declutter my house

I’ve:

• done my monthly paperwork including sorting, filing, shredding and mailing
• caught up on my laundry and dishes
• put the groceries in their proper places

I held an epic garage sale this weekend, and whatever didn’t sell went straight to the Salvation Army with no regrets or second thoughts. I sold my sofa for a song, and have been slowly posting and selling other stuff too. The rest goes on the “donation corner” in my neighborhood or is given away. I’m getting sooooo happy with the way my place is looking and it feels GREAT to get rid of this stuff!

Yesterday I also pulled out ALL of my art and craft supplies, sorted them and put them away in the right places instead of having them scattered all over the house.

One of my big hang-ups is paper. Paper, paper, paper. One of my big paper sources are receipts. Receipts, receipts, receipts. One of my anal retentive things to do is enter my receipts into Microsoft Access. Access, Access, Access.

It’s ridiculous (especially since I’ve let the pile of un-reconciled receipts accumulate for so long), but it’s something I “have” to do.

...and yesterday, I did some. In fact, I can see floor, so if I stay on it, I can be done with the backlog! Soon. Ish.

Tonight my goal is to fill a few bags of books for the charity shop.

Here goes…

This is what I have to keep reminding myself: Focus! On the one hand, it’s hard enough just to keep my fingers in the dike as more and more holes spring open! On the other, I find that one day I am concentrating on the dining room table, the next on a stack of magazines that have accumulated, the next on my kitchen counters… Maybe, when each area has reached a turning point, I will see a marked improvement all over the house at once, but it is frustrating to feel like I haven’t gotten much further than when I started. I think posting more updates here will help me stay focused, so that is going to be part of my plan. And my new mantra: Focus!

I have done great on this goal. I went away and moved all my stuff into my parents for storage. So I had to downsize loads of stuff then. I just sorted out what i wanted to get rid of then advertised on Gumtree as a whole load of bootfair stuff.

Then after travelling with just a backpack for 2.5 months really made me realise how little possessions I really need. So i have started clearing out the rest of my stuff and have filled four boxes so far and have loads more to do.

Also started scrapbooking cards and photos which has got 6 boxes down to about 2.

After losing both my parents a year and a half ago, I not only had my clutter to deal with but also that of my parents. My siblings lived in other states and so it fell on me to dispose of most of their belongings.

Some things I was able to decide to get rid of right away and after realizing I just wasn’t going to have the garage sale, I decided to donate the items to local animal shelter thrift stores.

A couple of months ago, I decided to sell my house and move near my sister. This meant I HAD to get rid of all that clutter!

I was referred to an estate sale/auction company but was stalled by needing to completely separate what I was keeping out from everything.

I designated one room for me to set up like an efficiency apartment and one area in my basement for furniture overflow. This made me really think about what I needed and what I didn’t once the room started filling up (not to mention all that packing).

Now I’ve separated everything and I had an offer for someone to just pay one price for the lot of what I didn’t want, with the proviso that they remove it all…useful, not-so useful, and just plain trash.

The only problem is they want 30 days to remove it all. I countered with 2-3 weeks. We’ll see what happens.

The tiles in my apartment are of natural stone, which is why I can’t use “normal” cleaning agents. The previous renter had left me some special stuff, which is supposed to do the trick.

However, every time I have tried this, the floor looked pretty much like it did before I started. Very frustrating.

So far I assumed it was me doing something wrong, but now I am wondering if the stuff I’m using is too old or never worked in the first place or whatever. For this reason I will try to find something else and then see if that does work better.

I took the new CD case I bought recently, collected all the CDs / DVDs that had accumulated since my last one filled up, and put them inside. Much neater !

Got that awful “where on Earth do I start?!” feeling today.

Surely anything is going to be better than nothing, right?

Will check in a few times today (the only day I have for this!) to let y’all know of any progress.

J.