Spring Cleaning Day ONE...sort of.

So last week I posted about Spring Cleaning Week. Well, I'm still on Day One. I knew I would be going slowly but this is ridiculous!! Day one is basically decluttering the surfaces in each room in your house (but not venturing into closests/drawers yet). I knew I had a ton of junk to get rid of, but this has been even harder than I expected. Especially because I'm not really willing to put the rest of my life on hold to get this done.

I decided to start in the girls' room, because it is always such a disaster and I really want them to be able to not only pick up their room but to enjoy their own clean clear space! Perhaps that was a mistake. It was really hard to get rid of their stuff. Some of it I feel guilty about because it was a gift or something, and some of it was just too sentimental. You're supposed to sort everything into 2 boxes, a Give Away box and a Sell box. I got a Get Rid Of box (to either put into a future garage sale or dump at a thrift store, depending on what I'm up for), a Goes In Another Room box (I always need one of those), and a Maybe box for those things I think I should probably get rid of but just can't bear to.

In the girls' room, I got stuck right away when putting away the dolls/stuffed animals. I've saved a couple of old Cabbage Patch dolls and clothes, and put them in their room for Stella to play with. She has only played with them a couple of times in the last couple of years. I should get rid of them. I tried to put them in the Give Away box....but I couldn't do it. Could. Not. I actually started to cry. Yes, picture me sitting in the middle of their room completely surrounded by piles of toys and just general crap, holding these ratty old dolls and crying my eyes out. I am a mess! Thank goodness for that Maybe box, I threw them in there as quick as I could and tried to move on. That was only the beginning. It was really hard. But it wasn't all bad, there were lots of obvious things to get rid of, like dress-up clothes that were too small and/or ripped, and obvious things to keep, like dolls knit for them by their grandmother and pillows made for them by their auntie.

I've been thinking about why it was so hard for me to get rid of a lot of their stuff. Certainly some of it was guilt over getting rid of things that were gifts (even minor ones). Some of it was things they'd once enjoyed but had moved past, but for some reason reminded me of a certain period in their lives. Then there are the things from my childhood that I'd saved for them, I don't know if I am trying to cling to my childhood or what. I just took a deep breath and threw some of it into Give Away and some of it into Maybe. Once I finally finished their room I was shot. That was all I could handle for one day.

But now that it's done (other than the closets and stuff that I'll have to go through), it is so wonderful in there. I put up some of Stella's artwork on the wall that I'd been saving for that purpose. Kept just a few special items out on top of the dresser and bookshelf. Stella was in awe, she was so happy and thanked me profusely, saying, "It's so beautiful, Mommy!" over and over. :) Now it makes me feel simultaneously happy and peaceful when I go in there. It really motivated me to keep going with the rest of the house.

Of course, there have been other days where I just could not face it, days where I am stressed and upset about other things, distracted by tired grumpy children, etc...I could come up with all manner of excuses. And so it is, over a week later and still on Day One. But I am not letting myself get discouraged or give up. I am going to see this through. I know I'm doing this a lot more thoroughly than what is asked for in SimpleMom's plan for day one, but I think it's important for me. At this point I still have the master bedroom left, which I am sort of putting off because I feel zero inspiration on how to make it nice, and the guest room. The guest room is home to lots of boxes in various states of organisation from my previous decluttering attempts, the pack n play so M can nap in there, and the broken guest bed frame (the mattress is leaning up against the wall). It is truly too scary to even think about. I'll worry about that room later!

Here are some pictures. I only got pics of the girls' room and the living/dining rooms. And the living/dining "after" pictures aren't very good, sorry about that! I couldn't get a picture until after dark, and we don't have very good lighting in there!


Girls' Room:

My little helper.

The "after" doesn't look all that much more organised. The books do not seem to stay on the shelf longer than 7.3 seconds...

Stella's artwork.

Cross stitch made by my mom for my sis and I - awwwww!

Diaper changing area (no "before" pic, but trust me, there was no room for diaper changing on there!).

Living Room:

Until recently (*ahem* last week) this shelf was completely cluttered with Christmas decorations! Look how lovely and open it looks now. (Mom, recognize the bead trees?!)

Dining Room:

(I dread cleaning inside this cabinet...)

Bonus kitchen shot...This gives you a taste of the frightening state my kitchen was in, I am too ashamed to post any other pictures of this room!

STUFF!

SimpleMom is hosting Spring Cleaning Week. She did this last year and I wanted to join in, but it just wasn't realistic at that point. But this year, I am ready! I'd already started some decluttering over the past couple of weeks, but not really in any kind of organized, systematic way. I downloaded SimpleMom's e-book, though she also linked daily posts from last year, so you can certainly follow along without getting the e-book. But let's be honest, I need all the help I can get in this department...

I've been thinking a lot about STUFF lately. I have a lot of stuff. Our house is full of stuff. I'm a pretty sentimental person, so I tend to save stuff I don't need for sentimental reasons. I also have a problem with things I am saving "just in case" I need them some day, and things I am saving out of guilt (gifts, things that cost a lot of money, etc). I need to watch out for these things while I'm decluttering.

The past few months have been full of confusing things and uncertainty for our family. Through everything one of my *many* issues that has cropped up for me has been the issue of stuff. When I am stressed, and feeling a lack of certainty and/or security in my life, I start grasping desperately for STUFF. I start looking to stuff to tell me who I am, who I can be, what I can do. To help me feel secure, somehow.

I grasp the stuff I already have - I horde all of those random bits and pieces I've been collecting for years to decorate the girls' room, because someday I will use them to actually decorate their room, because that tells me I am a hip, cool mama, who throws thrifted and vintage stuff together to make something really awesome (yes, I know this thinking is NOT grounded in reality!). I horde all of that random material I've been saving to make nappies with, because that tells me I am a mama who is crafty and cares about the environment and turns old discarded stuff into super cute and useful items that people are impressed with, and even just that I am a mama who uses cloth nappies instead of disposables like "everyone else" does. (Don't ask me what type of nappy is on my peanut's precious little bum right now...) I save those funky thrifted clothes that do not fit me, because they they tell me that inside this slightly overweight body with a boring hairstyle is a skinny attractive person with a great funky style. (Really, she has to be in there somewhere! Isn't she? Hello in there?!)

I also grasp at the stuff I don't yet have - but that I need to make me happy. I am being totally honest here, though I feel a bit dumb admitting some of this stuff...I constantly search craigslist for the *perfect* stroller. Because I just don't want to have the same stroller as "everyone else" (see a theme here?), because I lived in UK and had a pram, people! I can't settle for a cheap crappy stroller! I have better taste than that! Not to mention that if I had the perfect stroller combination, then I could really live the life independent of my car that I want to live, and I would totally walk to Richmond Beach and have picnic dinners with my children all the time, and not even think twice about the long uphill trek home. Etc etc. And you know, if I just had the money to buy all organic produce and local grassfed beef and eggs from my own chickens, then I would be the kind of person I want to be, and super healthy and tasty dinners would practically make themselves in my kitchen every night! And we would all be strong and healthy and beautiful and my children would be the smartest in the land!! And you get the picture. I'm embarrassed to admit I really get caught up in thinking this way. (Please tell me I'm not the only one!)

So yeah. Stuff. After all of this reflecting on myself that I've been doing, I'm feeling a strong urge to clear out all of the clutter and make room to just breathe. All of this clutter in my heart, this grasping wildly for stuff, is suffocating. Not to mention exhausting! So I spend all of my energy on that junk instead of on the things I actually want to do.

To bring this back to what I originally was posting about...all of this thinking about stuff and my relationship with it is part of why I'm excited to do this spring cleaning thing. Like I said, I had already started trying to do some clearing and cleaning, but I really need some help and direction because this does NOT come naturally to me! :) I'm really hoping that as I pry my fingers off of all this crap in my house and life, I will stop letting it tell me what I can and can't do, who I can and can't be. I don't want to live a reactionary life, I want to live a PROACTIVE life. Why let myself be controlled by stuff? That's pretty pathetic.

I'm hoping to post through this process. I expect it will take me a lot longer than 10 days, but I'd rather take longer and truly get everything cleaned out. Stay tuned!