In case any of you haven’t noticed, it’s summer. It has been a good one, but I haven’t done much to further my deslobification process.
If anything, I’ve taken quite a stumble backwards.
But I’ll continue to trudge along, learn from my mistakes, and know that it’s worth it to keep on going.
So, even though it’s now August and time to report my decluttering progress for last month, I don’t have much to report.
I did throw away a lamp . . . .
Thankfully, I also had a sponsored post scheduled for last week that forced me to make real progress in the boys’ room. (The boys’ room that I started decluttering but never finished before the summer started.)
An example of the brilliance of this blogging-for-accountability thing I have going.
So since there isn’t a ton of decluttering to report, I thought I’d share the effects of the little that I did do:
I miss my lamp. Terribly. Even though it was broken, I’m still sad every time I see that bare end-table, and I feel irritated that its former home has so quickly been turned into hubby’s iPad charging station. Not that I blame him, because I use it to charge my laptop too.
Since there truly is a gaping hole, I feel justified looking for another lamp to replace it soon. This is kind of big, since pre-blog, it seemed anything that broke could be replaced a few times over with “extras” we already had.
As far as the boys’ room goes, I’m reminded (again) how much more I like a room, ANY room, when the floors are clear of junk. Shocker. The boys like it too, and my 7yo just told me this morning that “it’s so much easier to clean our room since we got rid of all that stuff!”
I hope that lesson sticks.
How did you do in July? Please share your decluttering progress or your frustrations in the comments, or by linking up a blog post below.
If you do link up a post, please be sure that your link goes directly to the post about decluttering and not your homepage. It is also required that you link back to me, A Slob Comes Clean. If you have questions about how to do that, just use my contact form to ask for help, and I’ll be happy to talk you through it.
And I just want to say that last month, I did visit all of the people who linked up, but was unable to comment on most due to issues with Blogger’s comments. I FEEL YOUR PAIN. You know I do, since I just switched over here to wordpress in June. I was so impressed with your posts, and hated that I couldn’t leave comments.
And just FYI, the people who linked up on the first day the decluttering update post was up last month got between 60 and 100 hits. (I’m pretty proud of that!)
I decluttered my cookbook cabinet! It was like the Rubbermaid commercial where the lady pulls the plastic container out and the wave of bowls flies at her. That’s pretty much what my cookbook cabinet looked like. Now it is all organized and I got rid of some of them (super sad face), but I’m no longer embarrassed to open it in front of people.
Oh I know that feeling!
And isn’t there something about cookbooks that makes them extra-hard to get rid of? I think it feels like you’re giving up on a dream when you admit that you’re not going to make the recipes in them! I completely understand.
You now have the mindset that you WILL get back to a decluttering schedule. When before you were all ‘to heck with it’. You WILL get there. You ARE doing a great job.
July has had me busy decluttering. I had thought that I would join in with our neighborhood yard sale day, but the HEAT! Good grief!! There was no way we could deal with that – ended up breaking heat records here. So, it’s back to my original plan of having a garage sale in August. I’ve set the date for the 26th & 27th.
Since King Turd of Poop Mountain gave me permission (I know I don’t need it… it’s just nice to have) to just get rid of stuff once we have our initial garage sale, so I have decided to do a ‘quick’ declutter. There are things that I KNOW must go. Things that are easy decisions. Then there are things that take just a little thought that can go.
I know that I’ll have to ‘touch’ stuff again & declutter AGAIN…. but, I’ve found that as I go along – and go back to those places I initially decluttered, I find MORE stuff that I can part with easily. THEN, after the garage sale, as soon as a box/bag gets filled it’ll be out the door!!! Woo Hoo!!!
Well, my house is a wreck! We have backpacks and bags all over near the front door from picnics and outings to friends’ houses and soccer games, etc. And it seems to work to just pick up a bag and sorta just repack and go. And honestly I can’t seem to keep up with all the wet towels and swimsuits. But we are having FUN! Hopefully that counts for a lot 🙂
You know – even a little progress is better than no progress. I also completely hear what you are saying about your lamp. I got rid of some (expensive) material a couple of years ago that was not being used and now am kicking myself because it would have made killer throw pillows for my living room. Oh well, we do need to get rid of some of our junk occassionally 🙂 Congratulations on your progress.
Nony,
Be kind to yourself. When your kids look back they will remember fun summers, family togetherness and a mom who was at the hub of it all.
In a mere matter of days the kiddos will be back in school and routines can be reestablished and you will all miss summer.
Enjoy your family… you deserve it.
I think there’ll be momentum lulls in any journey – just think of it like a rest stop; if you were a car you’d be stopping for gas – you’re just stopping for a little inspriation. It’s not a bad thing and it doesn’t mean you’ve stopped by any means.
I’ve only just started blogging my progress (I could kick myself, all those good kitchen cabinet and cupboard clear outs I could have photographed! Never mind, I’m enjoying the space which is probably the point…) but I do have a post I’ll be linking up later when I’m on a computer that’ll let me (hopefully virtual clutter still counts…)
I feel your pain Nony! I was so excited that I had a clean house in June, only to have to help my mother move into a smaller place in July… meaning all the stuff I had kept there from my childhood (and anything she had extras of for my kids) came over to my house. Sadly, my house is severely lacking now. Hubby’s best friend is moving in by the end of the week (we’re trying to help him out for a little while) so I really need to get my butt in gear.
On another note, do you have any strategies for getting rid of clothing, especially for kids? I remember you clearing out most of your kids clothes and leaving them with only enough outfits for the week. We have so many clothes that I have donated 10 garbage bags full of clothing (mind you, some of them were newborn clothes and my “baby” is 3) in the last 2 weeks and we still have soooooo many more. I limited my kids both to share one dresser (mainly because the other broke) and they will have 3 drawers each, and one tote of out of season clothes, but it still seems like everyone has a ridiculously large amount of clothing.
ive been sort of slacking also this summer but we have stepped it up for August!