The Great Purge of 2014: Day 1

A few days ago I came across a blog entry on Facebook about purging. I read it, loved it, and was immediately called to action. I have a whole bedroom full of clothes, shoes, and knickknacks. I'm slowly taking over the bonus room in my parents' home. The basement has probably 50 boxes of stuff from my last move that never got unloaded.

It's time for the stuff to go.

Part of the prompting is from looking around and being slightly frightened by how quickly the mess gets out of hand. I'm a piler, not a filer which means that things accumulate on surfaces quickly. But I rarely need everything found in every pile. The other part of the prompting is because of some big life changes coming up for me in the next year. I can't get into all the details but basically...I need to par down. Plus, a few Sunday's ago when I was too tired to physically attend church I listened to an old sermon about getting rid of the "stuff" in your life. We let our possessions pile up and cloud our vision of God. We put the big house, the mountain of clothing, and the new boat before our relationship with The Almighty.

Again, it's time for the stuff to go.

I decided to start small (because I'm easily overwhelmed) so I started with my little dresser.

So much junk on such a small space.

I had a lot of paperwork so I went and found my "office paperwork" box from the basement. I had to clean and organize that first.

I made files and sorted all the loose paperwork in the box. I also took out all the stuff that wasn't household paperwork and put that aside.

Amazingly clean and organized box.

Then I was able to tackle everything on the top of the dresser. Since most of it was paperwork it got filed away. I went through my jewelry box and tossed old earrings that no one would wear, put unwanted jewelry in a pile to donate, and neatly put away all the jewelry that I do wear from time to time. I went through the bottom drawer which is a catchall drawer. I found some gift cards and went through those to see which ones still had a balance.

Shamefully all these gift cards have *some* balance left on them. I need to get out more...

The other drawers are workout shorts and sleep clothes. The verdict is still out on exactly how many pairs of Sofee shorts and pajama bottoms I actually need so those all stayed but I made sure that the drawers could actually close and that everything was in there in a semi-neat way. This was the result of the first stage of purging:

Neat clean dresser top.

Now my dresser has just a small pile of things that need my immediate attention (bills, paperwork to be filled out and sent off, etc.), my nook, and some decals for my car (which I'm giving myself a week to do and then they're off to the trash as well).

Looks worse than it is...I promise.

I still have a few things left to tidy up. The binder on the left is for articles that I find interesting. I'll keep filling it and then store it in the bonus room on a bookshelf. Takes up less space than a million magazines. The pile with the orange mask on it is memorabilia that needs to go in my keepsake box (but I will probably need a bigger box so I'm holding off on that). The white thing beside it is a calendar that I need to go through and pull out pictures I like (maybe...or maybe I just need to trash it...it's old). The stack on the right is music that needs to go in a box (again, I need a bigger box than the one I have so I'm waiting). and the small pile with the blue pouch on top is going into the donate box.

Yes, this isn't "technically" a completed project because I need to get some more boxes and pack stuff away. But I feel so much more organized than I did this morning. The key is to keep it from piling up again.

I don't think I will do purging every day but I will keep at this. I need to downsize!