The GRAND FINALE!

 

(I just can't seem to get this space to delete)

 

As you may or may not remember, I only had three areas to declutter to finish my project. Here's the kitchen shelf, totally catching all sorts of bullshit we didn't seem to have anywhere else to put.

I finished this one a few days ago. The bottom shelf will eventually be the live kitchen-- home to fermenting vegetables and sprouts. You can see the antique crock on the bottom. She will hold my kraut, kimchi, etc. ;)

Wow-- luckily I didn't take a close enough shot to show you just how big of a mess my fridge and freezer were. I actually tackled this in two sittings. Last week I culled the fridge of all its dead and decaying matter which is one of my least favourite things to do in life. Ugh. Shudder. Anyway, that got the ball rolling. I obviously hate to clean the fridge and the freezer so much that I saved it until the very last minute and actually put it off two days past my self-imposed deadline. 
 

To my surprise, this didn't take as long as I expected, and I didn't hate it as much as I remembered. The fridge and freezer together took about 40 minutes. I didn't do a "damage deposit"-type cleaning, rather one whose result doesn't inspire shame in me when friends visit and ask me if they can put their beer in the freezer. After a few incidents with chorophyll ice cubes and an overflowing CSA-box turned freezer compost where whole rotten vegetables were thrown to the back of the freezer this summer, the bottom was quite a horrorshow. 
 

The fridge took a while. Fridges can just get gross quickly without regular maintenance. Anyway, it looks better now than when we moved in and found rotten meat and cheese in the crisper. Grody to the Nth degree! 

So, um, guess what? I'M DONE DECLUTTERING MY HOUSE! While I'm no master of cleanliness, and while I'm still light years away from Godliness,  I'm pretty pumped I got this finished at all. I went through every drawer, every piece of paper, every box and bag in this house. And I have a lot of stuff. I still do, but I did get rid of a lot of stuff and I have a pretty good idea where everything should and does belong now. 

I started this project off in the perfect way. I forced myself to tackle an area every day first thing in the morning. It left me with a sense of accomplishment and invigorated me for hours, inspiring me to get other stuff done. It became difficult, however, when I got an hour of sleep and had to get up for the Farmer's Market on Saturdays at 5 a.m. This threw me off point. I skipped days, even strings of days. This project took me twice as long to complete as I had hoped, but it's still something I'd never gotten around to in my entire adult life. Of course one declutters to an extent when one is packing to move, but it still never happens as thoroughly as it did during this project, when I was able to focus on one small project at a time. 

I still have to work on giving the house a rudimentary once-over every day. This has NEVER been a habit of mine, for many reasons, mostly because I thought it was a lost cause. I also have to get in the habit of putting things in their allocated spot when I put it down and to not just allow something to be put on a table, chair or other available surface. I'm kind of going against the rule that Leo Babauta has set out in "The Power of Less," while I tackle forming the habit of keeping the house clean as I begin my next habit which I have already mentioned, and I've already begun. Babauta stresses that one shouldn't try to form more than one habit at once. I cannot wait, and I've already begun both of them. Let's see if I'm actually up for these challenges.