The first two days

I don't have a before photo from everything because I didn't think of it 'til after I started, but here's what I've got so far: 

This is the first project I tackled. Let me fill you in: this had a bunch of crap on the bottom shelf, the top is always polluted with stuff, and both drawers were full to the point of sticking. LOOK-- I have an empty drawer! Not sure what I'll put in it, but I'm pretty excited. 

 This is the miscellaneous drawer for kitchen stuff. Okay, I'll fess up: I call it the junk drawer.

                                           Underneath it all, there's a lot of useful things!

I got a little excited about this project today and completed three areas. It may just look like a normal house-cleaning to you, but this is serious progress. Our bedroom closet has always looked terrible, clothes spilling out of it onto the floor. 

 

 

Look! It's the floor! You have no idea how thrilled I am! It's not looked this good ever, including when we moved in!

 

The way I am

As you can see from the creation of the blog and the post below, I'm a messy, messy girl. As anyone who's ever been to my place knows, I have a lot of clutter. Even when I've done my best to clean up for myself or for company coming, there's still a lot of stuff everywhere. I pick it up off the floor and put it on a table. Somehow that's always been tidy enough for me. I've always known this about myself and it's been pointed out by all my roommates. The thing is, it's never really affected me enough for me to bother to do anything about it. I swear I don't bring much into the home anymore and I feel I'm always getting rid of stuff, but here I sit, mired in my own junk. I wouldn't exactly call myself a hoarder, but when I watched the show Hoarders, I definitely saw myself in some of the hoarders. The thing is, I've been trying to tackle this issue for years, and I've definitely made headway, but I never get far.

My clutter is one of the only things my lovely boyfriend and I ever argue about. I want this to stop. Also, since I'm self-employed, I want to have a clutter-free house. When it's tidier, I'm in an awesome mood, I have fewer distractions, and I'm more productive. Also, it's easier to clean. 

I'm simply not  wired like my mother or her mother. They keep super clean houses. Our house growing up was always tidy, but luckily it felt comfortable, livable. My grandparents' house was maniacally clean. I once saw my Nana rush to clean up a drop of water. This blew my mind. It was a drop of water. Literally a tiny splash on a surgically-clean counter. Wow. Obviously this comes naturally to some people, or at least was drilled into them at some point. Although I never want to be this obsessed with keeping a clean house, I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about that happening. I just want to be proud of myself because I've learned to let go of a lot of my possessions, and can keep a  tidy house. I want my friends and family, and my boyfriend to be shocked and amazed. I want their jaws to drop because I've done such a good job. I want someone to say, "This doesn't even look like the  same place."

I'm reading an amazing book called "The Power of Less" by Leo Babauta, which I'll talk about more later. One aspect of the book discusses monthly challenges. I've decided to choose decluttering my house as my challenge.  I've broken the tasks down into manageable ones. Some may seem miniscule, but for someone like me, even cleaning out a drawer is a huge deal. Always has been. I've got 'til December 31. I began yesterday. I'll be posting before and after photos  to shock and amaze you. Part of the challenge is that I'm supposed to tell as many people about this as I can so I can be held to my challenge. Hopefully soon I will also learn how less is more in terms of words ;) 

Enjoy the mess!  I'm kind of embarrassed to be revealing this to some of you who didn't know this about me, but here goes-- full disclosure.