Keeping the Home by Lori Seaborg - Decluttering and the Colossal Clutter Clean Up Challenge

Keeping the Home by Lori Seaborg

Friday, January 5, 2007

Decluttering and the Colossal Clutter Clean Up Challenge

A reader asked me to write more about decluttering. That is one of my favorite subjects, too, so I do have more to say on it! I've learned so much through the past decade about decluttering.

When newly married, Tim and I lived in a one bedroom apartment and had one chair, one t.v., and a mattress on the floor of the one bedroom. Not long after that, we moved to a HUGE - in our eyes - 1200 square foot house. Over the next 12 years, we filled it not only with things, but also with children! It was while living in that Very Little - in our eyes, the house shrunk drastically over the years - house that I had to learn a lot about decluttering. Reading from FlyLady helped out a lot.

It was freeing for me to learn, from FlyLady, that I do not have to have a garage sale. For me, garage sales are not worth the time it takes to do one, or the clutter that piles up while waiting to do one. You may live in a neighborhood that has a community sale, or you may enjoy having a garage sale, so decide what works for you.

Instead of a garage sale, I like to be creative in giving away the items. It's fun for me to decide what to do with our extra things. Sometimes, a friend or acquaintance will get the items. I often pray that I'll know who to share with. Once I loaded up the back of our trunk on the way to a homeschool day in the park and asked the moms to help themselves. The local Waterfront Rescue Mission gets many items from us (they have been wonderful to the community during hurricanes. The Salvation Army is also great during hurricanes, by the way); sometimes I'll place an item on our local Freecycle, as we did a couple of weeks ago when we wanted to give away a large weight bench system. For homeschool books, or educational items, I now use the list I started, called Free Homeschool.

We have family coming in on Monday for a - very late - Christmas, so I need to get back to work on preparing for that. But I wanted to be sure to give you a link to the Clean Heart, Clean Home site, which is wonderful. Starting January 7th, the Colossal Clutter Clean-Up is beginning at that site. If you have an overwhelming amount of decluttering to do (I've been there, too, you're in fine company! ;D), please check that out.

Note: If you just want some cleaning or decluttering encouragement, visit the blog of the Clean Heart, Clean Home challenge. Be sure to look at the Side Bar for free printables and devotional pages. I love that blog!