Cleaning Up and Clearing it Out!

You know, we have a lot of junk.

J.U.N.K.

There are six of us and each of us has our own junk. So we are trying to reduce our junk! And as much as I hate to admit this, most of the junk belongs to me. I have tons of craft stuff that I never use because I have no time. I have all kinds of half-completed projects that will probably never be completed. I've got papers--things I feel like I can never, never, never discard. It's silly. I do believe there is a pack-rat gene and I do believe it runs in my family. And I do believe I have that gene.

So I have made a deal with myself. The first step was to recycle all of the kids' school papers that I had kept in Rubbermaid tubs in my bedroom. Let's see, S is in 6th grade, M is in 3rd grade and C is in 1st grade. I kept every art project and every significant project or paper from their classes. You can try to imagine how much that is exactly--it's too embarrassing for me to say. So the deal was that I could recycle these papers if I took a picture of the papers so we'd still have the memory of them but not the actual clutter. So almost 400 pictures later (multiple projects in each picture) I drove all of the projects to the recycling center. It was a HUGE deal and I was sure the sky would fall as I placed my beautiful children's art work in bins to ultimately be destroyed. But, the sky didn't fall and after a brief mouring period I felt okay about freeing up all of that space--quite accomplished even!

So the next step, and this is the step I am working on today is all of these craft projects and supplies for all of these projects. They have taken over my bedroom. I began last night with a silly puzzle Christmas ornament project I was doing years ago--I still had all of the spare puzzle pieces and junk to make them with. They aren't that cute so I don't know why I kept the supplies. And boxes of fabric I had found for quilt making--I don't know how to make a quilt and I was positive I could teach myself. The quilt is almost made (it's not bad actually), folded and placed in a Rubbermaid tub in our laundry room. I haven't even looked at it in years. Who knows if I'll ever finish it. I do plan to work on that this summer after the semester ends so I can give it to Madison so I am keeping that. But I've got all of these boxes of fabric scraps from this quilt (oh and the 3 others I started--1 for each kid) that I will not use. So those are going. I have at least 10 more various projects and all of the supplies for each project and all of those are going. The deal I made with myself is if they can't fit into a small green tote I have then I can't keep them. They will, depending on their condition, be trashed or go to Goodwill.

Next will be my clothes--I'm up a few sizes but feel like I can get back down. I'm sure you all know how that's going to go!

Cleaning Up and Clearing it Out!