Four weeks: Day 4 -- Oops

Yesterday I was so smug about my garage sale plans. Sigh.

My beloved (and incredibly supportive but stubborn) husband has brought me down to earth. "I'm not moving that #*?! TV up the stairs and back down again." This in response to my intention to Craig's List the TV if it doesn't sell in the garage sale. In the end, we've reached what's probably a better plan -- it's going in the garage sale, and if it doesn't sell, we're getting rid of it this weekend. He's right that I should be prepared to toss or give away everything that goes in the garage sale. All of which makes me wonder if we shouldn't just skip the garage sale and give it all away...

I took a moment to find out if the local Salvation Army store accepts donations on Saturdays -- they do, but no TV's more than 5 years old! I'm laughing out loud at myself now. That baby's going to be bargain priced if we do try to sell it. If not, straight to the dump.

Either way, I'm heading back down to the basement now, to keep culling more stuff. If nothing else, the looming garage sale deadline is motivating me to go through as much stuff as possible.

Four weeks: Day 3 -- My way

Six months ago, when I took some "before" photos of our rec room, it looked like this:

February, 2011 "before"

February, 2011 "before"

This morning, it actually looked much worse:

This morning

This morning

I've got lots of explanations and excuses, but in a nutshell, disorganized clutter looks worse than organized clutter. I seem to disperse my stuff before I finally part with it. 

That's okay -- I'm thrilled to say that after three hours of work today, there are signs of progress:

This afternoon

This afternoon  

I can see the floor again! There are more empty bins! 

Garbage out!

Best of all, I threw out two bags of garbage and a box of recyclables.

Perhaps most intriguingly, I'm building a pile of merchandise for a garage sale this Saturday.

Common wisdom seems to be that garage sales are a clutter-busting no-no. It's true that as long as it's in the house, it's still clutter. 

For me, though, the garage sale is totally motivating. Until I got started in the basement today I wasn't sure that we would have a garage sale this Saturday -- I didn't know if we'd have enough stuff to sell. But as soon as I got started, I realized that having a garage sale in three days is tremendous incentive to cull as much clutter as possible, as quickly as possible. The key is that the sale is imminent. There's nothing like a deadline.

I won't know until after the sale whether it's worth the hassle, but I'm hoping to avoid a few trips to the Goodwill and gain a little cash. I'm particularly hoping that we can sell a couple of large framed pictures and an old TV, because I don't like moving heavy glass things. 

Yes, we'll have to hang out in our driveway for the morning, but that seems a lot more fun than fielding Craig's List viewings, or hauling breakable stuff to charity. Lemonade, anyone?

It occurs to me that trash is the easiest way to clutter-bust, but my conscience isn't happy dumping useful things.

Garage sale merch

I can't wait to see how big this garage sale pile is by tomorrow afternoon.

Four weeks: Day 2 -- Bust and wash

Well, Day 2 of the great(?) four week clutter-bust was just that -- a bust. Lots of previous commitments; one trip to Walmart; no clutter-busting.

I did clean the bathroom, since it was needed. I'm often frustrated by time spent cleaning, which is so temporary, when I'd rather be making permanent changes. However, I've finally realized that there's no such thing as permanent housekeeping. Even my clutter-busting project will be useless if I can't maintain it. Cleaning is maintenance and I need to learn to embrace it.

Four weeks to more space: Day 1 -- Kickoff

It's been another month, and I'm getting geared up again.

I just spent a week visiting my father, which always makes me want to de-clutter! He's not a hoarder -- far from it -- but he's got more stuff than places to put it, and may be somewhat overwhelmed by it all. That's my story anyway, and I'll just project it onto him (sorry Dad!).

My father has been through so much in the last few years. After a brief happy retirement, my parents' focus suddenly became my mother's valiant battle with cancer. Sadly, it was not a fight she could win. I can only imagine what my father has been through. He wants to create more space in his home now, but how hard it must be to review things acquired during their life together, alone.

We came home from my father's on Saturday night and I actually managed to unpack and wash and fold (or rather my dear husband folded) all of our baggage the very next day. That's a first for me. I am usually more the throw-the-dirty-clothes-in-the-basement-and-trip-over-the-half-empty-suitcase-for-a-week kind of traveller. But now that I'm home, and our summer vacations are over, I am just itching to get at our clutter.

I've felt pretty bad about the incredibly slow pace of my de-cluttering project. My ability to procrastinate something I've wanted to do for years has been eye-opening. I tend to do a flurry of clutter-busting just before I won't be able to do any for a while -- working to the deadline.

Several times I've questioned clutter-busting as a priority. I've felt guilty de-cluttering as opposed to, say, parenting. There are so many valuable things I could be doing with my time. That thought alone is often overwhelming.

But I want to do this, and the rewards will be huge. I remind myself that a clutter-busted home will mean more space, more time, more productivity, more peace, and therefore more happiness for our whole family.

Already there have been rewards...  My three-year-old loves the way we organized his (edited) toys into bins. He was so happy to be home yesterday and played with almost all of his toys, one bin at a time. My husband's relieved to be able to store Tupperware and pans without the use of force or puzzle-solving. Our serene guest room continues to draw friends and family.

Personally, I want my very own workspace -- as opposed to piles of books, boxes of papers, and a filing cabinet hidden behind a maze of clutter in the basement.

So, I've decided to give myself four weeks to de-clutter our house.

I started this project months ago, and I've had some successes, but my work so far has been the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Now I'm going to tackle the rest of it in a fraction of the time. Can I do it? Yes, I can!

Unfortunately these will be the last four weeks of summer, so not the best time to hunker down in the basement, but there's no time like the present. And frankly, I love autumn, so there's incentive there too -- in four short(!) weeks I'll be able to do outside projects in beautiful late September. And when winter comes, our home will be that much more of a haven.

I got started today by adding a box of clutter to the trash at the curb, just before the garbage truck rolled up.

Wish me luck...

Underway!

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy, in a good way. I went to the Folk Festival for the first time in years, twice -- first catching up with an old friend and then introducing my son and husband to the hottest (literally), largest music festival around. We've been on staycation, welcoming another family to our town and joining in the tourist fun -- mini golf; street theatre; canoeing; Turkish spa... Staying up too late on long summer nights; even our three year old is sleeping in.

With all the fun, I haven't had much chance to write, let alone declutter. But I'm happy to say that my basement clutterbust is indeed underway. Just after my last post I went into the basement with a few black garbage bags and got to it.

I wasn't particularly methodical and I didn't have a lot of time, but I started with the first thing that caught my eye and kept going for about two hours. 

The next day I took a box and bag full of books, games, etc. to the Salvation Army store. 

The day after that a friend helped me take three garbage bags full of winter coats and other clothes to a shelter for the homeless. Or at least, that was our plan. We went in the wrong door and found ourselves standing amidst the cells of the local intoxicated persons detention facility. Yup, decluttering has driven me to the drunk tank.

It felt so good to drop off those winter coats, knowing that they'll help people stay warm this winter.

Thanks to my husband for contributing lots of his old clothes.

Finally, I filled a box with old dishes and other bits and pieces, and took it out of the house today.

I'm looking forward to resuming the basement clutterbust as soon as our vacation winds up. 

Clutter Busting with Brooks Palmer: A Trick of the Mind

On Friday, which was a holiday for us, I went into my basement to start clutterbusting. It's is our ultimate clutter repository. Everything that doesn't have a home above ground eventually ends up there (or, rarely, gets kicked out of the house). The basement looks worse than when I started clutterbusting our house. Two reasons. First, when I clutterbusted the guest-room some of the clutter ended up in the basement; not good. Second, I've successfully removed a lot of toys and clothes from the basement (and the house), but in the process the neat piles of storage bins have been disturbed. A lot of the bins are now empty but they are strewn about so it looks worse than when they were stacked full of clutter. Go figure.

Anyway, I went into the basement on Friday afternoon, armed with a garbage bag, and I got totally overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. I didn't know where to put things. It was too late in the day (I slept in; I went for a run; we went to my parents-in-law's for a family brunch; just before we left the brunch I accepted a nice, cold beer, and then I succumbed to the need for a short nap when we got home; I put on some laundry and emptied the dishwasher and marinated some chicken for supper...).

So there I stood picking up bits of clutter and putting them back down, looking around at all the disparate bits and layers of clutter. I was overwhelmed. I came outside and sat down and said to my husband, "I can't do this."

Instead, I put my son in his Mr. Turtle pool and he splashed and slid and played with his boats and I smiled and talked with him and pulled out some weeds from between the patio slabs. And that was the right thing to do. I was happy. He was happy.

In hindsight, 4:30 p.m. on a beautiful summer day was the wrong time to start clutterbusting my basement.

That night, after my son was in bed, I read this post on one of my favourite blogs: Clutter Busting with Brooks Palmer: A Trick of the Mind. Brooks Palmer advised that, "you can be overwhelmed and clutter bust. They can happen at the same time." That resonated with me.

[I pause to note that I named my blog clutterbuster before I had ever heard of Mr. Palmer or his great book Clutter Busting. A clutterbuster was who I wanted to be, and I was happily surprised that no one had snapped up the clutterbuster name when I first signed on to blogspot. A fellow blogger, Clutterkiller, later recommended Mr. Palmer's book and blog and I am grateful.]

Rather than quote Brooks Palmer's entire post, go read it.

But this is the part that I'm going to take with me as I go down to the basement now:

"When you pick a place and start asking of each thing, 'Do I actually need you, or can I let you go?', the feelings of being stuck may still be there, but they will begin to diminish." 

That, and the idea that one can be overwhelmed and yet proceed. Because that's exactly what I need to do.

Thank you Mr. Palmer.

What not to wear

While I passed judgment on all my clothes last month, I took the time to observe what works for me and what doesn't. 

I figure that this was time well spent, since not buying something means never having to de-clutter it.

Here's my personal list of the top 5 things I should never buy again:

1. Tops that are too low-cut. Casual low-cut tops are particularly bad, since my toddler loves to use my bra-cups as a handle, and I spend a lot of time at ground level, tying shoes, sharing hugs, and digging in sandboxes. 
2. Tops that are too short. If it isn't cut long, it isn't going to flatter me. Between the belly and the backside, cover me up!
3. Short pants and skirts. I'm tall. My clothes should be too.
4. Long shorts. For some mysterious reason, long shorts look worse than short shorts. Weird.
5. Short-sleeved golf shirts. I've only kept my favourites, but I still have more golf shirts than golf games. At least I can wear the wicking ones for running, while I dream of a golf vacation. 

On the other hand, I can always count on:

1. White tanks. Perfect for layering under those low-cut tops.
2. Long, lean tops.
3. Elbow-length sleeves. I love these. Never need to roll them up; never too short; no farmer's tan; perfect year round.
4. Boat necks. 
5. Knee-length skirts. 

No wonder I have two identical long, white boatneck tees with elbow-length sleeves, and I wear them constantly.