De-Clutter

You know, there are many blogs online where you can register your "word" for the year, try to "live" your word. And most wonderful, thoughtful, deep people are choosing words like "nurture," or "story," or "blessing," or "peace," or "hope."

Me? Not so deep. My word is De-Clutter. Capitalized just like that. Hyphenated just like that. Emphasis on the "De."

My house is full of stuff. Important stuff, sure, stuff that neither Jack nor I would want to lose or give up for all the tea in China.

But it's full of a lot of other kinds of "stuff." Stuff we don't need, don't want, never needed, shouldn't have kept, shouldn't have bought, should have passed up... Get the picture? "Stuff" that's making me short of breath, "stuff" that's overwhelming me, "stuff" that's collecting dust, "stuff" that needs to be De-Cluttered. Now. ASAP.

When I cleaned for the holidays, I took lots of "stuff" that didn't belong on the first floor, in the living room, kitchen, dining room or library, and dumped it into Rubbermaid bins and piled them high in the computer room. I promised myself I'd go through them with a hard heart and throw out or donate whatever didn't have a home and/or whatever I didn't want/need. Jack and I dipped our toe into the De-Cluttering project on Saturday. We started a bit of cleaning, and so far I have two small boxes/bags to be donated to the VVA (they pick up at the house and they take clothes and small household items). We didn't overtire ourselves, just puttered around for a half-hour or so in the middle of the afternoon, and BOY-HOWDY, did I feel accomplished when I saw two bags of trash and two boxes/bags for donation!

2010 is going to the be year I De-Clutter. I will be De-Cluttering my life, my house, my bookshelves, my drawers, my closets, whatever can be De-Cluttered will be De-Cluttered.

I swear. I promise. I pinky-swear. (Yup, this is for real, folks!)