Decluttering Encouragement

I have always struggled with getting rid of things. I know my ADHD plays a role in that. I know growing up without a lot also plays a role in that. But ultimately it is something I want to get better at. I have been working my whole adult life to improve at letting things go. Here are a few things that have helped me. 

One thing that has really helped me is letting myself keep things. I know that sounds counter intuitive so let me explain. If I am pressuring myself to get rid of everything, I feel out of control and overwhelmed. So by allowing myself the grace to keep things, it makes me feel more in control and ultimately, I get rid of more. For example, getting rid of baby clothes is very hard! So I let myself just pull out the ones I didn't really like or my child didn't wear. Then I put the others away. Next time, I can part with a few more as my memory of them wearing those items fades. I have a few outfits per child that I can picture them in and my heart hurts to let them go. So I don't. I put a small box in the top of the closet just for those. I set myself a limit of one small box for all the baby clothes I'm keeping for all four children. Now, as I find more old clothes in boxes, I feel more free to donate them because I know the special ones are safe.

Declutter in waves! I never make myself go through all of something at once. It's a sure fire way to get overwhelmed and give up! So instead I just choose a few and move on. The next time, I can chose a few more. This works with anything! Baby clothes, shoes, my clothing, art supplies, school supplies, books, etc. It's easier to let something go when you know you are keeping almost all of the rest. But after several phases of this over months, you have decluttered quite a lot.

Happy 16 Years to my Best Friend! (Flower Pictures)

Today is my 16 year anniversary so I will be celebrating with my sweet husband. Marrying my best friend was the best decision I could have made! I look forward to 16 more!

I thought I'd post pictures of flowers from my garden for today! 

Coral Rose

Queen Lime Orange Zinnia (from last year)

Sunny Knock Out Rose

Coral Knock Out Rose

Multi-colored Petunia

Yumm! Garden snacks!

Summer snacking has began! Yummy strawberries and mint leaves are snacks my kids like eating straight from the garden. Now we are just waiting on cherry tomatoes, mini sweet peppers, and okra. Yes, two of my kids like okra raw! I prefer it roasted or fried. My kids like fresh cherry tomatoes so much they asked me to stop buying them from the store because they weren't as good! I love snacking on the sweet peppers myself, as do a couple of my kids. What are your favorite snacks from the garden?

Here's pictures of some of our harvest last year:

           

Small House Organizing Tip #4 - Add Shelves in Unused Spaces

One of the things I learned at the small house was to look for unused spaces to install shelving. It greatly increased our storage in a house that was very low on storage!

Our small house kitchen did not have any extra food storage. Just the regular kitchen cabinets that we needed to store dishes, pots, pans, etc. So we had to get creative! We did have french doors in the kitchen and a laundry room on the other side. Two of the doors would meet on the same wall, so that wall wasn't used for anything. As our family expanded, we decided we had to do something to create more storage in the kitchen! We decided to take the laundry room door off the door frame. It was a very small room and really didn't need a door. The kitchen door didn't need to open 180 degrees to touch that wall either. We were then able to install shelving to create a pantry. It added so much storage space! Knowing we wanted to sell the house in the next few years, we decided on easily removable shelving since we were aware it was in an odd place. Our realtor ended up telling us to leave the shelving because it added so much space! 

If you notice to the left of the shelving, we also added a wrack to hold some of my most used cookbooks as the others were stored in another room. We tried not to waste any space!

Thrift Store Shopping Trip #2

For Mother's Day, my husband took me thrift store shopping because he knows I love doing that! We went on Monday so it wasn't as crowded. We went back to the used video game store from last week and got a few Beanie Babies and a Minecraft card game.