Big D works on Saturday nights and occasionally I succomb to turning on the tv. Last night I watched about 10 minutes of Hoarding, Buried Alive and it frightened me. I found myself thinking what in the world is the matter with those people, but at the same time I recognize some of those same tendencies in myself. It's so sad when your things end up owning you instead of the other way around.
Linny at A Place Called Simplicity wrote about purging ourselves of our stuff yesterday and Amy at Raising Arrows has been getting rid of half her stuff in one room each Saturday. I've decided I need to follow suit. It's time to simplify! And the timing couldn't be better. Our church is raising money for a playground and we're having a churchwide garage sale in about 3 weeks to help pay for the costs. This means I'm highly motivated to do some major organizing and simplifying over the next 3 weeks!
I couldn't quite bring myself to take pictures of the before, but you can get an idea of how awful it was by noticing the pile of stuff on the counter that will be headed to the garage sale. Some of this stuff is great- electric knife, espresso maker, Pampered Chef cookie press (never used!!!), Pampered Chef apple corer/slicer. It's hard for me to get rid of stuff that is new, barely used, or high quality, but I've vowed to get rid of everything we don't regularly use.
OK, I know this looks like a cabinet crammed full of glasses, but our cups and glasses used to take up another half cabinet, too. I kept a lot, but got rid of a lot, too, as you can see.
This is the cabinet that used to be half full of coffee cups, creamers, sugar bowls, etc. I'm a little embarassed to tell you I threw out many bottles of vitamins that expired long ago, several in 2004! You can tell we don't take vitamins often. I guess we're not exactly health nuts.
Anyway, this is just the first installment. I hope to have time over the next 3 weeks to go through the rest of my kitchen cabinets, storage room, kids' closets, the closet under the stairs (yikes!), our closet (double yikes!!), and maybe even the attic. And dare I hope to tackle the bookshelves, too? Maybe not. I like taking my books to a local bookstore that issues credit for buybacks. (Then I spend the credit on mochas and frapuccinos:).
Anyone else tackling any big organization projects this summer? Do you feel better when you simplify your life, even in one small area?
We also watched Hoarders last night on aetv.com. Talk about motivation to purge. It gave me great motivation, too, and I am not a hoarder by any means. Perfect timing for us to be purging.
ReplyDeleteWe just reorganized our office and got rid of a lot of stuff recently. I have a hard time getting rid of things, too, but it is nice when you get a space so that everything has a place. I'm working on the classroom today. Out with the old and in with the new!
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