I’m not feeling very productive today. I’ve been going, going, going . . . but I can’t see many results.
And . . . I didn’t clean the bathrooms.
Even though it’s Tuesday! Bathroom Day! I know. Shameful.
For a scatter-brain, I am strangely ruled by routine. It doesn’t make sense.
Whatever.
Anyway, I can NOT seem to work grocery shopping into my routine. Ever since I had to stop doing it on Wednesdays (you know, last AUGUST), I haven’t been able to find a time that consistently works. Monday morning, immediately after I drop the boys off at school, is the most logical.
But since I despise it so much, I often figure out a way to put it off until Tuesday morning.
So, today, I had no choice. I had to go. But that meant that we got home later, and I decided that I had to make a choice between exercising or cleaning bathrooms. (Since blogging time, of course, isn’t optional.)
I chose to exercise.
Anyway, on to the point of this ever-so-rambling post. I was determined to do some sort of deslobificating today. I shared yesterday about my acceptance of the role clothing plays in my inability to control the state of the master bedroom.
Though my closet is stuffed full of clothes, I often can’t find a single thing that I want to wear. Sometimes it’s because the good stuff is all in the End of the Bed pile, and sometimes it’s because the good stuff is invisible, crammed between the not-so-good stuff. Sometimes it’s because nothing fits, hence the need for exercise.
It’s starting to bug me. I had been looking with disgust at my over-full closet for a while now, and in my mind I kept thinking things like:
I bet I could get rid of 3/4 of what’s in here.
There is no reason to keep things that I never ever choose to wear.
Now that I have laundry somewhat under control, I simply don’t need these last-resort-outfits.
So, today, I thought it would be easy to just grab ten things to get rid of. Y’know, so I’d have something to blog about.
Ten little old things.
But somehow, it was incredibly difficult. EVERY SINGLE ITEM that I grabbed caused severe doubts.
The What-ifs were flowing freely through my brain. But I did it.
If I had to do ten more today, I don’t know if I could.
Sometimes, I really irritate myself.
Isn't it interesting how there are times when it seems you can really clean things out, then you hit a road block of some sort, and just can't do it?
So true!
Hi Nony,
I have been following your blog for a few months, after reading the entire thing through from the beginning! I was wondering if you are still using your daily checklist? Would you be willing to post about that aspect of housekeeping once in a while? You used to write about your daily tasks often. I understand that for you now it is an established habit, but I think it would be a good reminder to all us messies that we need to keep going on those daily things, or the bigger things can't happen. Thanks for sharing your journey!
Carlyn
Good suggestion, Carlyn. Many of the things on the checklist have become habits, but there are also some that easily fall by the wayside if I don't physically check it off daily.
I will try to post it more. Sometimes I thought it must be tedious to readers for me to post that daily, but if it would help you (and I know it would help me) I should get back to it.
“Though my closet is stuffed full of clothes, I often can’t find a single thing that I want to wear. Sometimes it’s because the good stuff is all in the End of the Bed pile, and sometimes it’s because the good stuff is invisible, crammed between the not-so-good stuff. Sometimes it’s because nothing fits, hence the need for exercise.”
I could write this! and my hubby… he is terrible at leaving clothes on the dresser or floor. I have one or two lol
I’m still a year behind on catching up on posts, so perhaps you’ve been able to declutter the clothes from the closet since then! But one idea I’ve seen in a bunch of places is to hang all of your hangars backwards (or if your closet won’t allow that, to hang all of your clothes inside out). Once you wear something, the hangar goes back to going the right way (or the item gets hung up right-side out). At the end of six months, you donate whatever hasn’t been worn (I guess with some wiggle-room for off-season items, etc.). I haven’t actually tried that, because I think I actually am pretty good about culling my closet, but I’m getting to the point where I need to do it again and I just might try that this time.
Something else that I just did in my own closet was put some command hooks on the wall. That way after I wear something once but it can be worn again (like jeans, which I always wear twice), it gets hung on the hook. Then it’s not back with the super-clean clothes but it’s also not getting wrinkled. In theory, this should work a lot better than my previous method, which was leaving those clothes on the floor!