Tuesday, November 3, 2009

De-clutter




So yesterday I took a day off from work. I've got some home projects to do and sometimes a weedend is simply not enough.

This month, I am on a project to de-clutter my house. There is stuff everywhere!

On Saturday, as I lay on my couch drinking coffee, I decided to make a plan and tackle it.

First came analysis of the problem. What caused the most clutter in the house?

Clothes. Clothes. Clothes.

Every laundry basket was filled with them. Towels, men's shirts, single socks, and of course my clothes.

My boys may have moved out of the house but you could not tell looking at the laundry and their closets. Full of clothes.

Don't get me wrong. I am the biggest culprit in my house. I can fill a laundry basket faster than you can say yo yo mama. After a long day from work, I come home and yank out my heels or boots. The jacket and the bra goes next. Into the laundry basket. If I am wearing tight clothes, I shed them off and go for a mumu like dress. 

In my 20s and 30s, I giggled at the mumu dresses. So unflattering! But in 40's I don't care. I want to be comfortable at home. So the dresses "I would never be caught in that" became "comfort! comfort! Who cares if I get caught in them? They should not be coming to my house uninvited anyways."

But I digress. So not only do I have my daily work clothes to wash, I have my daily mumus. Not to mention the nightly pj's. The laundry baskets fill up fast!

Since I have only one washer and dryer at home I have to do laundry in a linear manner. Can't really do all the laundry at the same time. Unless I go to a laundrymart.

So after drinking coffee, I spent many hours on Saturday surfing the web for local laundrymarts. And surfing for other things. Then I go distracted with something else and decided that the 6 hours of analysis was too overwhelming and I needed to de-stress. So I took a nap.

Needless to say, nothing was accomplished that day.

Because I am smart and know that I will never ever be able to win the war against laundry, I decided to tackle the next biggest clutter invoking thingie in my house.

Books. Hundreds and thousands and millions of books. 

Unfortunately my Son 1 inherited the book collecting gene from me. So we have 2 peeps in the house collecting books. But he is smart and keeps all his books in his room. Mine are everywhere. EVERYWHERE! In the bedroom, under the couch, under the bed, in cute little fancy baskets, in the garage, on table tops, blah, blah, blah.

Oye. I felt overwhelmed and since I had the Monday off, decided to put it off for a day and tackle it then. And yes I napped.

I am a very smart person. So on Monday, I got up early, exercised and then tackled the books in the garage. I rearranged the books I need to take at the half price book store, and found an old book that I decided to reread.


Because I am allergic to dust, an allergy attack soon came, I took some strong allergy meds and took a ... what? You tell me what I did.


Sigh.


So tell me. Do you have clutter in your house? How do you handle it? Do you think I can be saved?






10 comments:

mythopolis said...

Yes, I like to de-clutter the house...that way I can go out hunting for more brand new clutter! But, now let's get to the part about your dressing and un-dressing rituals. I have a keen sociological and purely academic interest in this subject, so please elaborate!! : )

BLOGitse said...

Our home is in order and clean, always. hahah, joking!
Normal clutter makes you feel at home, homelyclutter.

I guess I know what you mean by 'the mumu dresses' - but pls explain me, thanks!
Is mumu a granny?

Elizabeth said...

You can totally get through this! My husband and I got rid of 500 books earlier this year, and now we will be able to move much easier. We also got a really nice chunk of change from that.

Clothes? Eh, can't help you with that one! I tend to keep everything too.

Nicole said...

Nah,no clutter at all in our house.....

...uhm....

????

well..... not in THIS one..... YET....
and Hungary doesn't count.

Not much there.


Since it's all in STORAGE....MWWWWAaAHHHHHHHAAA ;)

And no mumu dresses here, but lots of comfy shirts, pants and hopefully soon some T-Shirts for at night and Sweat pants again.

Janice / Dancing with Sunflowers said...

Oh How I wish my sons had inherited the book gene! I'm afraid I'm not the right person to be advising on decluttering. Books in unhealthy quantities. Clothes all fit in the wardrobes and drawers and kept in order, but I don't like to throw them out. And in addition to books and clothes I have craft materials.
I'm sure there is hope for you, but I wouldn't rush into any decisions. Think it through, then sleep on it!

Janice / Dancing with Sunflowers said...

@Nicole - and a white silk evening dress. :D

Crone and Bear It said...

We are so related! I have books everywhere and today 7 more arrived in the mail. Between Amazon.com and BookMooch and of course school, my rooms are filling up. I've been taking some older books to the HalfPrice bookstore and selling them but it's so hard to part with them. Yes I live amidst clutter. My kitchen drawers are a nightmare - my home office is more a crap room and my dresser drawers are full of things like receipts instead of socks. Gah...at least I cleaned out my closet recently. I need a 12 step clutter program...

Sumit said...

BOOKS!! I barely have time to read, but somehow cruel friends always point out sales and discounts to me. Hence, I bought about 10 books last week, simply because the store had a flat 50% sale.

Now, my room is sooper-cluttered! HECK!!

Scriber's Web said...

Mythos: Hah ha. I don't think so:)

Blogitse: Mumu dress is a very loose dress that some grannies wear. It makes you look fat and it very colorful:) I'll try to find a photo and post it here.

Elizabeth: Thanks for visiting and commenting! I have clothes in every size! And books are everywhere! I can't wait to give them all away!

Nicole: I've considered moving to another country and a new house just to get rid of it all:)

Janice: Welcome back! Oh yes! I haven't even mentioned my craft supplies! Paints, pots and pans, easel, canvas etc. etc! I will never win this battle! Sigh!

Croneandbearit: Sigh. What is it with the book lovers? They never part with books. As I started sorting, I started rereading them! At this rate, I'll never finish anything! I've never heard of bookmooch. Will have to check it out:)

Sumit: Wow. That sounds like great sale. Books are so much cheaper in India too! So lucky! I am jealous. Hope you have time some day soon to read them:)

Anonymous said...

I am in the middle of tackling clutter too. And I have not had 1 nap yet! You have it down girl. Just like you, books and laundry are my clutter culprits. Both my daughters inherited the book gene!