Happy New Year! I know its a little late. There has been a lot going on around here, I’ve been working on a million projects. If you haven’t noticed, one of the things I have been working on is the new look for my Blog. I enlisted the help of someone far more techy than I, HTML is not one of my strengths. It makes my brain hurt just thinking about it. I’m still ironing out a few things, If you notice something not working as it should let me know!
The New Year seems to be the time when people start thinking about getting organized. It has definitely been on my mind lately, as I shuffle one junk pile to another. You know those piles of bits and bobs that don’t really have a home? So you keep shuffling around, and every time you look the pile is bigger. Is it just me or does it seem like junk just miraculously multiplies?
When we purchased this house we immediately dove in to a massive renovation/addition that took a little more than two years to complete. During that time the majority of our stuff was in storage, and what wasn’t kept getting shuffled around. There wasn’t any place to put anything, things got lost and broken. The running joke in our house when someone asked where something was “in a box somewhere!” I was ever so grateful to unpack all my stuff. As I unpacked things, I started to realize I didn’t need all this stuff. Why do we keep all this stuff? I purged a lot of things, had couple yard sales and gave the rest to Good will. Now two years later I still feel over run with stuff, where did all this stuff come from? At the moment its making me crazy! My house is far from an episode of hoarders, although I feel its headed down that path sometimes.
I’ve decided I’m going to go through every inch of my house, purge and organize everything. No nook or cranny is safe! I’m unofficially calling it Operation clean up or get rid of your crap! Catchy, No? The Plan, if it meets one or more of the following criteria its going.
1) No one has used it in year or more, and not likely to be used again. The exception would be tools or some seasonal items etc.
2) If its broken or missing pieces. Lets face it, if its been sitting around for months or years even and no one fixed it. It’s not likely to happen.
3) Multiples. Sure its great to have two or three pairs of scissors, but no one needs 17 pairs!
4) If there is no place to put it. If I really want to keep it, something else will have to go.
5) If I don’t love it. Why am I keeping things I don’t love?
I started with the Christmas decorations. I know some of you as soon as Dec.26 was here, you couldn’t wait to rip down the tree and have everything put away. I’m one of those people who likes to wait until after New years, and then I’m still not in a hurry to do so. I’ve had my decorations stored in Rubbermaid type bins for several years. I wasn’t able to get everything in them and they were sort of a mess. I started by pulling everything out of them and sorted the decorations in to piles by color. Then sorted the piles by the criteria above. I got rid of a lot of things I just wasn’t using anymore. I kept a few sentimental ornaments, and put them in a keepsake box. No, I didn’t keep every macaroni ornament, just a few special ones. You just can’t keep everything.
Next grabbed a big box of large Ziploc bags, I used them to keep like or similar items together. I ditched all the boxes that the ornaments came in, and put them in Ziploc bags. The boxes were taking up too much space, and after a few years they start to fall apart. I also used the bags for the mini lights as well. I rolled them up gently, to prevent them from tangling before putting them in the bags. I labelled all the bags, so next year when I decorate I remember what goes in what bag.
I put the decorations back in to the bins. I layered the floral sprigs on the bottom, garland, ribbon, bead strands and lastly the tree ornaments on top. I put several colors together in the same box, how they would be most used. I didn’t want to be digging through bins to find certain items.
I made some labels, laminated them and attached them to the bins.
These two over sized bins hold all the larger items, table top décor, lights, the tree and my evergreen garlands.
I filled out my decoration inventory list and added it to my Christmas planner. Then I know exactly what I have and where it is. No more emptying whole bins to find what I’m looking for. All my bins stack neatly under my stairs, not to be disturbed until next year. One project down, 999,999 to go! Well maybe not that many 😉