Living Simply Saturdays - From Clutter to Clarity

In honor of Living Simply Saturdays, I'm posting on the most recent way I am moving from clutter to clarity.

I've made several posts recently about cleaning out and organizing my home in preparation for putting our home on the market. I have been determined to get rid of everything that takes up space that we don't actively use, and that does not have an important future function. (For example, we don't use our fine china, but it does have an important future function).

In preparation for a huge garage sale, I started with my closets, moving everything that was not useful into the garage. I had saved every single art/craft project that Grace had completed over the past 3-4 years. I narrowed it down to 1-2 per year. I sorted and organized all of Grace's clothes into plastic bins labeled by size. I cleaned out my kitchen cabinets. Did I really need five 9x12 casserole dishes? Many things had been given to me after loved ones had passed on. Cake platters, baked bean pots, dishes, etc......they were just gathering dust. I have the wonderful memories in my head of watching my grandmother ice her coconut cake on that platter....I don't need to save the platter to remember. Because Grace is allergic to silver, I sold a few silver pieces that I was storing in my china cabinet. All of Grace's baby stuff (crib, highchair, swing, etc) was labeled and organized for sale.

It was harder when I went through Todd's stuff. It's hard for him to let things go. I mean, that 12-yr-old computer monitor might be useful some day, right? But we managed to clear up a lot of storage space, including the attic. Now, the only thing in my attic is Christmas decorations! This was all very time consuming and tiring, but the end result has been SO worth it.

Who knew that I had over $700 worth of "stuff" to sell at my garage sale? And, the new organization of my home is worth almost more to me. When it comes time for us to move, I am positive that we have eliminated one U-Haul truck worth of "stuff." It's so nice now to open my closet doors and easily find what I was looking for.

I appreciate my mom helping me do most of my organizing while they were visiting us on dad's sabbatical. My challenge now is to keep things clutter-free and organized. This challenge is working against me because I am a procrastinator by nature, but I'm working on my heart in this area as well.