AN INTERESTING BLOG ABOUT CLUTTER

Yesterday I saw an interesting magazine article about de-cluttering our homes, our lives, our garages, our computers, and our calendars. Since that was one of my New Year's resolutions, I read the article with interest. The woman's name is Lori and she has a blog that seems to be very interesting and right up my alley with suggestions for de-cluttering almost everything. You might be interested in visiting her at http://www.clutterdietblog.com/.

One of my unplanned efforts at de-cluttering happened last week when our living room flooded. We had to move two large bookcases and I decided it was time to eliminate a bunch of things so that the bookcases would not look so cluttered. My biggest problem is letting go of some family heirlooms that I have inherited from my grandmothers, my mother and an aunt who died several years ago. I hate to turn loose of those things, but I can see that they definitely add to my cluttered look. My sister is a master at arranging things artfully, but mine just looks like CLUTTER! Sis, can you come over and give me a hand at rearranging my clutter--or just eliminating it??

Anyway, I hope to learn some good things on Lori's blog about de-cluttering my house.

100 Things Challenge

I recently ran across the following challenge in a blog and thought about it for a time. Here was the introduction:

100 Things Challenge: cut your personal possessions down to 100 things?
Why go through the challenge? A few reasons:
To help you declutter your home.
To make you realize what’s necessary, and what you love, and what you don’t need.
To free yourself of the burden of possessions.
For fun.
To force you to stick to the limit, even if you get new things.
If you have a minimalist streak in you, you might want to give it a try. If you’re really minimalist, you might even want to go below 100 — perhaps 50.

I am definitely not a minimalist since I struggle with being a pack rat and having way too much stuff, but I would like to concentrate on decluttering my home. I decided that I could NOT cut my personal possessions down to 100 things, but I could definitely discard 100 things. I had been pondering the idea for a day or two when I spotted a belt in my closet that I have had for YEARS and have NEVER worn. I decided that belt was my first item to discard and I would not stop until I had at least 10 items from my closet in a discard pile. Next I looked around my bedroom and found 10 more items. Then I was digging around in the back of a kitchen cabinet and found 5 more items that I could live without. By that time I had three sacks ready to go to Goodwill, so off I went. Now I am going to work on my next 25 item discard by cleaning out another messy kitchen cabinet.

Hopefully, by the time I reach my goal of discarding 100 things I will have a cleaner closet and kitchen cabinets. Next on my list would be to move The 100 Things Challenge out into my garage, and if you have ever seen our garage you will know what I mean! However, hubby and I might come to blows on that issue! He has not yet heard about this 100 Things Challenge that I have entered into.