40 bag challenge- still trying to simplify!

Like many of you, I am resolved to simplify this year.  The kids and I purged and organized toys before Christmas.  And Big D and I cleaned out our closet right after Christmas.  Unfortunately, this is where my simplification efforts stalled out.

While reading Owlhaven the other day I saw that she's participating in a 40 bag challenge in which you purge 40 garbage bags worth of stuff from your home over the 40 day period of Lent.  We don't observe Lent, but I love the idea of the challenge.  I need the accountability!  So, here goes.  (I think I'll count the 10 or so bags from our closet and the 3 from the pre-Christmas toy purge, leaving me 27 bags to go by Easter.)

I decided to tackle our junk drawers first.  When I was growing up my mom had a junk drawer.  Are we the only household that has a plethora of junk drawers?  Well, I began by cleaning out and organizing four of our junk drawers.  Big D and I have often cursed the person who designed our kitchen with a desk right in the middle of it.  We are all so tempted to set down whatever we're carrying on top of it and inevitably the stuff we set on top of the desk ends up in one of the drawers.  I'm not sure how to prevent this from happening in the future (besides the obvious solution of not setting anything on top of the desk in the first place : ), but at least we now have a clean slate.

Sorry, no before pics.  I was just too embarassed.  Yes, they were that bad.



Top left



Middle



Top right



Middle left

The bottom left drawer is still a mess.  It's an organized mess, I guess, since it's full of electrical cords and chargers, but I thought I'd let Big D sort through those.  I just didn't want to hog all the fun : ).


As usual, Calvin took it all in stride.



I went into Monk's closet yesterday and noticed for the first time that his shirts are arranged by color. 
Interesting.  He didn't get that from me.  I like alphabetical, but rarely notice colors.


So what's my tally so far?  Ironically, as I was scurrying around trying to fill bags, my mother-in-law brought over a bag full of cat pillows.  I kid you not.  They were very cute and the kids were thrilled, but I felt a little defeated.  However, to show I can give as good as I get, my friend Debbie left my house with a garbage bag filled with Legos (I'm not sure she was as thrilled as her son was : ). 

One bag from the junk drawers, one bag of trash the boys collected from upstairs, Twinkle Toes collected a bag from her stained/worn clothes and top desk drawer, plus the bag of Legos Monk gave to his friend.  (And no I'm not subtracting the bag of cat pillows.  I'm counting gross losses here, not net : ).  So... yesterday we threw away or passed on 4 bags of stuff!!

Including the bags from our closet and toy purge, I have 23 bags to go!

How are you trying to simplify this year?  How often do you go through your kids' closets?  Yikes, that's next.  I don't even want to think about going through my girls' closets!