A New Class, For The New Me!

Every year, I get the urge to make resolutions. Every year, I accomplish one or two of them. This year, I gave myself a gift for Christmas. It was a class, called “Take Your House Back”, put together by three great vloggers. I love these gals. They are Dana White, of A Slob Comes Clean; Dawn Madsen, of Minimal Mom; and Cassandra Aarssen, of Clutterbug, and she’s also on HGTV’s, “Hot Mess House”. This class is all about decluttering, organizing and minimalizing your house. It’s very helpful and the ladies are funny. I follow the Minimal Mom and Clutterbug, every morning, on You Tube.

Oh, this hit a big spot with me!! For years, I had a terribly kept house. The children were young, and had things everywhere. I was teaching school and my hubby had a job that involved lots of traveling. We were very busy, and my house showed it. I really didn’t know how to organize things. I had also inherited my mother’s teacher mentality….”Oh! I need to keep this…I could use it in the classroom someday!” Yep, that’s me. If you look in my hallway, you’ll find a little bottle of my husband’s giant gallstones. Well…I COULD have used that if I had been teaching science or health or something. It does make a good conversation starter.

Each year, I organize something, here and there. But you don’t want to look in my closets. They are a mess. In this class, you spend a week organizing something and then move to a different area the next week. You use three containers…donate, trash and Quarantine bin. The idea is to consider your shelf, closet, drawer, etc., as your “container”. You may only keep what fits in your container. Your room could be your container. If it doesn’t fit, something has to go. I’m trying to send a lot of things to Goodwill, or other places. I’ve sorted through my kitchen inventory and had a lot of doubles of things. Things that I didn’t need or ever use. Out, they went! My kitchen looks so much better. Some days, I just go and look at it. It gives me peace to have my counters cleaned off.

I have a seriously hard time parting with sentimental items. I have a whole closet that is full of my teaching things. I’m a retired teacher. One of the units I did with my students, included African Music. I had collected lots of instruments, masks, fabric and decor. My students loved this unit. I knew I needed to part with these things, but it was very tough. I posted it on Facebook Marketplace. A sweet African American lady bought the whole collection. She has her home decorated with similar things. She was so delighted. It’s nice to think that others can use these things and enjoy them, and they are out of my house.

I’m supposed to be doing my clothes closets. I keep stalling. It looks so overwhelming. It is recommended to set your timer for 10 minutes and do that much. And it usually revs you up and you keep going. But you can stop and know that you did something good. REMEMBER: 5 MINUTES COUNT!

We are about to start painting our bedroom. It’s our COVID Project. Right now, all of the furniture is pulled out to the middle of the room. My hubby has put painter’s tape around the edges of most of the room. It has been sitting this way for two weeks or more. We WILL get this blasted room painted this next week! I’m going crazy. It’s a good reminder to me, that a clean, clutter free room makes me calmer. This room is going to be more modern and minimal. I’ll update you soon, whenever we finish.

Our good news???? We had our first Covid vaccine, a couple of weeks ago. We’ll get our second one on February 13th. Yeah! We’re going to get our shot, and then head to Hill Country, and stay in a condo, for a week, at Canyon Lake. We’re getting away and vegging out. We will celebrate 45 years of marriage, on Valentine’s Day.

Have a great week. Stay safe. If you are in the big snow storm, I hope you are stocked up with food and have electricity. Go build a snowman. Is anyone else doing a major declutter and organizing job?

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Toodles,

Grandma Sherry