschooing Tevin starting in September, I very well might need those extra few months. Simple(r) life, here I come!