Clutter-be-gone!

Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston lays it all out plain and simple.

Anybody who knows me or has followed this blog for awhile knows that I have a problem when it comes to accumulating stuff. I have “tried” all sorts of things, but I still find myself buried underneath the piles of books and kids art and records and photographs and clothes and glass bottles (for all that iced tea I’m always making?) and candles and papers and anything else you can imagine.

You name it, I probably have 6 of whatever it is, taking up space in our closet. Or, worse and yet more likely, on the dining room table.

About six months ago, I found the solution… Or actually a friend pressed it upon me… a miraculous book by Karen Kingston called Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. And while I find trying to figure out Feng Shui next to impossible, this book is filled with all sorts of great suggestions for how to just get over yourself and clear out some space in your home and your life, damn it! The mystical energy flow stuff is just a bonus, should you choose to go there.

I actually cried when I read Chapter 5 which is called: How Clutter Affects You. Procrastination, depression, extra time cleaning, disorganization, exhaustion, spending a lot of unnecessary money… the list goes on. So many of her points rang true.

But six months later, our place looks pretty much the same as it did when I first got the book. Life gets in the way… you know how it is… and just about any time I cleared a tiny space, new clutter managed to seep in and take over.

Just recently, however, our daughter finally graduated from the bassinet/crib/toddler bed she’s had since she was born to a bonified big girl bed, with built in storage to boot! We had to clear out her room to make the transition, and her things are now all over the floors of just about every room in our place. Adding insult (even more kids books and hair ribbons and spangly jewelry) to injury (all of the stuff I already had piled up.)

I have officially hit the wall.

Yesterday, in a conversation with some of my “other mother” pals during our kids’ Streb class, the Karen Kingston book came up again. So I dusted if off, took a photo of it and decided to try again. But this time, I will listen to the wise advice of my fellow stressed out never-enough-time mother and plan to attack just one small space at a time. And finish the task before moving on to the next one. It worked so well with my kitchen cabinet…

Sounds basic, and yet has been next to impossible to practice.

First step is just to put everything away, even if “away” isn’t the perfect ultimate place for the object in question. Once our place is neat and my daughter’s stuff has migrated back to it’s home in her bedroom, I can begin to make some strides.

Pray for me. I need all the help I can get.