How Many is "Too Many?"

We live in an age of excessive-ness. In this country, most of us have too many pounds on our bodies, too many credit cards in our purses and too many activities to fill our days. We work so hard to pay off our credit cards that we have no time to plan and execute family meals so we go by sonic and charge fast food for our family...adding to our debt and our pounds and giving us only a few extra moments before we dash off to the next important activity in our lives.

Even before this sentiment became true about the majority of people in the USA, I used to tell everyone our house was a study in excess. We had too many kids, way too many dogs, too much debt and too much clutter. Once when the kids were little, I sat looking at the work they had produced at school that month and I "did the math". Lets see.....4 kids times 3 years of pre-school, 1 year of kindergarten, 5 years of elementary, 3 years of middle and 4 years of high school. One box of stuff per year = 64 bankers boxes of childhood momentos....

It was at that moment I started shoving their work in bags and hiding them in remote corners of the house. I could not bear the thought of throwing away a single coloring page that one of my angels brought home to mommy. I figured I would deal with it later....and certainly there would be a way to cut down the number of bankers boxes full of doodles I was on a head-long collision course with!

Time marches on and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew all those bags were somewhere but I was not sure exactly where. I came across one the other day...in the bottom of my front hall closet. Nothing can prepare us for getting older. Our mother's try to tell us...but what do they know? When my brood were babies...I knew I would never forget one single thing about those years. People told me "LABEL things...write a journal....you will forget". "Not I" I smugly thought...."I am super-mom and I will forget nothing". At that point, one thing I did not realize was that children turn your brains to mush. So here I was, sitting on the floor in the hall outside that closet looking at a variety of pictures, notes, poem pockets, coloring pages and art projects....and if my sweet, perfect angels had not put their names on each piece.....I had no clue who created it. My brain could not even begin to stretch that far back and to that detail. So I guess time has a way of thinning things out. Many precious pieces were thrown out that day because I did not know whose box to add them to.

I have nearly finished my bathroom and the living /dining room is done except the box in the corner by the table. I have piles in places I stopped seeing a long time ago, but with every trip to the dump....the way becomes clearer.

So now the ultimate sentimental messies question, again, how many is too many? I came across a pile of commencement programs from my baby's graduation from High School this past May. There were 11 family members in attendance ( not including my perfect sleeping grandson). Each of us had 2 programs for good measure, so now I have 22 commencement programs. Is that too many? I mean, what happens if I lose or wrinkle one .....?

BTW, in case you were wondering. I still say the house is a study in excess but the one thing I used to laughingly say..."We have too many kids...." is so not true....We had the perfect number of kids and even with alll the clutter they add to the mess...I would not change that part of my life for every de-cluttered house in the world!

Breaking Free from Being a "Sentimental Messy"

My 49th birthday is approaching.....quickly....this month, in fact. As of tomorrow, I am an empty nester. I have 4 amazing kids, a son-in-law and the most perfect grandson ever...who is about to start walking...and I am scared!

We have lived in our humble abode for 21 plus years. This house looked on as we brought our last 2 babies home from the hospital, it lived through 2 giant litters of labs, 4 kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school graduations and 2 college graduations, a grandchild...and everything in-between...and it is a mess.

Now, I watch Dr. Phil and Oprah with great curiosity as they host the messiest families in the world and I smugly say.."my house is perfect compared to that...." But in reality, this house shows the signs of living a long time with a "Sentimental Messy" as it's primary care-giver and it is not pretty!

I am a teacher and for the first time ever, I decided to actually take this summer off...meaning there are no more excuses. I spent the first few weeks of the summer making a plan. I talked to everyone who would listen about how I was going to give this house a face-lift ...and slowly, the plan emerged.

I would start with my room. This was the suggestion of my oldest child, who amazingly made it through growing up with me and who is the farthest thing from me in her housekeeping. This child is organized and can throw away things without even a second look into the bag...
She told me if I would give myself a haven to retreat to every day, I would feel better and I would want to keep going. My best friend agreed and the process began.

Let me begin by saying...I did not take a "before" picture but let it suffice to say, this is a basement room in a split-level house, meant to be a family room ...so it is huge. I looked around it and wanted to cry because I had no clue how to start. Again, my daughter wisely told me to start with my clothes. The closet would be first. It took a couple days and several trips to the Christian Women's Center to drop donations...as well as several to the dump...but finally, the closet was cleaned, organized and the doors actually shut.

Now what? Several years ago I let a tele-marketer talk me into getting one of those 3 year, 10 magazine a month deals that I could not live without. After a couple years of struggling with where to put all the magazines I received that I would read "someday", I finally purchased some of those magazine boxes and stored 3 years worth of magazines in various nooks and crannies in my bedroom and bathroom. This would be the next step....eight bags and 2 trips to the re-cycling center, cleared out some much needed space and I was breathing easier.

After this came the piles I was collecting for the children's scrapbooks and then , all of a sudden, the process became fun! I could see things in my room I forgot existed, the room felt cooler and lighter, and I knew I had won this battle. It took almost 2 weeks...but it was all worth it when my children walked into my room and nearly passed out!

Several years ago, I read a book about de-cluttering that gave names to various types of pack-rats. I quickly labeled myself the "Sentimental Messy" as I worry that when I throw something out, I am throwing away the memory. So this is the beginning of my struggle to break free of that title and win the crown of queen of my castle.

The next set of rooms are the living/dining and kitchen/den. The plan has been made...I have dabbled in the beginning stage of the cleaning out....and will continue to report on the progress.
Until later..