Getting Organized

Last week when I had my little "mini-vacation" at my girlfriend's glorious apartment, one of the things that particularly struck me was how organized and un-cluttered it is. Granted, she's a single woman with no kids, so she's way ahead of me in terms of organizational and de-cluttering potential. However, being there did inspire me to pare down our belongings, and get our things completely organized, once and for all. My plan is to go through our house, room by room, being completely brutal and getting rid of things we've been hanging onto for too long, and finding permanent homes for the things we actually do want to keep. I've been wanting to do this for quiet some time now, but I've never had a good, solid plan before. This feels good, doable.

We started this morning with our bedroom. I was amazed at the things that I unearthed that we've been storing for no particular reason. We've got one huge Rubbermaid bin, almost full now, of "things" to give away, a garbage bag almost full of garbage, and another bag of clothing to donate. And that's just our bedroom.

It's going to take some time to make our way through the entire house. And some areas, like our basement, will take a lot longer than others. I think I'm leaving the basement for the very end...I shudder to think what's waiting for me down there.

I am happy and excited about the prospect of finally getting this done. In the aftermath of Christmas, I'm looking around our house and seeing that we have WAY too much stuff. Some of that I have to accept - we've got kids, and there's a certain amount of "accessories" that go along with them. But anything not necessary to our lives at this point is going to be vacating the premises.

I can hardly wait to feel lighter.