must! declutter! now!

must! declutter! now!

I don’t know if I’m officially nesting, or if 3 months of mess and clutter have just made me jump off the crazy cliff, but I spent the weekend in declutter mode! (My weekends are always Saturday-Monday, but this weekend I had Friday off too. Friday was Paul’s birthday. Happy birthday, Paul! I can’t believe I forgot to do a blog post in his honor. Oh well…)

I feel like I got a lot accomplished, but our apartment still doesn’t look it. :-)

I signed up for Freecycle and finally got rid of some wire shelves I’ve been trying to dispose of for a long time. I also was able to sell a bar-height table and stools on Craigslist, and they were picked up on Saturday. That freed up a TON of room!

Today, I finished sorting through the filing cabinet. I wanted to go through the existing files and purge what wasn’t needed anymore, but I had stopped mid-task and had piles of paper strewn throughout the living room. I was able to get that cleared up, and Paul kindly shredded all the old documents that had our names/addresses on them… I had a huge pile but he did it all! I was impressed, and we ended up carrying a huge black garbage bag full out to the dumpster when all was said and done… I can’t believe we had that much trash! (It feels very satisfying, I think, to take the trash out… The same satisfaction you get after turning an overflowing hamper of dirty clothes into neat stacks of clean clothes.)

I have several very large piles of paperwork that needs to be filed. I got through one pile, and I think I’ll continue working on that tonight. I know there are papers around here that need to be taken care of, but they have gotten mixed up with junk mail and the “to be filed” stacks. I’m hoping to get through the latter two so I can find the important stuff. :-)

In another attempt to get organized, I dragged Paul to a few stores looking for a daytimer/organizer. I use Google calendar to keep track of appointments, but I’ve been wishing I had something that I could hold in my hands when we’re out, and also a place where I can stick bills and letters so they don’t get lost. I was being picky – I didn’t want one that was too small, or too heavy to carry around. (Some of those fancy ones with all the pockets just get cumbersome, I think.) Then I found the perfect one! Only to notice that it was from July 2009-June 2010. As I looked farther, I realized that almost ALL of them were like that. I got really frustrated – I know it’s almost April, but July is still a ways away! I dragged Paul to another store, where I found ONE that met my needs. (Had the same problem with the July 09 thing!) It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t that expensive so I’ll make do. If I hate it then I’ll get another one when July rolls around.

So hopefully armed with an organizer and a once-again functional filing system, I will stop needing all those reminder letters and will take care of things as I get them. ;-)

And a few other things I got done this weekend – I wrote FIVE blog posts for my pet blog! I had gotten behind with my posting, and so had to write five at once. I got tired and I’m sure the last one makes no sense, but I was happy to get them out of the way. I also worked on the Gerig reunion, reserving the site and sending out reminder emails. I’m getting excited about seeing everyone!

I still have a lot to do, but I feel good about the accomplishments this weekend. I will be glad when I can get rid of all the clutter in our house – hopefully just in time for Baby Sparkleberry’s arrival, and the accumulation of more stuff. ;-)

By the way, the date for our 20 week ultrasound is April 9th. Hopefully the picture will be clear and we’ll be able to tell what gender Sparkleberry is! :-) We won’t be announcing the name until birth, but I might open up the floor for discussion later if we’re still having trouble deciding.

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