Paring Down - Week 4

Ok, so our study wasn't quite this bad. Well at least not this obviously bad. We're better at hiding disorganization in unorganized files, "To File" boxes, and paper bags marked "Recycle," "Shred," or "Sort." But it's just a disguise, because our paper clutter is bad, has always been bad. Because I hate this part of organization. Sorting paper requires hours of work to get visible results. I'd rather wash the dishes. But I did manage to get through some of our files this week, resulting in a couple bags of recycling. I decided that counting them individually would be kind of cheating, so I just counted the bags, resulting in this week's total of:

1 unworking fan
89 office supplies
6 magazines
12 books
2 bags of paper

So my total for the week is 110 things, making my total for the month of January 423 things. I hit my goal! (And I didn't even get to every room of the house.) I feel good about that. But what's unsatisfying is that it only made me realized more clearly how many unused and useless things we keep in our home. 423 things gone and probably no one would notice except for Ryan, and maybe visitors who have poked around in our cupboards ;-) These uneccesary things only clutter our lives and take time away from things that really matter. Though we'll never live like this (thanks for the interesting article Teal), I do want to continue to take small steps towards getting rid of things that aren't regularly used and minimizing the constant flow of "stuff" through our home.

If you're interested in more minimal living, check out these blogs I've found helpful:
Rowdy Kittens
Becoming Minimalist
Simpler Living (this post is especially funny)
Miss Minimalist

Paring Down - Week 3

Down to the wire this week! 4 1/2 hours to go and I just hit 100. This week I finished going through our room, and then focused on (but didn't finished) the study. This might be the room in our house with the most excess crap. It's truly ridiculous, like I was sorting through magazines that were 5-10 years old. And thanks to the mags, I hit 100 things in no time (which was good because it meant I got to share a bowl of Starbucks java chip ice cream sooner with my hubby). So this week I got rid of:

15 items of my clothing
33 of my books
3 more of Riley's books
49 magazines

Those items make a nice round 100 things for the week and 313 things total. 87 things to go (though I think the study will provide more than 87 opportunities to chuck stuff).

Paring Down - Week 2

The quest is still going well! I tackled the bathroom this week, and thanks to a friend's post, got rid of 67 things (not that you would notice unless you regularly look in our cabinets because we probably still have too much stuff, but it still feels good). In total this week, I trashed, gave away, sold, or traded:

67 toiletries
4 linens
32 infant/toddler clothes

Which makes my total 213! 187 things to go before the end of January. Whatever doubts I had about the ease of getting rid of this much stuff are now laid to rest. Don't tell Ryan, but I should do this more often.

Paring Down - Week 1

As I mentioned in this post, one of my New Year's resolutions is to get rid of 100 things every week in January. This week, I started in the kitchen and moved on to Riley's room and, quite easily, got rid of 110 things!

Gone:
utensils - 45
small appliances - 9
food - 10
food magazines - 13
Riley's clothes - 20
Riley's books - 13

Gone: 110
To Go: 290

New Years Resolution - Paring Down

I spent one evening last week reading blogs about minimalist living. I already feel like we have too much stuff (even after a big garage sale purge last summer), so reading about the advantages of minimalist living was a "oh yea, that's another good reason" experience. I know that we will never be a family that truly lives minimally, but paring down would be nice. Less stuff, less cleaning, more reusing. It all sounds nice.

So, while reading the story behind Rowdy Kittens, I decided that instead of only keeping 100 things (which is what they did and what we will never do), I could at least get rid of 100 things. So, one of my New Years resolutions is to get rid of 100 things every week during the month of January. My math whiz of a husband responded, "Wow, Jen. That's like getting rid of 400 things! Can we really do that?!" I think so, but we'll see. I just had to promise him that I wouldn't get rid of any of his things.

So my plan is to go room by room and sort things for keeping, next summer's garage sale (which I know isn't really getting rid of them yet, but at least they'll be in a box in the attic rather than out and about in the house), resale (used children's clothes stores, Buffalo Exchange, etc.), and Goodwill. Can we do it? 400 things? We'll see.

Resolutions

I'm a big believer in New Year's Resolutions, though I fail at as many as I keep (if not more). Having an external reason to start fresh is invigorating, kinda like a big clothing sale makes buying something you don't need and may not wear more exciting ... and you may actually wear it more because it was "such a good deal". My husband doesn't buy this logic, but I think it's pretty sound.

So, New Year's resolutions:
1. Write more (ergo this blog and a children's writing program I just started)
2. Spend more time reflecting (I'm hoping this will make me grow up more quickly, but I'm not sure that's a realistic hope)
3. Learn to love my husband more like I love my daughter, unconditionally
4. Eat more real food (http://realfood.info/)
5. Do yoga more often ... makes me feel so good, inside and out
6. Lose the rest of the pregnancy weight by spring break (not really a goal I want to make public, but oh well)

Six goals is enough, right? Too many maybe? I don't know. And I don't know why I'd be more motivated this year than I was last year or the year before or the year before that. But I do want to live a better life, truly I do, and I think getting better at these things would help me do that.

The difficult part is coming up with strategies to keep my goals. My strategies rarely work because the desire I feel for something in the moment (vegging in front of the TV, baking and eating chocolate cake, thinking about yoga instead of doing it ... maybe all of these at once?) is almost always a stronger feeling than my desire to meet my long term goal of actually being a healthier person. I guess I'm hedonistic that way. But resolution means to solve again right? Re = again. So I guess that's the point of New Year's resolutions, to try, once again, to tackle things I've failed at before.

So here we go 2010!