Getting Busy

Tad's been gone for 5 days now, and I've been working hard on  my decluttering/dejunking regime. On Wednesday Hailey and I dropped a whole trunkload of things at the Youth Ranch Thrift store and dumped a huge, heavy bag of trash into the dumpster. There are still more things on both my mental and written list, but that was just one afternoon of brainstorming and gathering, and mostly one room. Now, I haven't ever had lots of anything, and I'm not a hoarder, but sometimes I look around at things and think, "I really don't need that", or "That could go away", or "I have too much stuff in here" (usually when I'm in my scrapbook room). I've moved around enough in my life that the thought of storing and stashing lots of useless items gives my tummy a twist. I detest clutter--visual, mental, aural--so I'm always looking for things to remove. Putting things away properly usually helps, but sometimes I just have to let things go. It's such a cathartic action. Even though on the surface of, say the kitchen, things don't look much different, I know that the excess is gone. It makes me feel free and light. I love that feeling.

I'm always careful to never declutter/dejunk things belonging to my family. They have stewardship over their own things. I did, however, ask Hailey to spend a couple of days working on her room last week, and she did me proud. She hauled an even bigger and heavier bag to the trash than I did. We have now established that there is actually carpet on her bedroom floor, and even what the color is. Yay for her!

There is still much to do, and I know I don't have to do it all at once, but getting started is the thing. Keeping things going is also the thing. One of my goals is to have my scrapbook room decluttered, stored and organized in such a way that it could be in a photo shoot for a magazine. I don't WANT it in a magazine, I just want it to be PRETTY enough to be in a magazine. I've got the storage, I just need to manage the contents. I did a big dejunk in there a couple of years ago, and it felt great! So great that I want to do it again. It's going to be my summer project.

Here are pictures of the different areas of my scrapbook room.

The craft storage closet--definitely the biggest part of the problem. See the pathetic pile of baby quilt tops and backs? I don't have a way to quilt them. Evie will be here this week and I can't even use them with her. That's a problem I need to solve. Also, the clear fronts of the drawers cause visual clutter. It's nice to see what is in the drawers, but it would also be nice to have them covered in some way. That's another problem I need to solve.

 Scrapbook table--good. Not a problem here

 Sewing table--also good.

Bookshelf containing scrapbook & card magazines, scrapbooks, CDs,  papers to file--could be a problem here.

 Computer table--This sometimes looks worse, sometimes better. I need to file more regularly.

Scrapbook storage. This is great. I love this storage area.

So there is my summer project--make this room look a little neater,  more organized and a little more polished.