Happy Holidays and a New Year!
Professional Organizing
Small Amount of Pain vs. Long Time of Happiness
The other day my daughter did a bit decluttering without me asking and helping. She threw a lot of things away. It was a bit of a sting and I did a knee jerk way of thinking as to “What was she throwing away? Is it important? Can I reuse it somehow? Will I need it someday?”
At the same time she was decluttering, I was helping my brother fix my vehicle. I needed my thermostat replaced. I was a very quick, easy repair and not an expensive part. I had to go to the store to get more antifreeze, or coolant, to put into my radiator and reservoir. Come to find out I had a leak where my thermostat is. As I drove to the store that got me to thinking about what was being thrown awayhow and why I was feeling the way I was feeling.
As things were being thrown in the dumpster right on top was a stylus that I had been looking for, for about a year, for my old tablet that I had dropped and busted the screen. The screen pretty much shattered and when you turn it on the screen goes crazy and it is hard to see what is going on. Anyway, I picked out the stylus to put back with the broken tablet.
I got to thinking about me pulling that stylus out. “How much does a stylus cost to replace it?” My husband replaced it by buying two, in case I lost one, which I have and I am still looking for it, and it cost about $20- $40 for one. No it is not one that it is made for it, but it is compatible. The one that is made for it costs about 10x’s the compatible one. Why am I keeping the one that goes with the broken tablet. “Can it go with my new tablet?”, I am thinking to myself.
I get to the store, get my stuff, and head back home. I am still thinking about what was tossed and the stylus. Why is it painful. Then I think to myself “You know what, how easily can the stuff that was tossed be replaced? How much would it cost to replace? If it is $20 or less, then let it go. Plus, if you haven’t missed the stuff until now, you are not going to miss it when it is gone because you didn’t even know what or where the stuff was.” With that last thought That eased the pain of letting go. Also, the thought of “How much happier you are going to be when the stuff is gone, the area is clearer, and that is less stuff that you have to deal with later.” I think I need to let my daughter declutter on her own more or just do a little more of less thinking about things and letting go and chucking it out the door.
So the moral of this story is if you have to much stuff that is taking too much of your attention away from the things you love to do or the ones you love to spend time with, you need to declutter and either trash or donate/give away the things you haven’t used in the past 6 months to a year, didn’t know you had it in the first place, love it, like it or want it. If you need help, seek help from a professional to help you declutter. It will be freeing to have a space you can enjoy that is not cluttered, clean, and organized.
Clutter just causes anxiety, depression, and health issues.
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I Thought That I Was Messy 7-29-2021
Growing up I was the typical messy kid. I hated cleaning my room, doing the dishes, helping with laundry; I HATED HOUSEWORK! As I got older I had less and less toys and more “office equipment”. In my room I had a desk and it had a bookshelf on top of it. It was a metal office desk like the teachers had back in the day.
On my desk, I would have stacks and stacks of papers on it, and my room had clothes and stuff everywhere. No matter how messy my room was I knew exactly where everything was and I could go right to it when asked to get something. I didn’t like putting things away because I was afraid that I would forget about it or I would lose it, or even more out of sight out of mind. This is how I grew up and I am still this way now. The only difference between now and then, is that many years ago I had moved to a different state with just my suitcase. I had sent a few boxes to myself via UPS. In those boxes were things that I truly needed and wanted. I was basically a minimalist, and I was the happiest I had ever been. I didn’t have a lot of stuff.
When I moved back to my home state I came back to a storage unit full of stuff. I moved it in there so that I would have what I needed and wanted if I were to move back. I was glad that I did in a way. What I put in storage was a lot of stuff, an overwhelming amount of stuff. It was almost a five bedroom house worth of stuff. I had to make another move to a smaller place. That meant I had to choose what would go with me and what would be left behind. New people came to the five bedroom house and they had the great “joy” of dealing with my stuff, which was just tossed in a dumpster. Pictures of family members and friends, memories, and a part of my life. However, I was back to being a minimalist, having what I needed and what I wanted. I was much happier again because my place was not cluttered and was easy to clean in a very short amount of time.
About a year later, my mom and I moved into a two bedroom house with all of her stuff and my stuff. Our house was filled in every room, with just a path to go to different rooms and out of the house. I was not happy. I was stressed, anxious, and the stuff drove me crazy, but I couldn’t get rid of stuff because my mom wanted to keep it. That made me even more unhappy. We both moved to a different house, same thing, a path from room to room, front door to the back door. I would clean, and the mess returned, I could have sworn, 10 fold for every single item that was cleaned or gotten rid of. I was unhappy. We even had people come and help declutter and clean while my mom and I went on vacation. We came back and I wanted to cry because the house was clean and organized. My mom was very upset and not happy and complained a lot.
A couple of years later, I got married, and even my husband helped clean the house. Again, my mom was very unhappy and complained a lot. I was very happy and wanted to cry. My mom, husband and I bought a four bedroom house. We moved all of our stuff. My husband didn’t have very much stuff because he moved to my home state from his home state, but my mom and I had two households of stuff to move. Again, the house was filled with stuff. Yet again, we had friends come over and help clean and declutter our stuff. My mom was not happy and my husband and I were very grateful for their help and very happy.
A few years later my mom passed away, and my house was still a disaster. I had trouble seeing this as my house and kept thinking that my mom was going to be very mad at me if I got rid of stuff. It has taken me six years to finally realize this is my house and I can do what I want. We did rent almost the largest dumpster to start decluttering. We filled that a couple of times to the top with stuff. A year ago, I finally found help and someone that I could relate to. I still thought that I was a messy person, and I was never going to get my house in order. Yet, I didn’t want my child to grow up the way I did, in chaos, filled with stuff, home.
Come to find out, I was not a messy person at all. I knew this in a way because when I had my own places, they were never a mess and filled with stuff and that was when I was the happiest. I found help via YouTube and eventually found someone that I understood and felt like they understood me. What they said and did seemed normal to me. They have ADHD, and I could relate to the way they thought and did things which in turn helped me to understand myself better and why I did the things that I did and said.
The help that I found was Clutterbug. I found out that I am an organized person, but I have a different way or style of organizing. I took the quiz to find out my organizing style, then took the courses and wanted to help others who live in chaotic, messy, or unorganized homes to change it into a way they can be functional with their own organizing style. Some people might think that they are messy and unorganized, but in reality, they just organized differently. In a year’s time of being certified as a Certified Organizational SpecialistTM, I have worked on getting my house organized and I have made leaps and bounds of changes and it makes me happier and happier because I love to organize.
I love learning new ways of doing things and I love to solve issues, and being a Certified Organizational SpecialistTM I get to do both. As of today, 7-29-2021, I am starting a habit challenge that Clutterbug started. Five weeks, learning to created new habits. Week one, I work on the habit, week two I add another habit to it. Habits are to be taken in baby steps. A good book to read, or listen to, about habits is the Atomic Habits by James Clear.
My first habit to learn is to do the dishes every day, the second habit is to do the laundry every day, the third habit is to walk or exercise for 15 minutes at least 3 times a week. Remember to take baby steps. The fourth habit is to take breaks during the day, and the fifth habit is to read a book before going to bed, even if it’s a page or two. Another habit I need to work on is staying focused on these habits. I most likely won’t post to my blog, but I will try to remember to post it on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, if you want to follow my journey. Also, leave me a comment if you would like to see it here in my blog.
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I Got Lost
Last year was a year that got me a bit unfocused and lost on what I was and am suppose to do. A cross between politics, election, pandemic, and isolation, routines were out of whack, what routines I did have, then life got out of whack. Depression and anxiety was really setting in towards the end of the year and I became paralyzed. I shut down mentally. When I shut down mentally it is hard for me to even take care of myself, let alone my family. However, when school started that brought back some “normalcy”.
School is the only thing that has remained the same through the whole issues of the pandemic and issues of this country and the world. My child goes to an online school so that helped with not having to worry about whether to go back physically or making up what couldn’t be done by not going physically back to brick and mortar. There are no make up missed days because of snow or pandemic. There are more breaks and longer breaks because we don’t have to make up days and we get out sooner than the brick and mortar schools. It has been really nice to have that consistency in our lives.
Even though I have not blogged much or posted much on Facebook I have been busy decluttering and organizing my house. I have been doing that pretty regularly, but sometimes I just shut down and don’t do anything and clutter, dishes and laundry all build back up, but it I have noticed that it is not getting as bad as it used to. Before, within a day or two the whole house would be out of control, but now it takes it a week or two and still not as out of control as it used to be. It is nice.
I have also been trying to learn new tricks and tips to decluttering, organizing and cleaning, but even with that I have sort of lost my way and became sidetracked with other things. The worse part of things is that I am a perfectionist and that can be debilitating. That causes me anxiety and then turns into depression, and then I become paralyzed until I break out of this horrible cycle by doing one thing, just one thing. It might be read a self-help book about decluttering, organizing, getting my life organized. It might be doing a load of dishes everyday for a few days and then add doing a load of laundry everyday. It might be taking an area and decluttering, tidying, or organizing it to break this cycle because these things changes my way of thinking and makes me feel better and unparalyzes me. Seeing a decluttered, tidy, organized area makes me happy and feel successful and free.
This past week my husband ended up in the hospital with issues breathing. It was hard because our child couldn’t go up and see him while he was there. So we couldn’t see him physically until he got out a few days later. While he was in the hospital I still had to do things around the house. We found out that he has to ease his way back into doing things. Now I really have to do a lot more, but with the way I have been decluttering the house it has made it easier to continue decluttering while taking care of him, still helping with schoolwork, and do whatever else that needs to be done.
Do I have a regular routine? No. Except for school. That is the only thing that is as routine as it is because there are live lessons that my child has to attend on some days and in order to get the lessons done in a reasonable amount of time the school day has to start by a certain time. Ending time differs. As for the house “routine”, I basically try to do things when I think of it or while I am waiting or doing something else. For example, while I am waiting for coffee or water for tea to be done I try to empty the dishwasher or load laundry into the washer. If the dishwasher is empty then I try to put in a load while waiting or switch the laundry into the dryer while waiting for the tea or coffee. Also, while I am cooking I might try and do the same or declutter the counters or sweep the floors, depending on how quick the food is cooking.
The past few months my husband and I have been slowly trying to get our laundry room completed. We are turning part of our garage into a laundry room. We built the walls a year or two ago and we are almost done insulating the walls. We have some drywall up on the bottom part of the wall. Yet there is so much more to do and now the outside of the house is needing to be done, and my husband is trying to recover. However, we just take one day at a time, one project at a time, do what we can, and at times we only work for two hours a day. That’s truly how we have gotten things done, by working as a family for two hours on the weekends and I work for a little bit during the weekdays, maybe 15 minutes to an hour.
Now it time for me to try to get back on track and focus on working more on my business. I will try and blog/post more even if it is what I have completed for that week. I am wanting to also start other business things with my husband have products along with services to sell, but for now I just have services.
My services are helping with decluttering, downsizing, organizing, and teaching how to manage your home whether it’s in person or online. Follow the Uncluttered Lanes journey here or on Facebook and if you have any questions or concerns or need help please contact me. The information is on the contact page. Thanks. Have a great week.
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New Year, New Semester, New Things to Come
Last year brought a lot of new ways to live life. With my family some things have changed and some things have not. The school year, the only thing that changed was the grade level of my child. The teacher didn’t change, the school routine didn’t change, too much. Online learning really helped with consistency and something that seems “stable”. With a virus spreading it has changed things a bit.
My husband works from home, I’m still working on my own home business, Uncluttered Lanes, “homeschooling”, and reorganizing the house and even some remodeling projects. At the start of staying at home we were doing pretty good, but then things started going haywire. We couldn’t go to the local Y for Taekwondo classes or swimming, those gave us social interactions, especially for my child, and now I think we are starting to feel the affects of isolation. We’re pretty introverted, but we do like a little socialization. As for my child, there are no other children around or close by or that are about the same age. However, we just take one day at a time and keep going.
For the past few weeks we weren’t sure if my husband was going to be still working or not. As of right now he still has a job, but at the same time we are having some other things in the making to have as extra income and or as the home business and we all just work from home. This year we are planning on making products to sell along with still having the organizing business. So if you want to continue with us on this journey, follow us here and on Facebook. Have a great day.
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School Has Begun- Three Weeks In
The school year has begun and there is a lot to learn. New teacher, new grade, new routines, new responsibilities, new ways of doing things. I have taught my child at home since kindergarten through an online school. It’s nice to do school at home and yet have teachers’ help with teaching. However, there are always bumps along the way. New teachers, new schedules, new ways and more responsibility which can cause friction, but patience goes a long way, especially with teachers and child(ren).
These are rough times due to the Corona virus. Families are having issues with just that alone; being home all of the time with their families in which they are so busy with extra-curricular activities, work, kids, going to a brick and mortar school, and electronics, that they have hardly any time to spend with each other and talk to know each other and what’s going on and what everyone is dealing with in each of their lives, then you put them all in one place. It’s like putting strangers all in one place to live with and life gets very awkward and stressed because they don’t know how to engage with each other and come together as a team. Everyone in the house has lived such separate lives that they don’t know how to live and spend time with each other. This time of being quarantined will either bring a family together and they learn how to be a team or they break apart and become even more estranged with each other.
My family has always been a team and we love working together no matter how big or how small the activity or project is. Now we have even more division due to people being killed and in not just talking about Black Lives Matter situation. As a nation we have always been divided and now we are being even more divided because people don’t talk to each other or to others from different cultures to learn about each other, to come to understand each other, and help each other. We’re not working as a team. We are not team players. It’s now every man, woman, or child for themselves. That’s not things are suppose to be.
Anyway, I digress. I’m sorry I got off track a little, but this is my point, with me teaching my daughter at home and having help with an online school we are all learning to work together and help each other to work as a team. When we work together things happen and it’s powerful, but when we work by ourselves or against each other, a house divided CANNOT stand, it WILL fall.
I love working with my child’s teachers and my family as a team and that’s how a house can be built strong and stand strong.
I haven’t posted much here or on Facebook because I’m getting my family and home in order so that we can travel in the Uncluttered Lanes without cluttering them up.
Please like, share, and subscribe to my website and Facebook page to get updates and see what I post. Thank you.
Teamwork makes the dream work! –John C. Maxwell
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Anxiety, Paralysis, ADHD?
I deal with anxiety at times depression, but I wonder if I have a bit of ADHD. At times I can be hyper-focused on a task, a project, just about anything. I grew up with a lot of stress and worry. I think that has caused a lot of my issues. At times when I would worry about something it would cause a complete shut down mentally that I would become paralyzed and couldn’t do anything, but just sit and worry about that thing.
Later in my years, there were fewer things that I needed to stress about because that issue was resolved or it was no more. I worried and stressed so much over things for most of my life that My mind would find things to worry or stress about. I think I might get mental fatigue very quickly because of being mentally fatigued growing up stressing over things/situations. I’m not a doctor or I have not been diagnosed, but this is my personal opinion.
On YouTube, I have listened to quite a few YouTubers on how to organize and manage a home. In some aspects, I am still learning as I go along. My mom became ill when I was young and she was bedridden for a couple of months and didn’t really ever recover from it. She dealt with depression and maybe anxiety for most of my life. When she became bedridden I had to do the cooking and “cleaning”. I use cleaning in quotes because, hey, I was a kid and kids don’t want to clean. I also had to do the dishes. We had so many dishes that we could go a week or so without washing, and that goes for cooking also. I procrastinated a lot because I didn’t want to do anything. I hated cleaning my room, actually, I should say that I hated tidying. We hardly ever cleaned, or at least I didn’t see my mom do it too often.
My parents got a divorce when I was really young. My mom and I moved from a three-bedroom, house to a three-room tiny house. It was literally tiny. The ceilings were about six feet high. My mom couldn’t lift her hands above her head because the ceilings were so low. We had a kitchen, dining room, and living room altogether in one room. There was a bedroom off to the side that was just big enough to have a full-size bed and a fold-up bed, twin size, and a dresser, and a small path to get into bed and to the bathroom and living area. Then we had a bathroom. We lived there for a short time until we moved into a two-bedroom apartment. The furniture seemed to be so big or we had so much of it that there as a path into every room of the apartment. I lived in clutter most of my life because we had sop much.
We had so much stuff that we did laundry twice a month and at times once a month. We could do dishes for almost every two weeks. There was a time I tried to get rid of some excess stuff, mostly dishes that for everyone that I got rid of it seemed that 10 more took its place. My mom would get so mad at me. That’s why I never decluttered tidied or cleaned. I felt like it was useless and I didn’t like getting yelled at. My mom never taught me how to properly take care of a house because she was so sick.
Now that I am older I am trying to teach my child to take care of a house more properly, a little at a time when there is a lot and not to let the house get so out of control. Not to get too stressed out about things and take a large task a little at a time. Interested in how I do it? Subscribe to my blog, Facebook page to follow me on my journey or contact me about my services.
Uncluttered Lanes 