There’s just too much of it.

Too many knick-knacks that I don’t really love, but that have sentimental value.

AFTER I’d partially decluttered this shelf. Eventually ALL of this stuff went to the “holding area” in the other room.

Three clocks.  THREE! 

Three . . . clocks.

All on one shelf.

Ugh.

So I sweated through, realizing once again how physical decluttering can be.  And realizing again how thankful I am for my health and how if it was gone, I’d be stuck.

And embarrassed.

And the dirt.  Oh my word.  The dirt.  I’ve often been asked if I’m a clutter slob or a dirty slob.  I consider myself a clutter slob, but truly . . . you can’t clean if there’s clutter everywhere.  The dust behind, under (how does it get under?) and around everything was horrifying.

Horr-i-fy-ing.

My heart sank as I pulled out so much of “my” stuff and realized how much of Hubby’s stuff there is.  It’s one thing to declutter your own stuff, but another thing entirely to make decisions about someone else’s sentimental stuff. 

I was completely discouraged when Hubby got home.  But do you know what he said?  “The bedroom looks fantastic.”

Fantastic.

Even though I could open a Dust Bunny Store and have enough inventory to last me three years.  (Not that anyone would buy from a dust bunny store, but whatever.)

Even though ALL I DID was remove things and put them in another room.

Which opened up the conversation of figuring out what to do with all of his stuff.  After he saw how much of a difference it made for it to NOT be in there, the conversation was easier.  Make sense?

Now, that other room?  The one where I’m “temporarily” moving all this stuff?

It scares me to death. 

I’ve been there.  I’ve “swapped cr*p” many times in my pre-blog life.  The results were never good, and generally ended up with a continuation of the my-entire-house-is-a-disaster cycle.  That’s the reason why I don’t recommend this method for the newly changing slob. 

And today I feel scared.  I’ve already decided to give up three times this morning and talked myself out of it at least twice.

Right, that math means I’m not sure exactly what is going to happen today.  I know I’m trying to get in there sooner to start working and see how much I can get done today.  I have today and two more days this week to work on it.

We’ll see.

Day Two:

I started day two totally discouraged and unsure that it was even worth it to keep going.  But I trudged.  Meaning, I just went in and started working, even though I couldn’t imagine that finishing was ever going to be possible.

I used three newly purchased (this morning) storage tubs to separate out the kids off-season clothing so  their clothes will no longer be stored in the dish crate/table that is constantly a cause of disaster in our room.