My House Is Shrinking

At least that is what it feels like. I swear we accumulate twice as much stuff as we get rid of. I'm fairly (and genetically) prone to hoarding but at this point I'm starting to feel claustrophobic. And I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

You can't see our kitchen table - it's covered in laundry (clean and mostly folded), jewelry supplies, and shipping materials. Yup...half the table is where I pack and ship my jewelry and jewelry supply orders.

The counters in the kitchen are full...you can barely see them. Which is sad because they're made of gorgeous granite.

My jewelry work space (also in the kitchen) is packed and I create my jewelry in about an 8 inch square space. Which can be kind of hazardous when working with the torch.

Then we brought in the Christmas decorations - and we have a lot ... boxes and boxes were taken out of the attic.

Once we get the tree set up and decorations put up (for all of three weeks) then at least some stuff will go back in the garage (which I can't even walk through).

I'm pretty sure my house was more put together when I was working full time out of the house. How is that possible??? Yes we're home more to mess things up more but we still had laundry. The only thing I feel like I've been able to keep up on is the dishes.

Hubby has vacation the last two weeks of the year and I'm hoping we will be able to do a massive "stuff" dump. Just go through everything and take trips to Goodwill. Usually I will take the time to organize things for a garage sale or sell on Craigs List. But my sanity is worth more than the few dollars we would get by taking the time to sell things.

I think I'll ask Santa for a clean house for Christmas!

Getting Organized in 2012

Being organized is something I value ... just not always something I am able to implement. I'm hoping with sites like "I'm an Organizing Junkie" I'll trim down our "stuff" and create a simple clean home and a more simple life.

Our house is fairly small...around 1300 square feet. We have three big dogs and three people. It gets a little cramped.

Remodeling the kitchen last year made our kitchen way more functional and created more storage space. Our living room is decent sized but is quickly filling up with kid stuff...an easel, lego, a big train tent. You get the idea.

And then those little things that just seem to pile up with no permanent home.

I bought a few plastic storage containers but I think I'm going to need a few more. I figure if I can get Marshal's smaller toys into a bin under the coffee table he could still play but we could keep things out of the way. His room is really the worst though. It's hard to walk there are so many toys and clothes.

I need to work on letting go...I feel guilty getting rid of things.

Best therapy...watching Hoarders. :) I do NOT want to end up on that show.