Declutter 2012

Happy New Year - are you surprised to find me here?  After a weekend spent with my dad, brother, sister-in-law and precious nephew, I spent a really exciting New Year's Eve...alone in my bed, asleep before the ball dropped.  And, I didn't care one bit.  I am officially old.  Our family loved all of our time together over the holidays even though we didn't have that much actual time off work.  It was sad to think of coming back this week with no big holidays or short work weeks to look forward to.  Thankfully, there is plenty to look forward to this year!

I know some of you have laughed that one of the things I am looking forward to and I am excited about is this calendar that I found on Pinterest.

I know that my house is clean.  Relatively.   Cleaner than most.  Yes.  More organized than many.  Maybe.  But that doesn't mean that there isn't clutter.  It doesn't mean that I don't have 3 junk drawers that I have no idea what is in.  It certainly doesn't mean that my attic space doesn't have things thrown in there - like a laundry basket full of shoes that are never worn and should be given away.  Most dreadfully, it unfortunately doesn't mean that the inside of my refrigerator doesn't have sticky goo inside the drawers and little pieces of old parsley, cilantro, kale, and other green things flaked off in the vegetable drawer.  Because my house does have all of those things.  And dog hair.  Lots and lots of dog hair.  And, just ask my poor husband - as clean as my house may be, I always want it to be cleaner and more organized.  But when I think of decluttering, I want to do it all and then it is overwhelming for everyone and I get stressed...and maybe a little grumpy.  Maybe even a lot grumpy.  So I am decluttering little by little thanks to this calendar.  I hope it feels manageable, and I hope I can keep up with it.  I need accountability and someone to commiserate with, so thankfully, Kristi says she is going to do it with me.  Anyone else want to join in?

A client's mom told me that instead of New Year's resolutions last year, she picked one thing a month and tried to stick with it every day of that month.  Six months were things to remove from her life and six were things to add to it.  If it stuck by the end of the month then it got added into her regular routine, and if it didn't, then it didn't and at least she could say she tried.  For example, when she told me about this it was October, and she walked their dog everyday in February.  She also said she felt pretty sure the poor dog hadn't been walked again since then.  I loved this idea (not the not walking the dog for 8 month idea) - the one thing a month idea.  So I'm going to give it a try this year - I have a list...but only 9 things on it so far. I need one more thing to add to my life and two more things to remove - it's a work in progress.  But I am starting with January - remove clutter - and I hope that it will stick and I can keep with this calendar!

I hope that one of the tasks on this calendar includes: buy yourself a new wardrobe for all of the clothes I will have decluttered.  And another has a magic wand attached to make my dog stop shedding.  And another one is definitely going to say something about throwing away all of those pictures in my attic from highschool that I thought I would definitely want to keep...and now can't declutter fast enough!