Living a Life Without Clutter

We have a new tire on our car again so now we're not stuck!  By tomorrow we should have our van's tire replaced. Whew! Just in time for church and my kids going to school on Friday.  I don't mind being stuck in my lovely home so much.  Just simple errands and missing out on church is what bugs me the most.  I love my home and enjoy it just as much as when we first moved in but getting out is nice too.  :D

Oh my gosh. This is such a funny cartoon.

I was expressing to my mom of my frustrations of only having two computers for schooling the kids.  They have book work and online work so it's been tough sharing it between four kids, a blogging mommy, and a daddy who loves computers too.  Some days I'm not able to get on the computer till way later which is fine, but I have to check for reviews and adjustments sometimes.  Regardless, their homeschool comes absolutely first.  Well, my mom took one of our older laptops home with her to do some work on it.  It's a good laptop but just had some problems and would constantly disconnect from the internet.  I eventually gave up on it and put it away.  She fixed it up so now we'll have 3 working computers.  Yeehaw!  Thank yewwww!

My sister that just came back from South Africa for 6 years, her family is being stationed here in the states.  I'm glad that now she isn't so far and we can visit.  They are a super cute family and a joy to be around.  Jodee was the one that taught me how to declutter fast and if it wasn't for her I'd still be pulling my hair out right now.  I spent a couple of days with her at her house they were staying at temporarily.  It's pretty much emptied out because it's being sold.  Well, I loved it!  I love the feeling of just a quick and easy cleanup every day an so when I went back to my home after staying there, I went right to work.  I'm super grateful and have truly woken up each day with peace knowing I have more time for my kids and husband now that I've ever had before.  Now, I've had so many friends ask me how I did it so I'll just put it here.  I know this is so simple for some but all the other ways I tried just wasn't working. :D

1. Empty out one room completely as if you are moving except for major furniture you know is staying.  I moved everything into the living room.  

2. Get a bag or box labeled "Giveaway" and "Throwaway".  Then I put back what was obvious of what was going back into the room and I would put it back immediately.  As I was filling up the room with my favorites and for sure staying, I knew quickly when to stop because I loved how nice it looked.  I didn't want to reclutter it because the room looked so beautiful without all that stuff!  It made it sooo easy to throw all the rest out.

3.  At the end of the day take a break and go donate the stuff.  If you want to do a yard sale make sure to take the stuff OUT of the house completely.  I put everything onto our back patio.  

4.  Each day I did one room and I did not stop for 8 days.  I made sure each room was completely and totally done with all the messes cleaned up from it before starting the next room.  We ate very, very simple that week because I didn't need to be making bigger messes that would make me feel discouraged.  

5.  If you blog, blog your successes!  After my whole house was finished, since I didn't want to do a yard sale but my friend did, she came and picked up all the stuff off my patio.  

I hope this helps, my friends!  :D  I so wish I had known to declutter like this waaaaay long ago.  I did our household clothes as a whole separate project with washing everything and laying them all out to see what we'd keep.  I gave each boy a bin and only let the toys in there that fit.  They are getting older so they really wanted their own bins of their belongs rather than all mixed in like when they were little. They each have their names on their bins.  The girls were easier so they share one bin and only the toys that fit in there stay.  They each kept only 2 stuffed animals.  :)  If you do go shopping for a new clothing item, make sure to go home and throw that many out so the clutter doesn't build back up again.  :D