Update and Testing

My house is now officially on the market and I am sad. I’m in the process of putting together a few posts about preparing a home for sale. For now, I am cleaning and boxing up clutter and trying to make it look as good as possible for the strangers that will be walking through and critiquing my styling ability.

The testing part of this post has to do with the picture. I think my new cell phone may be coding pictures where they end up posting rotated. Let’s see what I can figure out. More soon.

Spring Cleaning to Make Room

Once I came back home from traveling from work, I knew it was time to start tackling a few things. The priority items on the list were…

• Going through and cleaning up two years of mail that had piled up.
• Clearing out and organizing the guest room that had become a dumping ground for everything that didn’t have a home.
• Making closet space for my soon-to-be husband.

I still have a bit more to do but I have made tremendous progress.



This was my guest room before I started. Oddly enough, the picture doesn’t look as bad as it truly was. I went through everything you see piled there, everything in the guest closet and everything in my master closet and I shredded/recycled everything that I could.



I made three trips to the recycling center. I couldn’t believe how much paper crap I had accumulated over the years. I had bank statements and cancelled checks from over 11 years ago. I had paperwork from college that was no longer needed and I had Christmas cards from people that I don’t even remember where I met them. I got rid of all that I could. The main things that I have held on to are tax documents and documentation from past credit problems that I had. I consolidated all that was left into one container and I will be tackling that with GTD in the near future.

My biggest challenge in sorting the closets was what to with my growing collection of purses and bags. Now, I have already admitted that I have a problem so please don’t judge me. There stacked on the end of my bed are all the different bags and purses that I own. I did not count them this time. I have topped over 100 before.



Piled separately on the floor is my collection of Vera Bradley.



And in a separate pile already put away in a closet, is my collection of wallets, clutches and smaller pouch-type bags.



The key to making room for the boy was finding a new home for all of these bags outside of the master bedroom (with exception of the wallet shelf--that stays in the smaller bedroom closet).

Between the hallway linen closet and the guest bedroom, I found a place to store all of these bags. I’m hoping this is just temporary storage as I really need to cut this collection down by more than half.



So, now that these are settled, there is (ALMOST) enough room for the boy. I still have lots of items I don’t need so you’ll see more about my pare down in the near future.

How is your spring cleaning going?

October #5--Catching up

Catching up, a photo by aldorris105 on Flickr.

When I look at the lanscape of my life and assess the clutter that has accumulated, most of that clutter turns out to be paper related.

I'm terrible about going through my mail. I had a stack of magazines, professional and otherwise, that I needed to go through and read/purge. I flipped through quickly and yanked out the articles I wanted to read later and the rest is on it's way to the recycle bin.

Next up is the rest of the mail. I have about 3 months to go through. I'm a terrible procrastinator, but I'm able to do this because all of my regular bills are on automatic payment directly out of my checking account. I do get tripped up when I use a credit card. I don't use them often and I tend to forget that I used it and need to watch out for the bill. I must improve on that. As much as I detest the credit industry, I still do need to maintain good credit for any future large purchases, like real estate.

So, this is the call to you to join me in clearing some of the clutter of your life. How much mail do you have laying around waiting to get your attention?