Actually, we are pretty much decluttered.

The kids finally went through their closets (the last vestiges of clutter!) this month. So there are three boxes to take to the Thrift Shop next time I go into town....

Decluttering is a way of life around here, but I'm amazed how quickly stuff builds up when your focus is gone for any amount of time.

DH had hip replacement surgery with a bunch of problems with medications. For three weeks solid it was like having a baby in the house again. My basic routines of laundry and dishes held up fine, but my piling places really piled up. Even the everyday put away time went by the wayside.

Now that we are back to normal (as normal as you can get with all of the equiptment still around) I have several bags ready to load in the van. I find I have to load it up and get it out of the house fairly quickly of the bags become another pile. I've also meant to go through my sewing room again. Piles of fabric are building.

Gloria

We are still remodeling with the kitchen and l bath left to do so I am not unpacking a group of the boxes with china and linens. I believe that they multiply at night, much like my hangers do--and when we were hunting for things recently we found some of the boxes had assorted junk instead of neatly folded linens. How does that happen? So, no we are not on track yet. However when you don't have much furniture its easier to throw out newspapers and magazines as thereis no place to put them. The other day I threw out the morning paper and my DH had only gotten up to refresh his coffee. He now claims he is afraid to get up in the middle of the night lest I make the bed.

We are somewhat on track. I had hoped to have much more stuff sorted before our move on Saturday. We are fortunate that we are only moving a few miles, and don't need to clear out everything at once. So there may be a few things piled in a corner and on some closet shelves that will be left behind (for awhile) when we move. The great thing for me is that I will have an office area again, instead of working from the kitchen table. So I can leave stacks of papers for a few days and come back to them in the same state. My file cabinet will even be next to the desk!

Nearly everything we're moving has a "home" in the new house, so I think the unpacking and putting up will be fairly smooth, though plenty of work. I really like the new house, but am looking forward as much to how it will work for us as I am to anything else about living there.

I'll never be on track. I hate it and have to make myself do any of it! When we die, our children are going to be so mad at us for all the stuff we're going to leave behind.

Vannie - you CAN be on track, but you have to want to!
What are you problem areas?

I'm with Vannie! I can't get rid of the obvious clutter until I find a place to put what I want to keep. Cleaning out closets, shelves and cabinets comes first, and is very slow and messy. The place doesn't look any better now than when I started. I'm getting too old for this, and I may just leave it all to my kids, hopefully many years from now.

Just as an example: I opened 2 boxes in the garage - one was a large soup tureen, plate, lid, and ladle. Ok, that can go to the Thrift Shop. The other was full of American Heritage "magazines". They are hard cover mags totally about history, saved since 1969. At least they're all in a box! Wish I knew someone who wanted this stuff. I'm doing much better in the basement, and have dumped many bags of unwanted things, but this process sure is slow.

My sister asked me if I have any baby pics of her. Need I say what ensued? Mom left lots of unnamed/dated pics and there is a bankbox, a basket, and now I just discovered a Rubbermaid small container FULL OF PICTURES. Good heavens, there is no order to them at all.

Fortunately, I have a room that I can devote to making some order. Not only is there 16 years of pics since our marriage, but Mom left hundreds of pics going back to the 40s. I'm going to try to distribute them to various family members who are in the pics, which won't be an easy endeavor as most of them ARE NOT documented. I'm just going to have to go on memory, which isn't great when it comes to a family that wasn't very close in the old days.

I'm usually on top of organizing, but this has thrown me for a loop and I must get to it while snow is on the ground and keeping me somewhat confined.

Carol

I got a pinched nerve in my neck (excruciating) but the strange thing was that for two weeks I couldn't sit at all, or sleep for more than an hour at a time. I felt best moving - constantly moving.

Well, I got the laundry room (a nightmare of clutter - old window shades, ugly art, broken tools, single socks, whatever) completely cleared out. I put in sheves and organized the tools. I got all of my sewing stuff (which has been scattered in different areas of the house) all in one place and have turned what was a junk pile of old papers on the basement stair landing into a sewing room. I went through 12 boxes of papers and weeded them down to one filing cabinet drawer.

I don't recommend anyone getting a pinched nerve, but it sure motivated me!

My main problem is that I might need it someday. When Katrina hit I was able to make myself get rid of a lot of clothes and all those little bottles of shampoo, lotion, etc. that I had accumulated from hotels and cruise ships. I had a ton. I had perfectly good underwear I had outgrown (hate to waste that food!). But it didn't dent what I have. Not only clothes, but kitchen stuff--and I don't cook much. Lots of books, photos that aren't organized, etc. I have stuff I've inherited--you just can't get rid of your greatgrandmother's anything! Tote bags, make up bags like you get with free Clinique bonuses. Some GD might want one! The list is endless. I love staining clothes or riping them so I can throw them away. So, I'm hopeless. We're old enough to have lots of record albums from college days. The list goes on.

Just like all my other New Years resolutions,I have fallen off the wagon. Want to get back up on, take March for cleaning and organizing, and have a nice Easter. Flylady doesn't work for me.

throw those American Heritage magazines away.

Nobody needs them. Well, OK, you can contact an art teacher at a local school, and see if they want them for collage work. Then take them to whatever paper recycling place is available to you.

Seriously, American Heritage has a full set on file. Several libraries (including the Library of Congress) have a full set, available to people who are interested in them, and placed in a spot they could get them.

Also, the ORIGINAL source materials the researchers used to write those articles, are still in THEIR places. The magazines themselves are NOT historical documents. And in fact, for someone actively researching history, the magazines are of no value. They are too derivative.

And if the person who wrote the article back in 1972 could find the research, anyone researching the same topic NOW can not only find the original material, but they can find the 1972 issue of American Heritage.

Seriously, they are of NO value. Throw them out.

And Vannie, you need to get really tough. Honestly, you WON'T need that stuff someday. If you can't find those things a home in the next 3 weeks, then there IS no "someday."

It's really hard when you have your greatgrandmother's anything, isn't it? I've been lucky; I've only received the things that I would want and value for myself, anyway. The all-purpose cookie jar of Grandma's, the chester drawers I always liked when I saw it in the attic, the rocking chair I specifically asked for. A light fixture (that has turned out to be too small for the room, unfort.).

You just have to get really mad at the stuff, and toss it.

Nooo. Not on track. Major sticking point (pun intended) is feature walls in study. They're still sticky after being repainted a few months ago (beware dark colours) so the books are still on the floor in the family room and the shelves that the books go on have since accumulated other stuff some of which should go in the old desk which has been moved to make way for the new desk and can't be reached at the moment and some of which should go back in the living room after that was painted but the new tv cabinet is blocking the cupboards until we finish assembling it and tackle the tv/video/speakers/etc transfer.

Some days I look at it all and get so mad I make some progress. It may all be in the wrong place for now but at least there's a bit less of it. Other days I get overwhelmed by the "I may need it someday" phenomenon.