Mike rearranged the living room this week. And when I say “rearranged” I mean “moved the loveseat 7 inches to the right. It’s not a huge change, but the change is huge. It makes the living room feel more cozy and living room-ish. See, our living area blends in with our dining area, so it’s easy to lose it’s identity. See how it used to look?

Moving the loveseat gives the room more definition. I don’t have a picture of it now, so you’ll just have to imagine. I notice I’ve been feeling more inspired to blog lately. Maybe it’s the couch.

I have an addiction to purses. A compulsion really. I can’t walk by a purse section in the store without getting whiplash. I have a special hanger on the inside of my closet door for all the bags in my possession. The problem is, I can only use one purse at a time. And every time I switch, I am faced with the reality of my tendency to hang on to stuff I don’t need. So I leave the unnecessary things in the purse I’m retiring, transferring only the “necessary” stuff to the new purse. So now I have a closet door full of purses full of junk. And each time I switch to a new purse, I am filled with hope that I will keep it organized, clutter free.

And it never happens.

Yet I am constantly on the search for the perfect purse to solve my clutter problem. I thought I had found the “perfect” purse, but I couldn’t bring myself to shell out the bucks for it because I knew deep down it would not solve my problem. Because the problem is not the purse. It’s me. I have a strong tendency towards clutter but you wouldn’t necessarily know it to look at my desk or my home. One look at my purse though (or my car, which I affectionately refer to as my “giant purse”) and you’ll see that clutter is and may always be my nemesis. It’s a constant battle. I get in these moods every once in awhile – purge mode, if you will – where I just want to throw away everything that I know I can live without. Necessities are food, shelter, and a minimal amount of clothing. When I’m in purge mode, everything else has the potential to be tossed. Sometimes I throw something away and a few months down the road a situation comes up where I find a use for whatever it is I disposed of. It’s at those times I have a “dang it” moment, but I wouldn’t say I ever really regret disposing of the item. Because life goes on. And if I ever need to replace anything, there’s always Wal-Mart

The Roomba – because a man can’t be bothered with vacuuming. All that pushing and pulling and those pesky electrical cords. Ugh! What a chore!

Mike beamed with excitement when he told me about the new addition to our family – The Roomba. Since he is in charge of keeping our floors clean, I didn’t object when he wanted to spend his Christmas money on the robot that vacuums. But when he went on (still beaming) about his grand Roomba plans I had to chuckle. Before he would run the vacuum in each of the rooms, he would need to clear the floors as much as possible, removing all the toys, chairs, etc. Since it runs on a battery, he would need to recharge it after just about every room. And then of course he would need to clean it after every third charge.

So my question to Mike was this: “How is this supposed to make your life easier?” He didn’t really have a good answer for that. But I will say, ever since the Roomba arrived, our floors have been consistently cleaner than they ever have been before. The reason? Because the Roomba is FUN. What can I say? The man likes his toys.

I know I tend to keep coming back to this subject, but I just LOVE decluttering. When I run out of areas to declutter at my house, I ought to become a Clutter Coach and go help other people declutter their homes. Clutter Coach – I like the sound of that!

I just filled up the trunk of my car with more crap to donate. I know I could collect all this stuff and have one big garage sale and make some money, but I just don’t have that kind of energy. But of course I still get some money back when I write it off on my tax return.

For me decluttering is more than just getting rid of crap. It runs much deeper. It’s been a long, emotional process over the years but as I go through it I am forced to evaluate what is truly important to me. What do I value in life? Everyone puts different values on different things. You have to know what you truly value, or you’ll end up trying to hold on to memories or things that just don’t mean as much to you. Not only that but those things end of covering up and choking out room for the things that really are important to you, both literally and figuratively.

Take Luke’s toys for example. I’m ready to purge many of his toys. There are so many, and he only really enjoys 15% of them. The rest inevitably stay tucked away and hidden. He plays with books and balls. And tools. Sometimes trucks. The rest only hold his attention for very short periods of time, and he rarely goes back to them.

There is one key reason I hold on to things. I discovered it just a couple years ago but it has served me well ever since. I place memories on objects. Then I fear that if I purge the object, the memory will go with it. I have many keepsakes from my trip to Israel when I was 17. I also kept a lot of things that remind me of my two grandmothers who both passed away during my senior year of high school. I have slowly been getting rid of those things because I simply do not have the room and they were collecting dust anyway. You can say something is important to you but if it’s just sitting in a box collecting dust then I say, “prove it”. It is difficult each time I purge a sentimental item but it gets easier as I see that even as the objects are out of my house, I still remember those people and places just as well. In fact, my memory improves because my brain is not cluttered up from being surround by crap!

Decluttering has filtered into our financial habits as well. When wandering around a store, I find the temptation to purchase things is not nearly as strong as it used to be. When the temptation comes, I think about where I might put that, and would I really use it? Those two questions usually squash the temptation right there. Now that’s not to say we don’t buy stuff anymore. It’s just that now we put more thought into what we do buy, and it’s much easier to decide what we really want to buy. Marketing and advertising can make you think you want all sorts of things. But when you line them up with your values, most fall short. We are contemplating the purchase of a flat screen tv for our living room. It will be a big purchase (that we will save up and pay cash for, of course) that seems frivolous to me at first thought, but then I realize that we spend so much family time in our living room that the tv would not be a wasted purchase. We have a tv in the living room now but it’s very old and big and takes up a lot of space. It sits in an entertainment hutch – an empty entertainment hutch. It has numerous shelves and cupboards but they are all empty. (We have a toddler, you know.) We enjoy watching movies and baseball games as a family, and since we are adding one more kid to the mix, I say “why not?” So you see I’m not opposed to spending money, I’m just a lot more focused about it now.

Another great benefit to this process for me relates to cleanliness. I am not a naturally clean person. I hate cleaning. I used to dread it. But I don’t dread it anymore (well, I still dread cleaning bathrooms, but thankfully Mike doesn’t mind it too much). The reason I don’t dread it like I used to is because of this: You can’t clean clutter! I learned that from the Flylady, and it stuck with me. It is so true. The worst part of cleaning for me was having to move all my crap around to clean behind it, under it, over it, etc. Once that problem was eliminated, cleaning became a breeze! It takes so much less time and sweat. As a side note, my husband is not employed right now and he takes care of our son during the day. He also cleans, cooks, washes the dishes. We’ve always shared household duties but he’s picked up so much more since being at home. I didn’t have to do any persuading to get him to do it either. The story would have much different had we still lived in a house full of Mindy’s crap. He would have been tortured trying to clean around someone else’s stuff. Now the house is mostly clutter-free. We have a few spaces that still need work but we’ve come a long way, baby!

I have a couple big tasks to complete at my house that can only be done on a weekend. I look at the calendar and realize there are only like 4 weekends per month, can you believe that? And with all the fun I wanna have with friends and family and such, I feel like I have to be very strategic in my planning.

Big task #1 is getting Luke potty trained. He’s just over 2 years old now and he seems ready and willing. It would be fantastic to have him out of diapers before baby #2 (currently dubbed “Squirmy”) comes along. He goes on the potty occasionally but we are going to try the all in one shot approach. The one where you let him run around the house in big boy pants until he gets sick of wetting himself. (I just love putting “big boy” in front of everything. He sleeps in a big boy bed, he wears big boy shoes and big boy hats. He’s a big boy now!) A weekend would be best so Mike and I can team up for the whole messy process.

Big task #2 is clearing out all the crap in our office so we can turn it into a genuine bedroom for Squirmy (admit it, it’s catchy). Most of it is my crap so that’s my job and definitely a weekend project. Cuz dang, I have amassed a lot of crap in that room. Most of it has a place, but not a purpose. It can’t hang in that room anymore and there is nowhere else for it go, so it’s gotta GO. Mostly books. Lots and lots of books. That I will never read a second time. In fact, I haven’t even finished reading many of them the first time.

I know that Independence Day is coming up and that means I get an extra day off from work. A three day weekend would be perfect for one of these projects. I just have to decide which one. I’m leaning towards task #2 because I think that will be more physically draining for me and I’ll need to take lots of breaks. This baby has got my muscles so out of whack that normal things like wiping my bum or sneezing are very risky. I could pull a muscle at any moment.

We’re thinking of tackling the potty training the weekend of Father’s Day. Mike says that would be one of the greatest Father’s Day gifts; to not have to change diapers for awhile! Not your typical Father’s Day request, but he is a stay-at-home dad, so it’s fitting.

We have a new house, but without all the hassle of house hunting and realtor fees. See, my darling husband refinished the wood floors, painted, added trim.

In case you have never seen the state our floors were in previously, here is a nice example:

Note the lack of trim and the paint splatters. The paint splatters are from the painting we did just before we moved in. NINE years ago. We also tore the trim off with every intention of refinishing the floors. It took us awhile but we finally did get around to it. Well I can’t really say WE. It was all Mike’s doing. He sent us out to Oklahoma so he could do it right. You can’t very well refinish hardwood floors with furniture in place and a two year old running around. I came home from the airport Monday night and was floored (pun intended) when I saw the transformation!

Here it is:

Isn’t it gorgeous? I’m so proud of my hubby. He worked his TAIL off. (Seriously, it’s gone. Nowhere to be found.) We feel like we’re living in someone else’s house, but it’s quickly becoming our new home. It’s our “home away from home”, only it’s right here!

I have always struggled with clutter and housekeeping in general. Until I heard those wise words from the FlyLady: “You can’t clean clutter!” So it begins with getting rid of the clutter. It continues with keeping the clutter out. And the peace comes when cleaning is a breeze because you don’t have to move crap around every time you need to sweep or vacuum.

I read an article in Woman’s Day recently that really summed up what I feel are all the important keys to conquering clutter and achieving a home which is not a pain in the arse to keep clean. Keep in mind when I say clean I don’t necessarily mean you can eat off the floor. Unless you’re a 2 year old in which case I say go for it.

The article is HERE if you would like to read it in its entirety, but I have highlighted my favorite parts below:

Regarding keeping clutter out:

1. Don’t fall for freebies. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean you should bring it home. Just say no.
2. Encourage time, not gifts. We’re all adults here, by now we don’t need more stuff. If someone wants to buy you something, try suggesting they take you out for coffee or putt-putt golf instead.
3. Get real with your time. I have been tempted to take up many hobbies. Scrapbooking, quilting, stamping, etc. But I do not have the time for more hobbies, and I certainly don’t have the space.
4. Shop smart. This is really important, and gets easier with practice. Don’t bring anything to the check out lane until you have thought about where you are going to keep it and how often you will really use it.

Regarding ditching the clutter you already have:

1. Cure “just for now” syndrome. A lot of times we find ourselves setting something down where it doesn’t belong, and subconsciously we are thinking it’s “just for now”. Try to realize when you’re doing that and take the extra few seconds to put it where it belongs.
2. Make kids accountable. This is huge. You can start putting kids to work at such a young age. Luke is 2 and we started involving him in throwing things away and picking up his toys at least 6 months ago. He may not do it perfectly in the way we would, but he gets the idea. It’s becoming a habit for him already. Now if he sees a piece of trash or something out of place, he takes notice and does something about it. I love it!
3. Have an exit plan. I like to keep a box or bags in the trunk of my car so that when I come across clothing or other things I want to get rid of, I take them right outside. I don’t have to make a separate trip to drop it off at the Goodwill, I just wait until the next time I happen to be in the area.

The article offered some other great suggestions regarding that countertop paper clutter:

1. Create your own accordion file to store in a drawer and keep miscellaneous things in it such as sale ads or recipe clippings. It would be for stuff that doesn’t necessarily have a permanent home but that you want to have access to in the near future.
2. Recycle the news as soon as it’s read.
3. Go through the mail the minute you bring it in (I would also suggest having a trash bin near the front door to immediately toss junk mail and envelopes).
4. Post kids’ artwork on the fridge for no longer than 1 week.
5. Display birthday cards for a maximum of 2 weeks (I prefer more like 3 days unless it’s a really funny card ).

That’s it! Those are my favorite tips for keeping a clutter free and easy to clean home! Many of these tips are habits I have already developed but many are habits I am still trying to solidify. All of them I believe are useful. Having a clutter free home (even if it’s just a room or two to start) is so rewarding. I can’t tell you how much peace I have at the end of the night to look around my home and see clear surfaces and wide open space. I can say with confidence that I will never ever go back to my cluttery ways again. I am on this track for good!