The Ramblings Of Jenn Shuey

Yes, this post will be long, but it’s one of those I feel I can’t split into a series without ruining it.

Hubby and I would like to be able to tell you we have zero clutter, but that’s far from the truth. We’ve got a ton of stuff that’s going to run us out of our own home if we don’t do something about it. Not only is it overtaking us, but I see it as a health hazard. The more junk we have piled up, the less I want to clean around it, and that could become very very bad.

There are the boxes of Garfield books, boxes of Legos, and Holiday Barbies in the closet. The Garfield books I want to keep, but I’d love to get rid of the Barbie stuff and Legos. Hubby won’t part with his Lego collection, and my mom threatened my life if I sold even 1 Barbie. She’s one of those, “but it’ll be worth something one day” people.

Me, I don’t care how much it’s going to be worth one day. It’s costing me money to have them here. The more clutter I have the more I lose stuff. The more I lose, the more I have to buy. The more junk we have to store, the more storage type stuff I have to buy to have a place to put it all!

At least Barbie now mostly has a new home. I packed up all but 3 of those and moved them back to my mom’s. If she insists I keep them, then she can find the place to store them in her overly cluttered home.

I’m on a mission to become clutter free!

Even all that stuff I just mentioned isn’t the biggest problem we have to face on our road to our non cluttered kingdom. The issue is with clothes. We both have so many clothes we don’t have anywhere to put them anymore. The closets and dressers are full. There are baskets of clothes piled up in the bedroom, and mounds of clothes on the couches. Our living room has become useless!

At least the couch in my office has been clothing free until recently. Once that couch was overtaken I said that’s it! We HAVE to purge these clothes! Let me just go ahead and say I DO NOT BUY THESE CLOTHES. There is no way I would be caught dead wasting my hard earned money on so many clothing items I know I’ll never wear. The issue lies in my mother and grandmother and their eternal love for the dollar bin and Goodwill. Almost weekly one of them sends over a bag full of clothes they picked up on sale just because it was on sale!

I’ve asked them to stop buying me all these items I don’t need, but it doesn’t matter what I say. They buy anyway. I load up at least a couple bags of clothes to send back to Goodwill at least once every couple months, but here lately their discount shopping has multiplied tenfold, and so has my clothing clutter.

This morning I decided I’m getting rid of the clutter no matter what. I proclaimed to Hubby before he left for work that we would spend all weekend sorting through all the clothing in the house, washing what needs to be rewashed, and ditching anything we can’t wear, don’t wear, don’t need, can’t fit in the closets.

I got a head start this morning by tackling the couch in my office that is now overfilled. I set out two boxes and a clothes basket. I filled each box with a trash bag, then I labeled one trash and one Goodwill. I figured after I had filled the clothes basket with folded clothes (another problem is that we both hate folding clothes, so most of them never make it off the couch) I would start folding and sorting on the side of the couch that was clear.

Being a woman on a mission it only took me about 30 minutes to sort through the massive pile of clothes that was spilling off of the couch into the floor.

My end results made me very proud.

• 2 full 30 gallon trash bags are sitting by the door ready to be carted off to the Goodwill drop off as soon as Hubby gets home.
• 3 bags are sitting in the utility room ready to be taken to the recycling center.
• 1 full clothes basket is sitting on my bed ready to be put away after I sort through some drawers.
• The couch is completely empty!

It’s only a very small dent in a massive issue, but I feel better already. I have a love seat and one more full sized couch to tackle this morning, and now I’m afraid I might have to borrow my best friend’s bike trailer to haul all this stuff off to the Goodwill tonight. But you know what?

I feel great about it!

Not only am I ridding my own life of all this clutter, but I’m providing for no telling how many families who may not have the clothes they need to get through this winter. I know that 1 bag that is full of nothing but winter clothes and light jackets will be very useful to a family, and might even make up someone’s Christmas this year.

See, I’m not a bitch all the time. I do good things, too.