My New Obsession

Ever since I cleaned out our PTO Cabinet at school, I've been wanting to purge, purge, purge!! I can't get my hands on enough areas soon enough! I'm trying to slow myself down and make permanent habits that last longer, but I can't help it. I'm flexing my Super Woman muscle again and you just can't hold me back. We took advantage of the holiday weekend and cleaned our storage room! Talk about purging! I so believe what Peter Walsh from "Clean Sweep" says, "Don't organize clutter...get rid of it!"



I often get my house looking good on the "outside", meaning, what you see can look picked up. But if you were to open a closet or a cabinet, or a drawer, you'd see how organized I really was. My storage room was one of those areas that needed to be gone through. Now we are looking for ways to get rid of all the trash! We're using our neighbors and adding extra bins to the curb, hoping they will take it away!! But in the meantime, it's sitting in my dining room waiting to go out the garage door nearby. Getting a huge charge out of cleaning my storage room, I'm making a list of the other "hidden" areas of my house that need purging and organizing. Today, I tackled my closet in the foyer. It's not all the way done...I still need to go through the hat and glove box (which should have been brought downstairs during the summer!) and the jackets.
As you can see, this closet is overloaded. One of my favorite things to do is to move the items that aren't used as much, out of prime areas. I moved all the games (we mostly play in the winter) up to Ben's closet which is almost bare on the shelves. I kept the puzzles because the kids love to play with them but I don't want them in their reach or puzzle pieces go EVERYWHERE!! I took all our pool stuff (beach bag and inner tube) and stored it downstairs. I emptied the bags and put the sunscreen and goggles in separate shoebox containers so I know what I have for next year and I don't have to guess on what I need to buy...it can easily be seen on the storage shelf. I got rid of some games (Twister and Pokemon) and gave a couple of them that had never been played to school for their new incentive program. Now it looks so much better!!
I'll move the feeding seat to Ben's closet after Leah comes over Thursday. I still watch her one day a week. The bags on the floor are clothes that go to my sister and some are for the poor. The shelves above are free for whatever I want to have accessible. I'll keep the floor space for the kids backpacks when they are home.

My closet is a mess, I want to do this area next. I keep Christmas wrapping paper in there! NO MORE! I have a pillow that I was going to center all my decorating around in my family room. It's not gonna happen! I need to toss it! Or cover it so it matches what I DO have. My clothes are a mess. I don't wear half of them! I don't have a walk-in so space is at a premium!



And this jewelry cupboard that is attached to my dresser is a mess! It's probably 1/6 jewelry (most of it doesn't get worn), and the rest is baby teeth, old licenses, prayer cards, a stamp pad??, a Christmas bow, a tooth brush??, and yes, that is a picture of me when I was in like 1st or 2nd grade! I can't wait to get my hands on this storage space!


Flylady is helping too. I'm checking our her site too. When Mary was young, I couldn't "fly". Now that she is almost 3, I can follow her routines much easier. I'm just NOT getting the e-mails! Those are a pain. I've been printing the info for the month in what area to focus on and getting ideas on how to KEEP it this way. I'll keep you posted on my current messy areas and hopefully will be able to show you some AFTER pictures!!