Purging the house

So this year I was supposed to hold the extended family Christmas party.  I haven't done this in several years.  I used to do it regularly and it meant that I would thoroughly clean and declutter my house from Thanksgiving to the Sunday before Christmas. Then for a while there, I would hire my oldest daughter, Hannah and her friend Katie to organize and declutter for the summer.  Even with all this, I still had stashes in areas of the house that were terrible, but it kept things going with a surface impression of being fairly organized.  Well, the family party moved to my sister Ronnie's house for a couple of years and then to my nephew's house for the last three years (maybe 4).

Anyway, I was gearing up to do a heavy, get-the-junk-out declutter project, but things kept getting delayed because of poor Steve.  So the party was moved from Dec. 21st to Jan. 4th.  Therefore I have been trying to get things under control but I tell you, it is dreadful!  Absolutely horrid.  Just the sheer amount of school stuff built up over the last 7 years or so plus all the Aquinas Learning debris. . . . plus we've still got dregs of aunt Jackie stuff, lots of Peter and Hannah stuff and then just stuff-stuff that I and I alone am responsible for.  And then there's Rick.  I swear we must have hundreds of electronic debris - all kinds of cables and wires and doohickeys.  It is truly frightening!

So I did get rid of a few bags of old clothes for the Thanksgiving clothing drive at Church.

I got a couple of big boxes of books that I gave away to the book donation bin.

Neither of the above looked like much had been accomplished though.  At all.

I gathered all papers and mail, etc and dumped them in a big box which Rick went through.  But somehow I still have several places that have stacks of paper still to go through. . . .

And this is just the main floor!

I gave away two boxes of toys/school supplies back before Thanksgiving.

I cleaned through the basement and got rid of tons of junk.  But it still needs going through and there is still tons of stuff to be sorted.  It's like I just did the top layer and I need to do a couple more layers of clutter before I truly have accomplished anything.  And this isn't even getting to the storage area or the stage/closet!!!!

It is really hard not to lose heart.

But I will not give up!

Today is New Year's Eve.  I have cleaned a good amount of the study.  Including cleaning up cat messes that must have been under the desk but out of sight for at least a year.  Let me tell you how fun that was!  And I still don't know what to do with various computer junk and some papers but maybe Rick will go through that tonight while we are trying to keep our eyes open until midnight.

I did clean out the laundry/mud room.  Our dryer died, so we are getting a new one on Friday.  We've already had this repaired for the same problem before so Rick thinks it is worth it to just get a new one.  So I did clean out a huge pile of clothes, etc.  I mean we are talking about 8 of those big green trash bags worth of stuff.  And I still need to go through old shoes, boots and roller blades.  I have two bags of clothes in the back of my van that I need to drop at a donation site.  Then I have another big bag to wash and then sort to either give away or keep.  I have dozens of mismatched gloves/mitten and scores of mismatched socks.  It really is unbelievable to me!

But still, now you can walk through the laundry room!

I have recently cleaned out my pantries and I am trying to keep up on keeping my fridge clean.  I do need to desperately clean out both freezers.

New Year's Day - I am going to keep chipping away to making the main level clean and suitable for the party.

Friday - Honeybaked ham, grocery run for table clothes, plates, plastic utensils, napkins, apple cider, ice.  Need to rent tables and chairs.   Start to deal with messy areas in basement.  Get new dryer!!!

Saturday - Finish cleaning basement.  Set up tables and chairs.  Get last minute stuff ready.

Sunday - mass, breakfast, party!!!!!   Then collapse.  And then Monday morning hit the new day running with the math tutor coming at 9:00 a.m.

Anyway, I plan to try to do 15 minutes of decluttering a day.  I am taking the 365 Declutter challenge on facebook.  I feel like since I am frontloading a lot of decluttering now, I will feel like decluttering 15 minutes a day will actually accomplish something.  It didn't get this bad overnight so I should realize that it will not be fixed overnight or even in 1 month.  Also, we still have junk coming into the house!  So I need to monitor that and deal with it accordingly.

Anyway, happy new year!  It feels tough now, but I really think I can see a tiny, tiny light at the end of the tunnel!