Clutter control

Yesterday I watched the Oprah show-believe it or not dad, I don't watch this every day. (My dad likes to joke that I sit at home eating bon bons-remember those?-and watch Oprah all day long now that I'm a stay at home mom and housewife.) A few times a week I flip to it and if it's interesting I'll watch it. Yesterday they had a segment, that is going to be a regular this season, on cleaning up your home. I was sooo excited because despite my anal type-A personality, I struggle, and have struggled, with this my entire adult life. (Literally-I got my first place when I was 21) I don't know why, but I do. Ever since I got that first apartment, every few months or more often, I would find myself leaving for work, looking in at the apartment and longing to take the day off of work to stay home and clean. Feeling the stress of having everything out of place and messy. Now that I'm home all the time, every few months-or more often-I find myself calling up John or talking with him when he comes home and mentioning to him that I feel so much stress from the messy house and wish I could just drop Anne off for the day and clean the house. 6 years of this and still I don't change. My habit is to keep thing clean, but messy. (And there is a difference.) Once a week or once every 2 weeks I'll do a good tidying up and the house will look nice for about half a day. And every few months I get an urge to purge and will tackle some area of the house and toss and donate almost everything there. (I just took 3 garbage bags full of stuff to Goodwill the other day.) Still, I can't keep the house clean and mess free. The other day it sort of hit me that what bothers me is no matter how neat and clean and non-messy we get the house, it is still cluttered. We still have little baskets everywhere collecting things. We still have nice neat piles of papers on John's desk. I still have piles on the kitchen table-neatly stacked of course-of magazines, coupons and mail. Clutter, clutter everywhere and not a place is neat.

So yesterday's show was inspiring and comforting. It felt good to know that I wasn't alone if Oprah is willing to dedicate an entire season to the topic. Basically, the plan is that you sign up online to receive monthly emails from Oprah's clean up guru. He gives you a list of homework assignments every month, and he guarantees that if you follow and do what he says your house will be free of clutter and clean in 6 months. He says the reason he's different is because he has a systematic plan-unlike my sporadic cleaning binges I go on every few weeks. I am so excited and hopeful to actually start and get things done. I haven't received an email yet, but when you sign up he gives you an assignment to get you going and the assignment is to spend 10 minutes a day doing the "trash bag tango". Basically picking any area in your house (and eventually radiating out to the rest of your house) and spending 10 minutes throwing things away and gathering things to donate. You put both things in trash bags so that the clutter is contained there. He says in a week you'll notice a difference, in 2 weeks everyone will notice, and in a month you'll be on top of the clutter. I did this yesterday and it felt so good. I spent probably 20 minutes and got a little Jewel bag full of trash and half a big trash bag to donate. I cleaned off the shelf in our catch-all-storage closet and a tiny book shelf in the guest room. It felt really good-like I was making progress and maybe this would actually work! It is really hard to part with things though. I probably gathered 15 books to donate off that book shelf. It's hard knowing I spent the money on those books, they were once useful to me, but I simply cannot hold on to them any longer because I know I will never use them again. It's hard to decide to give them away. But at least for me, I find that if I do hang on to stuff I don't need, I constantly ask myself every time I see that object if I really need it. I tell myself I haven't used it in X time. (For instances these books I am giving away-haven't opened them in 3-4 years!) I might not use it ever again and if I do use it, it won't be for several more years (for example-I found some beads I was going to use on a project last night. I haven't touched them in 3 years and I debated keeping them because maybe someday when Anne is between the ages of 5-7 she might use them. What? I'm not keeping $10 worth of beads because Anne might use them in 2 years! That's crazy! Yet, I spent a good 2 minutes debating this in my head.)

Anyway, that's what's been obsessively running through my head the past day. I do have to give kudos to John because like the vegetarian thing and the budget thing, he is completely on board and completely supportive. It means so much to me that he is. He isn't just sitting in the sidelines, but he is committed along with me to keep our house clean as well as support me as I toss stuff. Thank you baby-your support means the world to me! I'll keep you updated as I make more progress! Thanks for reading this incredibly long blog-is your coffee cold yet?