Decluttering

Hi everyone! 

     Long time no blog!  It's been about a year, give or take, since the last time I have logged in to blog.  A lot has happened in a year, especially when you are raising children.  My son is a senior this year, we are in his final semester, the home stretch of his senior year.  Looking forward to him going to college and seeing what he does with his life.  My daughter is a sophomore this year.  She is growing up to be a beautiful young lady.  Hard to believe that I am old enough to have both a senior and a sophomore in high school!  LOL
     With both kids in high school, in a very active year round magnet program time just flies!!  I lose track of time, the days just run together.  Both of my children are in a music magnet program.  They spend lots and lots of hours a week practicing and they spend their weekends performing and competing.  Because of all of the back and forth, oh I forgot to mention that their high school is an hour away.  So back to the fact that because of their crazy busy schedule other things is life take a back seat.  In the two years we have been in this program things start to pile up in the house. 
     Yes, it's amazing how fast stuff/junk can accumulate.  Before the Holidays I kept telling myself that I would start going through the rooms and cleaning out junk that we didn't need and just reorganizing all of our stuff.  Well we had a crazy busy Holiday season so that didn't happen, needless to say.  So while on Facebook I came across a blog that was titled "40 Bags in 40 Days".  It caught my eye so I shared it.  Like I do so many things  on FB with the intentions of going back and actually reading it, but because of our schedule that usually does not happen.  So the whole idea is to spend 40 days decluttering your life.  As you probably know, Lent has started and while people give up meat, or junk food or vow not to be negative for those 40 days I decided that I would do something a little different, I would spend those 40 days decluttering my house, making things simple and I started the process tonight!
     Yes, I can be last minute with stuff like this.  If I think about it too much it won't happen.  I start to really dread the process when I think about it too much.  And lets face it, I know that once I start to dread it too much it won't happen, which is what happened back during the Holiday time.  So I picked a room, the messiest room, the one that was really starting to get to me, my office.  Now my office isn't huge, personally I really like it.  It's small and warm and can be very inviting.  Yes can be, if it wasn't for all of the clutter that had built up.  Between the laundry rack, books for my husbands school, the kids school stuff, computer and cameras and everything else that seems to end up in here, well it was going to be quite a chore!
     I decided to start at the top and work my way down.  I also gave myself a time frame so I wouldn't drag it out any longer then I had to.  And trust me, I would.  My son had practice tonight, until 9pm.  I sent my husband to go get him.  That way I didn't have an excuse to not start and I knew that they wouldn't be back for 2 1/2 hours!  I was on a mission!!!  I started in the cabinets up top and went through them all.  Lots of college books and papers, cook books, manuals, extra household supplies being stored, lots of school supplies etc..  I found stuff that I had been saving for five or six years and for no apparent reason!  I did a lot of shredding tonight!  Once I got moving it went really fast and wasn't so bad.  It felt really good to get rid of stuff that I had been holding onto for whatever reason.
I feel like I accomplished a lot in a short amount of time, I simplified my life to some degree.  This room is officially done and isn't staring me in the face anymore, and I am no longer dreading the process for the other rooms!  I was impressed at how well it went and how much I was able to get done in a limited amount of time.
     It's not too late to start decluttering your home!  You have 40 days to go through all of the rooms in your house.  Start off with one room one day as to not overwhelm yourself too much.  I intend on taking Sunday's off.  It's like Spring cleaning.  Get rid of the clutter in your life, donate what you can, yes pass the clutter on!!  I will continue on my decluttering quest and I will be posting my progress.  If you decide to give it a try please comment and let me know!   Good Luck and Happy Decluttering!