I have decided to declutter my home. I don't mean just cleaning it up and donating a few things. I mean really decluttering my whole, entire house; including the attic and even the shed out back. And I want to share my journey with you along the way. "Why," you ask? Good question! I'm going public so that you can help to hold me accountable. And as I share my experiences, I hope you will be able to glean some helpful tips to aid you in your own journey one day.
How We Got Here
Tom and I decided to home school our oldest son after 1st grade for various reasons. At that time, I was self-employed and worked from home while taking care of our 2 year old son. We've always focused on family first and our home has always looked lived in. Little did we know what was coming. As a new to homeschooling mom of 2, I jumped right in with both feet. I had to buy curriculum, school supplies and manipulatives for math. As we would be out and about, I'd find good deals on workbooks for future grades, more manipulatives that we could use later, and on and on. We loved yard sales and would find books I thought we needed and more supplies I just knew we would use one day. At the same time, Tom was buying tool and items for around the house and picking up free pallets and so much more. Needless to say, we just kept accumulating more and more stuff and really believed that it was all needed. Boy were we wrong!
Off Came The Blinders
It's now 2018 and we are the proud parents of 3 boys, 2 of which we are still homeschooling. We have been married for 25 years and are still living in the same 1400 sq ft house. Many things have come and gone over the years. Unfortunately, more has come in than has left. When our oldest moved out, we moved the youngest son into his room. That's when my eyes were opened to all of the clutter in our home. It was like all of a sudden I could see everything that didn't have a place to go to be put away. Many things were piled up along the walls in my bedroom. Our dinning room had become our school room for years and lots of crates and boxes lined those walls full of supplies and books that I thought we would need one day. As I began to go through things, I realized that my youngest was well past the grade level of some of the workbooks and things that I still had. One thing led me to another when I began realizing that it wasn't just school supplies and books that we had accumulated an abundance of. I noticed my kitchen cabinets were full of items that I no longer (if ever) used. And under my bathroom sink I had hair care products, that I knew I would never use, just taking up space. How did I let my home get this cluttered? Why had I not seen all of this sooner?
Where To Begin
I started looking for ways to get things under control in my home. I had been feeling the need to simplify my life for some time but I wasn't sure where to begin. That's when I watched The Minimalists documentary on living simple with necessities not extras. And what a revelation it was for me! I was all in. I began sorting through school supplies, books, clothes, toys and foods. There were so many things in our home that I was ready to get rid of. Many things went into boxes that I had labeled for donations or into bags for trash. I was on a roll!
What If Your Spouse Isn't On Board
One day, Tom came home and questioned some of the items I had in my donation box. He wasn't as eager to get rid of things as I was. In fact, he was against me giving away so many things all at once. He asked, " what if we give it away and then need it one day?" He wanted to hold on to things just in case. This caused me to second guess my decision to move toward minimalism. How could I if he wasn't on board with me? Some how I had to find a way to understand how he was feeling. So I asked him to take a look at our bedroom one day. He did and I asked him what he saw when he really looked at it all. His reply was shocking. He only saw the bed where we sleep and clothes but none of the other junk that was everywhere! How could this be? That made no sense to me. So back to my research I went. I looked for instructions on how to get him to see what I could see....that we simply had way too much unnecessary stuff just taking up space around our home. I shared my reasons with him and how I saw the things that were piled up against the walls in our home. He still wasn't ready to join me but I kept cleaning, donating and organizing my own things (i.e.: my clothes, the school supplies and books, the kitchen utensils and pantry items, my personal book collection, etc). As I continued cleaning and donating he began feeling the difference it was making in the atmosphere of our home. He could finally understand that having fewer things made us feel "lighter" somehow; not weighed down.
Together We Can Do It
We are now ready to take the next step in living a minimalist lifestyle together. We are on a mission to declutter each room of our home, our attic and our shed out back. Tom is now participating 100% as we start going through all of our belongings. We agree that we do not need to keep things "just in case" we might need them in the future. What's helping us at this point is doing it together. We listen to each other as we decide to keep an item or let it go. Because together we got ourselves into this situation and together we will get ourselves out.
Overcoming Embarrassment To Help Others
Now on our journey to minimalism, we are tackling our bedroom first. We know what we want it to look like when we are done. I plan to share before and after pictures along the way. Although that is NOT easy for me to do. I feel my pulse speed up and my throat get tight at the thought of anyone seeing how badly cluttered my bedroom really is. I simply have to believe that as I share my truth, others will reap the benefits too.
Until next time.....
💜,
Norma Jean
