It’s not every day that you make a decision to get rid of half of your belongings.  As you can imagine, this process is stressful, painful, and time consuming, yet liberating.  Today I had to say goodbye to my stoneware and some nice children’s books.       

I really liked the stoneware, but didn’t use it much.  I guess that’s kind of obvious since I’ve owned it for 14 years and it looks new.  lol  The salad bowls were perfect though.  And don’t worry.  I’m not selling all of my children’s books.  Teaching has allowed me to collect hundreds of books.  There are so many wonderful books with awesome illustrations.

That’s what I’ve been doing.  Soon my house will be sparse and decluttered.  Perhaps next week I can take a picture of the monster moving sale piles.  Then you’ll wish you lived near by.  

What are you tackling?

image by Karen

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The place where we will be living will be significantly smaller than the house we live in now.  We don’t really need all the possessions that we have.  It’s just very time consuming and painful (sometimes) to sort through everything and to make decisions to part with items. 

The hardest items for me to part with are my teaching items.  I have taught for about 8-9 years (I’ve lost count, lol).  As you can imagine, I’ve collected quite a bit of curriculum, craft supplies, musical instruments, math manipulatives, children’s books, and other things along the way.  If I go back to teaching, I’m not sure which grade I’ll be teaching.  Some of the items I have are expensive and hard to come by.  I’m determined though to see this through and to make some sacrifices.

The picture above shows the boxes for my moving sale.  Trust me, this is only a small portion of what will be in the sale.  Sad, I know.  I already have about 10 boxes of things ready.  We will be selling furniture, children’s clothes, children’s books, toys, books, knicknacks, and so much more! 

This picture is of the other side of my basement. 

I can’t believe I’m being this vulnerable and showing you my mess!  Notice this picture is not displayed on the front page of Thrifty Mommy.    This mess is a result of being a mom that is stretched thin.  I have a 2 and 4 year old.  Getting down to my basement and working is not easy!!!!  I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I have started sorting through our things to have a kid at the top of the stairs screaming or crying and shaking the gate.  Now we have no gate, so they just come down there with me.  I’ll put stuff in the yard sale pile and they’ll start pulling it back out.  “Why are you getting rid of this?  What’s this for?”  Ahhhhh!  If only I could afford a sitter.  :sigh: 

This messy project is for this coming week.  Wish me luck! What are you tackling?

images by Karen 

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I had my photo boxes and I was all set to go.  But then I saw that tote of photos, the photo albums, the envelopes of somewhat assorted and organized photos and walked away.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  What a daunting task!

Last night, I finally got up enough courage to begin the huge task of organizing the photos.  The thought of moving into another home with this unorganized mess really bothered me. 

I’m on my way to getting the job done, but it’s not an easy one since I have no real work space other than my kitchen counter.  I’m honestly afraid to work at the kitchen table because I have very curious 2 and 4 year olds in the house. 

So, this is what I’m doing – sorting photos, separating doubles to disperse between the grandparents, sorting negatives, and all that stuff.  No more putting photos in bags or leaving them in the envelopes from the store.  What a job it is!!!!!  Thankfully, now that I finally have my own digital camera, I’m just saving the pictures to cd.  I have to wonder though . . . is my second child going to be upset that all of his pictures are on cd and not in print?  Just one of the concerns in the back of my mind.  I’m sure it will be fine. 

What are you tackling?

Tackle it Tuesday is at 5 Minutes for Mom.

photo by Karen

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How about you? What hotspot are you going to tackle today?

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Here is a picture of my clutter spot.  It has been haunting me for two years.  Each day I see it and it makes me feel unorganized and burdened.  I feel as though I have too much to do and I’ll never get it all done.  No matter how many times I go through the papers to file, toss, and shred, the pile is never gone.

 
I’ve been wanting to move all of these papers to my laundry room bookcases and this week my hubby helped to tackle the problem.

I kept trying to get rid of this eye sore, but the truth is, I needed all of this stuff.  I just needed a place to put it where it wasn’t so unattractive.  Now it’s in my laundry room and it’s still accessible.  It’s just out of my kitchen which makes for a much more pleasant environment.

Another bookcase in the laundry room got more organized too. Things had to be moved around to make room for the mail and bills. We have a large laundry room so we use it to keep the kid’s puzzles, games, and such.

Tada . . . here is my clean kitchen counter. I’m so pleased. It’s amazing how something so minor could make such a difference in my life.It’s hard to believe I sent Julie, from Declutter It, this picture nearly a year ago. (Oops, I was wrong.  It was back in November.)  It feels good to get things under control. Maybe now I won’t procrastinate so long. Sometimes it just feels like you can’t figure out how to get something done and you need a little help from someone else. Yay for hubby!

What have you been tackling this week?

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If there is a chore that I will procrastinate it is definitely paper clutter.  I absolutely hate going through papers, reading them, filing them, shredding them, recycling them.  Ugh!!!! All of the Christmas shopping, decorating, wrapping, and get togethers made it a bit too easy for me to put the paper clutter on hold.  So today I worked on tackling the mounding pile(s). 

I spent several hours today tackling the mound.  Now I have a backache from sitting on the floor.  It was so bad that I didn’t take any pictures to share with you.  lol  The kitchen counter and table look much better now.  Now, if I could just get my checkbook caught up to date.  :sigh:

What chore do you absolutely hate tackling?

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What are you tackling this week? 

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