Bye Bye stuff.

   Have you ever just walked around your house and realized that you are just surrounded by things?
That is where I am at right now. I know that we have had a lot of one-sided conversations about my overflow of items. There is always a mountain of clothes of varying sizes throughout my house, and a bazillion dirty dishes that I am still amazed actually all have a place. But the problem is that lately I have found way too many things in my house that actually don't have a place because all the places are full.
   JT wants to learn to swim, and while we have been taking him to the pool every few days to work on it (he gets so busy playing he will only dedicate about 5-10 minutes a pool session to actually learning to swim, which is honestly fine with me because I have 2 other kids to keep my eyes on) I occasionally get the urge to tell him to go dive in the toy room and practice. It's kind of the best of both worlds- I don't have to watch him, he cant drown.. suffocate via stuffed animal avalanche perhaps, but no drowning, and he still gets the concept of pushing things out of his way in order to get to the other side.
  There have been more crying sessions than I would like to admit over the sheer amount of accumulated CRAP, as well as  few fights that go something like this:
   -UGHH THERE IS TOO MUCH CRAP IN HERE!
   - So throw some of it away.
   - Like WHAT? I USE all of this stuff, we just need a bigger house.
   - No you need to learn to not keep everything.
   - What are you trying to say? You think I am a hoarder? Oh NO! Those Hoarder Marathons are starting to rub off on me! I can hear their voices in my head. I agree with them.. My stuff is fine, if we just get rid of all of yours it would be great! I'm Doomed. I am just going to live in a mountain of items for the rest of my life.

  This is generally where Ian tells me I am ridiculous and walks away. But the scary part is some days I actually think that.. If Ian just didn't have so many clothes I would have this whole closet to myself.
   So it stops here. I wish I had thought of this sooner, but since I didn't I will start with where I am at.
I am attaching a slew of pictures of my house. The Great Thomas House Purging of 2014 has already begun, so pardon some of the mess and overflow of furniture, but welcome to my overstuffed home. Please keep me accountable to getting rid of things... and pardon the mess.. This is a Construction Zone, and my life is in a state of redevelopment. Out with the old, and in with the basic necessities.

Please meet my kitchen, home of 40 mugs for one coffee drinker, and too many things on the counter.

 Next up we have my laundry room, complete with last years Christmas decorations, and my downstairs closet, home of all the random things we don't know where to put. Oh and the dog food.

This happens to be the one area of my living room I really have a problem in. I try to keep it clutter free, but it just gathers all the things we need to put out of the kids reach and the things we don't want to lose.

Here we have JT, I think he will go in the keep pile. Although about 50% of the things you see behind him will not be joining him. Sorry toys, I would like to take back my life.

Here we have the upstairs. Porter's room contains so many clothes that I can't close the space saver bags. There's the too small bag that I have to go through, the too small bag of things I am keeping, the too big bag, the fits but is totally wrong season bag, and the laundry bag (and pile) of things that have never made it into the dresser for me to know if they fit or not.

 

And lastly we have the Master Bedroom. The most work has been done in this room recently. The real "Before" Picture was a lot scarier than this. I have already removed 2 bags of give away, a paper box of random knick knacks and a full bag of trash from this room, Oh and a desk. If you had been looking at this room 3 days ago you wouldn't know we had carpet because of the sheer amount of clothes.

 

So now that I have laid all of my dirty laundry all over this blog (literally if you look at the laundry room pictures) I am going to let you know my motive.

 I always say that I am getting rid of things, but I always chicken out. Here I know that I have readers who will ask me about it. And since any of you that happen to come by only see the downstairs, not you will know what my upstairs looks like, and why we don't venture up there. Keep me accountable ladies and gentlemen. I need the organization so that I can function. Otherwise this house turns into my black hole. I am meant for bigger and better and nicer things than what is in these pictures and I am tired of letting the  accumulation of material possessions hold back my plans in life, and suck away the precious minutes.

 

If I have not given you any updates in a week hound me. Seriously. text me. blog me. call me out on Facebook. Whatever you think I need.

 

Until then... I am off to put that Kuerig to use. Send Coffee.