Tuesday 28 February 2012

Operation 850: 100 Things

Well, iron pills have given me my life back. Or at least enough energy to get some things done. My main focus lately has been how on to fit all five of us into our 850 square-foot apartment. I call it "operation 850" in my head because that motivates me more than "help! our apartment is too small!" Honestly, if we didn't have so much stuff it would probably seem more spacious. However, if you have a child you know that they each come with an amazing amount of clothes/toys/gadgets-to-make-life-easier, and since we are having three boys I am not tossing out the clothes/toys for the in-between sizes/stages, which is making for quite a storage conundrum. Did I mention that our storage is about as large as our suitcases? Yep. It's tiny.

Before we left for Christmas I did a massive cleaning out and took many a garbage bag to the Salvation Army. It felt good, but somehow between the new Christmas gifts, Tommy growing another size, and me needing clothes to accommodate the big belly, we ended up replacing at least a quarter of what we gave away. Ugh.

So, I cleaned out a closet, and our desk, and went through my drawers again, but we still needed to get rid of more and I was out of motivation. Then I read a blog challenge about getting rid of 100 things to clear up clutter. It sounded like just the goal I needed.

Last week I started a tally sheet and began going through everything one more time. Although it was more difficult than it would have been if I hadn't already cleared out (at least once) every space in our house, it helped put my junk in perspective. I was determined to get to one hundred, so it became a matter of deciding if I liked something enough to keep it over and above something else. That made many things look much less important. Right now I am up to 109, and the trunk of my car is once again loaded up with bags for the Salvation Army. I'm still not sure exactly how everything will fit once the baby arrives, but it feels good to have cleared out even more stuff!

Start your spring cleaning off by throwing-out/giving away 100 things...you will feel better, I promise. And, it is so much easier to toss junk when you have a set goal. I created rules for myself: no counting obvious trash or things that just came home that I would pitch anyway; individual pieces of paper don't count, but magazines you were keeping do; things that come in pairs (shoes, earrings, socks) count as one per pair; allow your husband to decide what he keeps/tosses (unless he doesn't care whether or not you pitch his stuff, but mine does); be willing to give the boot to more of your stuff than anyone else's, but throw away as many horrible, junky little toys as you want (seriously, how do kids accumulate so many little tiny plastic pieces of garbage?). Happy tossing!

Jeff and I were quite lucky that the boys decided to play nice this weekend, which gave us time to sort through many nooks and crannies. My sweeties:






3 comments:

Kathryn said...

If you ever have some things you really need to store, I have some space. Just let me know :). You're more than welcome to store some stuff in my attic, since it has stairs and is easily accessible :)

Heather said...

Thanks for the challenge! So far, 6 things to donate, and many more recycled or in the trash.

Emily said...

I saw that same post on pinterest!!! And I also threw out many things! Didn't keep a list so I might not have made 100...