Time to declutter

Organization is not my forte.

I do it just fine at work, but, for some reason, I can’t seem to apply the same concept at home. I realize, it’s likely because I have about ten times as much stuff, and there are four people here, rather than just one, but that doesn’t mean it frustrates me any less.

Yesterday, I made the decision to begin making small steps to organizing my house. Of course, first, that meant I needed to take care of all the immediate issues (dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor, odds and ends in the wrong rooms), but after that, I started to make a list of all the other improvements I’d like to make around the house. Improvements that will likely take the disgruntled assistance of some lazy-day teens.

Oh well. They’ll live.

What I do know about myself is that, not only will this take several days of small amounts of work, but it will also likely not look like I’ve made much progress until a month or so into it. It has always been my experience that ‘it’s going to get worse before it gets better’. At least it won’t surprise me when my house looks like more of a shambles than I thought it did to begin with.

Now, if you asked me, what I would like to do to rectify the issue, is find another house to occupy for the next several years. Besides being too small, we have run into multiple functional issues as well. The windows do everything but keep heat out in the summer and in, in the winter, there is (what we believe to be) mold growing in sporadic places on the ceiling, and the smoke alarms are so sensitive that last night one went off without any prompting.

It’s not a good living environment.

But finding a home isn’t nearly as easy as one would hope. Our current location leaves us on a quiet street, less than a 10 minute walk to the community pool. This bodes well for my children in the summer as it gives them another option besides sitting at home, electronically connected. So, while we’re confident that it is possible, we are having less than satisfactory results coming up with the qualifications that would suit our family best.

That being said, it’s time to declutter our current living space, lest we parish in the accumulating piles.

Where Do I Begin?

Though I know this is a constant topic, I can’t help but continue to bring it up. It seems to resurface every couple of days in my world, and I’m having a difficult time figuring out where to start.

I want, and desperately need, to have a garage sale.

On the one hand, we are moving in two and a half short months. I do not want to take all of my belongings with me that I brought to this house. I’m not a hoarder; I’m just a terrible organizer. That statement translates to the fact that I’m not keeping it out of choice, but rather because I can’t seem to focus long enough to begin the process for having a garage sale, or selling things on the Facebook swap pages. Something tells me that will be the best bet for some, or maybe even all, of my stuff.

And on the other hand, I just have too much junk that I don’t need. It’s getting out of control, and the lack of space in this tiny little house is making it worse. I am considering bribing my children with the opportunity of making some money if we can consolidate and get rid of all the things in our house that we no longer need. It’s definitely possible that it will work, but the fact that I can’t focus, I wonder how I will get either of them to do the same.

The part that makes me the most frustrated is that I know plenty of people who don’t seem to have this issue. In fact, I went to a friend’s child’s birthday party the other day of one such friend, which I believe is what reignited the flame. My sister and I walked all around her house and not once did I see piles of clutter, stacks of paper, or random odds and ends out of place. How she keeps it looking so immaculate with two little boys in the house, I will never understand, but it wasn’t even just that. I hate that I can’t look around my house and not see piles of things that aren’t of use, or that I don’t have an organizational system for keeping things safe. And every time I think I’ve started to make progress, a couple of days running around with my children changes that.

One day, maybe I’ll be able to focus long enough to get somewhere, but for now, I’ll just sigh and head off to work.

Clutter

Everything about that word annoys me.

It’s everywhere. And no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get rid of it.

The worst part is; it’s not just my clutter. Most of it is, of course, but that’s because after over a decade of living on my own, I’ve acquired a lot.

It’s also my kids’ stuff though. So, while I’m trying to organize my own life, I’m constantly picking up after two children. Don’t get me wrong; at 12 and 10, they are generally expected to pick up after themselves. But life happens, and sometimes chores fall by the weigh-side when schedules change and unexpected obligations must be met.

When that occurs, not only do my girls need help maintaining their clutter, but it seems making any headway on my own is nearly impossible.

It’s hard to believe that after four months of living in my new place, I haven’t really gotten rid of anything. In fact, I’ve probably only accumulated more. And that bothers me because I have two sheds outside my house; full of junk.

Don’t misunderstand. It’s not junk in the traditional sense. Much of what is one shed are occasional use items like my Christmas and other holiday decorations, my lawnmower, lawn chairs, and other miscellaneous items like that. Conversely, my other shed is filled with items that I really need to sell or take to the Goodwill: clothes we’ve grown out of, a microwave cart, and toys my children no longer use. I even have a couple boxes in my house I need to move out to the sheds just to make more room.

Ah room. Wouldn’t that be nice to have? That in and of itself is a completely different problem.

My house (i.e. the house I’m renting) is, for all intents and purposes, tiny.

There are three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room. It has some definite advantages in comparison to our last apartment, but unfortunately, it’s not much of an upgrade.

The problem I am having with all of my stuff is not just that I have too much, but that I have nowhere to put anything, well, except the basics. While that aspect of our living space is much appreciated, I am in desperate need of a home that allows me to give it my own touch. Though I realize I am nowhere close to being an interior decorator, the lack of available working space really isn’t helping matters either.

At this point though, I realize that moving to a larger establishment isn’t anywhere in my foreseeable future. I just moved in to this place less than six months ago; I really don’t think I could convince anyone to help me move again this soon, which leaves me back where I started. A whole lotta stuff, and nowhere to put it all. Well, isn’t that swell?

Not really. Again, it’s annoying.

I’ve got to find some sort of a happy medium before I lose my mind completely. I walk around my house on a daily basis just wishing I would magically acquire more room. Sadly, that has yet to have any desirable effects, so I suppose I will have to attack the mess one pile at a time.

That’s really the only way to accomplish anything, I’ve found. Go after it; one little problem after another. So, like I do with everything else, tomorrow, I will make a list. Not sure where I’m going to start, but it’s gotta be somewhere better than sitting right here complaining about it.