Positive steps, and resolution check-in

I cleaned out my car today...remember last time? Well, it was just as bad...and I had never actually cleaned out the back seat.

after a bit of straightening--i had filled that basket before i remembered that i needed to take a picture...

Here is what I brought inside: 2 laundry baskets full and 2 boxes (one of the boxes included some stuff f/m my great aunt that I had just never brought in:

Would you like to know what I found? Well, in addition to of a ton of trash and receipts, and not including the box of stuff from my aunt:
6 books including the final 3 Harry Potter books, Julia Child's "My Life in France" and a few others, as well as 2 of my Bibles and a journal
4 antique sherbert cups
3 Christmas platters
1 teacup & saucer
12 sonic bags
3 pairs of gloves
5 scarves
2 child's puffer vests (left at my house...never got them back to the rightful owner...)
2 pedometers
1 rose boutonniere (I think it was hubs' from our wedding?? not sure why it was in there...)
1 gift certificate for a massage that I thought I had thrown away (from 2 years ago!--hope they still accept it!)
1 child's jewelry making kit & paper dolls
2 bags of powdered sugar
1 bag of brown sugar
1 cupcake tower
and several random notepads, pens, plastic bags, and a bunch of change.

Well...needless to say, this cleaning was LONG overdue! I've been planning to do it for several weekends but just never did. Glad it's over! I'm sad though b/c I was hoping to find my coupon folder and my favorite bra...not sure where else to look...

Now, since I'm making good choices, I figured that I would go ahead and update you on my resolution progress:

1. Improve my overall health. I really worked on my eating and tracking my food...also exercised this week and have now re-lost the pounds that came back over last week when I was sick! woohoo! I'm still really tired and my throat is hurting pretty consistently, so I don't think I've completely gotten over that last flare-up, but hopefully I'm making some progress.

2. Be a better steward of our money. I did well this week too--did a bit of shopping to use up some old gift cards that I found lying around, but nothing else. Also have sold some more scentsy products and gotten some food orders. Good times!

3. Letting things go. Got another box to get rid of...some of the stuff from my aunt that was in my car as well as a few things I had collected around the house.

4. Waste less time. Doing pretty well, have been baking, organizing, and reading some as well as getting the car and kitchen in shape.

5. Read books. Still on track w/my devotionals and have started reading My Life in France (now that I found it--heehee)

6. Organize/cleaning. Did the car, that is enough for me!

7. Spend more time w/hubs. We had a really great weekend! Went out for lunch yesterday, then walked around the downtown area before picking Butch up to go to the park. All in all, a lot of good quality this week.

8. Have time with God daily. I may have missed a day or two, but have been consistent overall.

So that's my check-in for this week! I am feeling really good about everything right now and every bit of accomplishment makes me more eager to continue making positive steps.

Oh yeah, if you were wondering about my little trivia from this post, numbers 2 & 6 are true. The others are mostly grounded in truth: 1. Part of my group did get lost on the Russian metro system, but I knew the guy who understood how to navigate; 3. I was in the top 5 graduates and spoke at graduation, but not #1; 4. Well...this is not true, but there were only 2 others!; 5. Okay...this isn't true either. I hate sports, but I do root for UK b/c of hubs

Have a great week! (last one in February--yikes!)

Wifey Wednesday: To Purge or Not to Purge?

No, not purging of food (though I've got to get rid of the junk in this house!!)...over on To Love Honor & Vacuum (an awesome blog!) Sheila has asked:

So here's our question of the day: what do you do with a packrat husband? Has anyone dealt with this before? Or what do you do if he's way messier than you are? How do you find a compromise?

I don't usually link on the Wifey Wednesday posts, but since I was already planning a post in this area, I thought it would be quite fitting!

I may have mentioned this before, but I am a bit of a packrat and not the tidiest person in the world. We didn't have much money when I was little, though we never went without, but my dad definitely had the mindset of never wasting anything b/c his family really struggled financially He has been known to dumpster dive...more than a few of our childhood toys were picked up off the side of the road...and when I was in college he was like a kid on Christmas when everyone was moving out and they had the huge dumpsters behind the dorms!! and really, people threw away good stuff b/c they didn't want to take it home... So I have been raised to really put a value on obtaining stuff for little or no money, and also not to waste!
The same types of attitudes seem to be in hubs' family. When his grandmother passed away and we helped to clean her house we found SO much stuff and she clearly held onto anything that she felt had value or usefulness.

I am definitely thankful that we are at least similar in our backgrounds so that we aren't always fighting and driving each other crazy with our opposing habits, but we do not motivate one another to get things done...that is for sure.

I find that I am more motivated to get rid of excess stuff...especially now that there are so many options for recycling & selling things on consignment, but hubs doesn't like to let things go. I often watch shows like Hoarders and Clean House to motivate myself to accomplish some organiation...but this week I saw that those same things would not motivate hubs. I was watching an episode of Hoarders which depicted a man who had amassed an out-of-control collection of beer cans, and was facing bankruptcy due to his compuslion to keep collecting. Hubs walked through the room and saw a clip of the show and said "Oh no! Why are they making him get rid of his collection?!?" At that moment I just laughed and thought...I wonder why my house looks the way it does? Not that I'm blaming him totally....I definitely have my share in the mess. It's just funny.

Well, this is what I am facing right now. Needless to say, I am quite overwhelmed:

the view from the doorway

and from the corner...
AHHH!!! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!!

This is my "craft room"/guest room/hubs extra computers. Eventually this room is meant to be a child's room, but I don't know how we would ever fit one in here without squishing them! We have filled our house--we have too much stuff. Two people should not require over 1400 square feet just for stuff! This room is the catch-all room, when I am cleaning for people to come over, I tend to focus on the common areas and since we do not use this room regularly, everything just gets thrown in there. Right now, I have to get the room in order b/c I have some friends visiting next weekend and at least one will be spending the night so they need a place to sleep.

So, in answer to Sheila's questions, hubs and I are pretty much on the same messy page in all of this. I still have about 98% of the housekeeping duties and focus on keeping our "common areas" neat; but he has the freedom to keep his office however he wants. I maintain most of the other areas, he puts his dishes in the sink and recycles his cans and bottles and takes out the trash and part of the recycling (we have MUCH more recycling than trash, something that I am very proud of :) ). If there is something that is just taking up space and not of any value to us we discuss it and take it to consignment or throw it away if it's okay with him. If not, I usually just put it in "his room" and try to forget about it. Things will have to change somewhat for us to have room for kids (!) but we're working on it.

I really want to get rid of a lot this year, and I am not waiting until the new year to start cleaning! The room looks a little better, but I have a lot do, and am feeling motivated. I just want to keep it going this time.

waste not, want not?

so here's a fun fact about me. i HATE waste. i mean really and truly hate it. and i believe that i have a bit of a hoarding tendency. i have really witnessed this tonight in my attempt to work on cleaning the house and organize the kitchen a bit more.

due to the tremendous amounts of baking that i have been doing lately, i have continued to accumulate kitchen stuff: gadgets to make my work easier (i finally found a cherry pitter after scouring all the stores in bowling green!), aluminum pie pans and cardboard boxes for orders, extra pans for when i make a lot of something, and bulk amounts of ingredients (i am now purchasing flour and sugar in 25 lb bags).

hubs and i have been blessed with a wonderful house that we love, but the kitchen is not really a cook's kitchen. there is no pantry (i have put extra shelves in the attached laundry room), and there is not much cabinet space--10 full size cabinet doors, 4 1/2 drawers, and 6 half-sized cabinets (only tall enough to hold a bag of flour/no extra shelves). i realize that for some people that would be plenty, but for someone like me with a plethora of dishes, pans, gadgets, and ingredients to store, PLUS tons of store-bought stuff that hubs gets from his best friend, we have quickly run out of room. tonight was my 3rd time this year to try to re-organize in order to make better use of our space.

i decided that it was time to organize two of my lower cabinets that have billed filled with dinner mixes and processed food since we moved into the house 3 years ago--and stuff that i never use. i cleared off a shelf in my "pantry" that i had devoted to a plastic bin full of disposable containers (we'll get to those later) and decided to sort through everything.

what i found was shameful. the majority of this food expired in 2006 or even 2005! there were leftover instant meals from when i was in college, and instant mashed potato flakes from when we first got married...oh it was bad. but the worst part was that it hurt me to throw it out! i know that the food wasn't useful to our lifestyle anymore...and probably wouldn't be safe to eat even if it was...but i kept thinking about the starving kids in africa who would probably like to eat my out of date hamburger helper instant beef stroganoff meal! i trashed at least 10 boxes of stuff...but only after dumping the contents out of their cardboard boxes so that i could at least recycle those. and i hate to admit it....but i still kept some things...it's just so hard for me!

and then there are the plastic food containers....once again the recycling factor gets me. bowling green does not recyle type-5 plastic, and therefore i have several years worth of sour cream, cool whip, margarine, and who-knows-what-else containers, not to mention the gladware and other stuff that we got when we got married. i keep thinking that i will be able to use them...and i have used many to dole out leftovers to hungry college bible study girls...but now the girls are all gone, and i can't keep every sour cream container that i ever obtain! does anyone know of a recyling plant nearby that takes #5 plastic? lol.

the weird thing is that i've never been super earth-conscious or whatever--but i am OBSESSED with recycling. to the point that i keep a box at work and collect the recyclables and then bring them home on the pick-up day. my dad's family didn't have much money, so he has that "depression-era" mindset of keeping and using everything, and when i was growing up we didn't have much money either and definitely made use of everything we had. we very rarely throw anything away other than food scraps, packaging, and paper stuff (which we recycle if at all possible), and my dad has been known to dumpster dive & pick stuff up from the side of the road! but we also have a lot of STUFF b/c of this. i have a box of ripped and torn clothing that i can't bear to throw out b/c it's not an acceptable form of trash for me--i had in my mind that i would make rags or a quilt or something out of it b/c i just couldn't bear to throw it in the trash! i mean, really, if i ever do get around to quilt making, i will be using something prettier than torn up jeans!! but believe me--i was super excited when i read in a magazine yesterday that clothing with holes in it can still be donated to goodwill and will be recycled--yay!

i tend to acquire things based on whether i think i will ever possibly need or want it rather than really having a use for it. because of that, i found the ingredients for dishes that i have never ever made, lots of things that i had bought in bulk when on a discount...and then forgot that i had so i bought more--just frustrating stuff. and all this junk that was completely without use was taking up half of my storage space under the kitchen counters! gah! in general, our house is full of stuff that we have acquired and kept but that we will probably not have use for.

i am making small steps towards organization and the purging of unecessary things, but it is still very difficult for me. i really desire to be a good steward of the things that God has blessed us with, and i feel that i am not doing that right now at all! what are some ways that you organize or decide what to get rid of?