Hold on, this will only take me 10 minutes

So, there's this "joke" in our house that I can do anything in 10 minutes. This, of course, is completely rooted in reality... the reality that nothing ever gets done in any amount of time remotely close to 10 minutes. It started out innocently enough - I said it would take me 10 minutes to finish something (upon which I would then help Lauren with something she was hoping I would be ready to do soon); and sure enough, 10 minutes later... I was about a fifth of the way done. For a while, this became a point to be proven - I was dead set on saying exactly how long it would take me to do something and then completing it in that amount of time or less. For a while, I somehow, someway kept thinking everything would take 10 minutes. 10 minutes to fix the sink. 10 minutes to change the oil in my car. 10 minutes to solve world hunger. After a while, I learned that I needed to give myself more leeway - which of course only succeeded in me being less wrong. Instead of being off by only 5 hours and 50 minutes, I was only off by three hours when I would say I could do something in three hours. So, after a while, I just gave up - my standard answers are now "I have no clue how long this will take" - or, if I feel like trying to grab some levity in the face of a seemingly insurmountable project, I just say it will take 10 minutes.

So that brings us to this weekend. I'm pretty sure that I can finish everything I want to get done this weekend, but I'm also pretty sure that I am great at being wrong. But there's not too much to do - I just need to 1) put the face and doors on the cabinet in the kitchen this weekend that I've been working on for two weeks (more on this in a minute), 2) clean about 700 lbs. of sawdust out of our garage (and off of the everything that it is currently covering), 3) attempt to halve all the crap that currently lives in our garage, 4) cut our "extra" counter-top in half, and 5) create a shelf in our garage out of this counter-top. I'm sure I can get this all done in about 10 minutes.

So, this cabinet face (see point #1 above)... that's been a nightmare. I spent several days crafting a 80" by 24" custom face out of a single piece of wood, that had three cabinet doors for it, and a hole for a microwave. Not so easy - especially when you don't have the right tools. So, it felt even better when it wasn't fitting right, and subsequently split when trying to force it on and having an especially rough time with a stripped screw. But, I knew in the end I only had myself to blame - I attempted to buy cheaper wood to save some money, and it bit me in the butt. So, I then got to do it all over again - and this time, I bought better wood, and made it out of several pieces. And I'll be honest - it looks much better than the first one (and it fits better too). So, once it's on, I'll be happy. Until then, I'll continue to be stressed. At the very least, I got to have the fun of covering a two car garage in sawdust between making both faces.

And here is the aforementioned garage:

Once upon a time, two cars lived in this garage. Right now, none do. Because in the process of getting all my tools out to make the cabinet faces (you can see the new one lying clamped on the floor), I also managed to topple all my "don't touch that pile of stuff, you might get yourself killed" stacks of coolers, wood, tools, paint cans, oil pans, yard equipment, and lots-and-lots-of-trash. So now that stuff is everywhere - and that's what I'm going to get rid off. It turns out, I'm never going to use the last 3 square feet of drywall I saved, or the 4,000 leftover pieces of wood that I cut off when making our desk, tailgate toss, DVD cabinet, and other projects. So, they shall go. And in one spot, I'm even gonna make some more storage. Here shall be the home of half our soon-not-to-be-in-our-kitchen-counter:

I'm really hopeful here - I think it's a great idea to make a shelf there to double the storage of this space. We'll see how it goes. I've got the whole three-day weekend to make it happen. But I'm sure it will only take about 10 minutes.

touristy crap

I spent a semester in London, and while I was there, I collected an assortment of touristy crap, pictured here:

Specifically, I'm referring to the model black cab on the top shelf, along with the Hard Rock Cafe London cup on the far left of the second shelf, and it's friends: the miniature Crown Jewels, little Big Ben, double-decker bus paperweight thingy, the tiny Eiffel Tower I picked up in Paris, and the Royal Scot shot glass from Scotland.  These things have lived on these shelves interspersed between picture frames since I brought them home from London 8 years ago.  When I bought them, I think I was afraid that once I left London, I would need them to prove to myself that I had been there, or that they would somehow take me back there in my mind in a way that I could not do without them.  I now realize that I find them to be silly, pathetic, touristy items that in no way represent my amazing semester in London.  If only I could have brought home my favorite professor, Patrick, with his dashing good looks, brilliant accent and ingenious interpretations of Shakespeare....but, alas, he remains with me only in my mind, and without any need of a physical object to represent him.

Similarly, I had many picture frames with pictures of our wedding that had been scattered around our home since a few months after the event....and I don't think I ever even noticed them anymore, they'd just been collecting dust.  And as much as I like to look fondly back on our wedding day, more important to me is to continue to grow with my husband and focus on who we are today--both very different in many ways from the people we were when we walked down the aisle almost 7 years ago.

It is amazing how much I/we've changed, and how many of the things in our home no longer represent who we are today, and even more importantly, who we want to be.  And while I still have some things to figure out (there was one shelf of stuff that simply got moved around, but nothing was yet discarded, and I'll explain that in a moment...), I'm growing more confident in my ability to let go of things from the past, and of who I used to be, in exchange for more space in my life to focus on who I am now and who I want to become.

So, the shelves I addressed tonight in my get rid of stuff campaign were the one pictured above, and these others:

And I was able to easily part with 16 picture frames, along with all the touristy crap, as well as about 6 candles that were stacked up behind some picture frames, and that have been lit maybe once.  Apparently I really like the idea of candles, but the practical application seems to escape me.

Here are the after shots, though I did keep 2 of the picture frames from the first shelf, but they are being relocated, and, as you will see, I struggled with the last shelf and ended up putting those things back on it, just in a different arrangement because I could not remember how they were before (good think I have the before picture in case I decide to return to that arrangement).  Those items are things that Brett and I made for each other as gifts--including a sketch of us he drew, pictures of us when we were first dating, things that I'm not yet ready to part with and that although I rarely look at them or use them, they bring me enough joy to be worth keeping around and taking care of.

Above the merely rearranged sentimental items, including one remaining framed wedding photo that despite my earlier comments I'm not ready to let go of, are some ND items that are staying for now, in addition to the 2 signed footballs that were the only survivors (by Brett's request) of the shelves above the desk.

And we will continue to ask ourselves the Peter Walsh questions: do I need this?  and does this bring me joy?  as we continue to evaluate what stays and what goes, but I think we are getting to the point where more stuff is going to be staying, and I'm having some fears about failing to reach the halving goal.....

Hey... there's a desk under there!

Another day, another feat accomplished at our house. Turns out we own a desk. And one would think I would know that, considering I built the damn thing - but we've done our best to make it practically unusable as a desk most of the time:

Yep, this desk was almost usable. It was serving several purposes, like holding on to months (if not years) worth of paper that we were too lazy to take to a trash can, it was proudly displaying our Turbografx 16 (under the box on the left), and - most importantly - holding down our floor. You just never know when your floor will decide to float away. But, after spending seemingly forever trying to continue to use the desk as a desk (call us crazy) by just pushing stuff over/off the keyboard, setting stuff up on top of other stuff, and continually picking up the garbage that fell off the desk back up on its ceremonial perch on top of said desk... we decided last night was the night to finally tackle this thing. And Lauren, being the amazing person she is, tackled it all on her own while I took care of the kids. Through an hour or so of hard work, asking me "what the hell is this thing, does it even work, and do we need it", and filling a few trash bags, we ended up with this:

That's right - QUAD DESK!!!!!! Oh, wait... I can't back that up. Here's our actual desk (now, usable as a desk!):

Wow - look at that thing. Not only can you actually type on it, there actually is empty space which we could use for functional reasons! It's amazing. What a great desk... the person that built that must be a truly awesome person...

But then, upon finishing cleaning it off, two harsh realities hit us: 1) the drawers are still filled with papers, pens (that may or may not work), crap we don't need, crap we might need, crap we didn't know we had, and possibly small woodland creatures; and 2) now we have to keep this (and everything else we've been cleaning up/halving) clean.

The second reality is the roughest one on us. We've been going through this process feeling really good about how much less claustrophobic and how much more happy our house has been making us, but we haven't started to do much to address how we are going to keep it that way. It's been a lot of fun living in the magical fairyland where we spend six months halving our possessions and that's all we need to do, but now we have to start thinking more and more about how we're going to keep our house in a state that makes us happy. And, how are we going to do so in a way where we don't spend all of our time cleaning? Sure, having less stuff to clean will help, but we don't have a good history when it comes to keeping things cleaned. This is far from the first time we've cleaned off the desk. And we've always let it get covered in massive amounts of stuff that we end up just throwing out because we never really needed to keep it. It's a bit scary, because we really want to not only improve the current state of our lives, but improve our habits to make it a way of life - while still having time left over to have a life. Any advice, words of encouragement, or magical cleaning spells would be much appreciated :)

So, now that I've gone and depressed everyone, let's end on a better note. I know you have all been reading each and every post thinking "good for them, they cleaned {insert item here} - but how are they doing over all? Where are they in their halving?". Well, the answer is coming. Soon. That's right - coming to your favorite blog about an Indiana couple halving their possessions is:

Once it's up, we'll be doing our best to keep it updated with our latest project in each category, both joint and individually. And once that happens, well, we really are gonna have to get this done, won't we?

more than just "halving" our stuff

So last night we more than "halved" our book collection, and Brett just got back from dropping off 194 books to a local charity, leaving us with 158 books that we are keeping, though part of me feels like even having 158 books may not be in line with my ultimate goal of living more simply. I'm just not sure where to draw the line. We each have some work related books included in that number, and the rest are pretty much fiction books that we love and plan to share with our children, like our double set of Harry Potter books. We have, more than once, decided to re-read the same Harry Potter book at the same time (in addition to reading several of them the first time through simultaneously, including reading book 5 chapter by chapter, followed by intense discussion and speculation after each chapter, while on our honeymoon almost 7 years ago) so sharing one set of Harry Potter books is just not an option for us. 

But what does it really mean for us to live simply?  As we continue this process I can see that some categories will be easy to "half", like books, and others will be more challenging, like furniture (not sure if we can do it, Brett, especially with me now wanting to keep the kitchen table....sorry!), but more than whether or not we achieve our goal of having half as many possessions as we did 6 months prior by the end of August, I'm concerned with whether I will have even scratched the surface of what it means to live simply, and if I'll actually be happier in my life.  When I imagine what I want my life to be like, as opposed to what it is like now, I imagine a simple, relaxing life with lots of space both physically and metaphorically so that I have plenty of room in my life for the things that are the most important to me.

But then when I try to imagine what I will be willing to sacrifice to make my life seem less "full", I'm not sure if I'm really ready to make those tough choices.  Stuff is one thing, because for me, I've become as cluttered as I am more because of my lack of proper concern and care for stuff, rather than an inability to let go of stuff.  But even once I get my house simplified and as easy as possible to maintain, there will still be the necessary cleaning, dishes, laundry, maintenance chores, in addition to work, and planning and cooking meals, exercising, and gymnastics classes, and preschool, and the list goes on and on.  And out of those things, what I could sacrifice I don't want to and what I would want to sacrifice simply has to be done.....so then what?

Anyway, that's where I'm at, but onward we go, and here are the before and after pics from the book halving :)
Before:

After:

Goodbye, Cleveland

So, we have this corner in our house that we call The Corner from Hell. This corner is where we have, over the past 4-5 (possibly longer) years been putting things that we don't know where else to put every time we did one of our "OK, people are gonna be here in 2 hours - let's clean the whole house!" deals. The result looks something like (or, exactly like) this:

There are literally layers of junk in there - it's almost like counting the number of rings on a tree to see how old it is. The top layer is this past Christmas. Under that, probably last spring's "let's clean this whole house" unfinished adventure. There is probably a layer near the bottom that is comprised entirely of things that belonged to the previous occupants of the house - and I would not be surprised if the bottom layer actually was the previous owners of the house.

But... that corner is a story for another day. That corner scares us - we avoid it like the plague. Today, we addressed The Corner from Hell's cousin, The Foyer from Cleveland - not as bad as Hell, but you wouldn't want to be caught dead there, either. Here's some super-fun pictures of this demonic monstrosity:

And, in order to address The Foyer from Cleveland properly, we needed to address the attached "Closet from Toledo" (again, not as bad as Cleveland, but you get the idea):

I know, I know - you're thinking "what's the problem? This all looks perfectly clean to me!" - and, of course, you'd be correct (if our house had just been the scene of a hurricane beating up a tornado). But call us perfectionists, we thought we could make this foyer look a little bit cleaner. So, we went through this disaster area and threw out stuff we didn't even know why we were holding on to - we got rid of 8 coats neither of us had worn in years, and I literally had saved wrappers from candy that Lauren sent me when she spent a semester in London 8 years ago. And not just one or two - I saved like 15 or 16. And, this was of course made even more sad when I realized I was unconsciously checking to make sure that some didn't have candy in them still (which was both a sad and scary moment for me). The prize of this "treasure hunt", though, was this rogue stick:

Neither of us had ever seen this stick before. We indeed may never know what this stick was used for, nor what potential it had to be so many different things in the years to come, because after a 25 minute discussion, we decided that it too must go. So, after a few hours of work, we had de-Clevelanded the foyer:

Nothing in the foyer that doesn't serve a purpose - and the closet was freed of about 2/3 of it's inhabitants as well. And here's one of the amazing things about this project - our Foyer had been so cluttered for so long that I actually forgot the Winnie the Pooh mat was under there. And I'm sure you're thinking "why do you have a Winnie the Pooh mat in your foyer?". To this, I answer - why doesn't everyone? Think about it - Winnie the Pooh is a gluttonous bear who obsessively and compulsively eats honey (and only honey). His best friends are 1) Tigger, a tiger-esque creature who bounces all over the place and has such a bad case of ADHD that you might need to actually call it ADHHHHHD, 2) Piglet, a squeamish pig so scared of everything he would probably flee in fear if a young infant looked at him oddly, and 3) Eeyore, a manic depressive donkey who constantly loses his own body parts. If Winnie the Pooh is what welcomes you into our home, how could you - no matter what your idiosyncrasies - not be welcome in our house?

Also, as long as Pooh is around, I'm not the most gluttonous being in the house :)

the kitchen...

So, it's been a few days since our last post because we've been dealing with the kitchen.  We had new counter top installed on Tuesday, prior to which Brett chose to install the new cabinets on the one wall and remove the old counter top himself to save on labor costs, which took some time, and then after they were installed, I decided I did not like the one wall where we added cabinets and counter top, so then we had the--much dreaded by Brett--conversation about what to do and whether or not he would be willing to undo both the work he did and take out the new counter top on that wall.  Neither of us was truly surprised by this outcome, and this is typical of all the things that are wrong with us.  This whole process began when we both agreed we wanted to get a new freestanding range oven to replace the 1960s wall oven and separate cook top that we both questionable in their ability to actually cook and oven things.  So Brett removed the cabinets below the old cook top so the new range could be installed there, and then he removed the old wall oven and is still working on the custom cabinets he is filling that space with--all of this I love.

Because taking out the old cook top and removing the cabinets below it required cutting the old counter top, which was hideous and hated by us anyway as just one more glaring reminder that this house was built in 1960 and not much had changed about it, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to replace the counter top as part of this whole project--and again, I'm totally on board here.

Then, someone (OK, it was me) had the crazy idea that it would be nice to add counter top and cabinets along the wall that previously was used as eat-in kitchen space, housing a small table and chairs.  At first, if I remember correctly, Brett was hesitant, not sure how this would work, but also thought it was an interesting idea, since we have a dining room and a dining room table that is rarely used, why not add more counter space and cabinets to the kitchen, eliminating the eat-in kitchen area. 

Now, here comes the first moment we should have realized this was a bad idea: when we measured the area, we realized that the doorway to the kitchen was only 15 inches from the wall on that side, meaning any counter top that was added over there could be no more than 15 inches deep, which is not very deep at all, especially once you get said counter top installed and realize it is practically the equivalent of a narrow shelf of counter top--something I doubt any other home has, and for good reason.

But, rather than put on the breaks, we briefly discussed the depth issue and decided it would probably be fine, so let's go for it!

And here are the pictures to prove it:

Now, as a shelf, this is quite useful, but I think aesthetically it leaves something to be desired.  We also might have considered stopping when we had to use wall cabinets on the floor, because traditional bottom cabinets are much deeper, but no, we continued to convince ourselves it would probably be fine, despite much evidence to the contrary.

The rest of the new counter I actually like, and it looks like this:

At some point we plan to paint the cabinets, which will also make the kitchen look nicer, especially once Brett removes the counter-shelf :)

But until then, I've returned the kitchen table and chairs to their old, albeit more interesting, home, which looks like this (I thought this was the most unusual picture, so I especially wanted to share it):

As you can see, we currently have a partially covered kitchen table, in case it rains on the back 1/3 of the kitchen table area...

But, back to halving our stuff....the new decision to remove the new counter shelf and keep the old kitchen table will pose new challenges to halving our furniture, but we are not giving up!  More halving excitement to follow!  Thanks for all the e-mails and well-wishes!

Thank you, gravity

Halving all the items in our kitchen just got a bit easier, thanks to the wine glass that came crashing to the floor over the weekend. Just think - if we were doing this in space, the glass wouldn't have crashed and we would have to make one more agonizing choice of what to get rid of.  But thanks to gravity, we just might be able to hang on to one more item like that extra corn holder or the spoon that Ginny accidentally stole from Bob Evans a few years back when we got home and it was in her car seat with her.  Who knows what we'll keep - it's getting crazy over here.

Speaking of the kitchen, our new counters will be installed tomorrow, and I should have my custom cabinet face finished in the upcoming days as well (pictures coming soon). And then, all we'll need to do is, well, continue to get rid of half the crap in there. So, yeah, the kitchen is about 10% done :)

We've started down another road that I think will have a domino effect with our halving; we're working on getting rid of half our excess weight - our "body clutter" as we like to call it.  A week or two ago we signed up to run in a 10K in June - and at this moment in time neither of us could actually run that far without walking a significant portion of it. But the training has begun - Lauren went for a run yesterday morning, and I was up and on the run at 6:20 this morning... which was absolutely just as fun (if not more) as it sounds. So, of my 68 pounds of "body clutter", I'm hoping that my training will knock of at least 34 of that by the end of August.  And once a significant portion of that weight is gone, that opens up the road to getting rid of a lot of clothes as I'll finally be able to fit into those shirts and pants I'm hanging onto that I either used to be able to fit into or never could, thus eliminating the need for a lot of my, um, "huskier" clothes.

But I know what you're all thinking - how will I decide which pounds I will get rid of?  Some of it holds sentimental value, of course.  There's that pound on my left hip from that ginormous burger I had a few years ago on New Year's Eve. The 12 pounds just below my sternum from Swedish Fish. And those few pounds on my backside that I keep around from all those nights drinking in college.  I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna be hard to let them all go, but for the good of our lives, I'm just gonna bite the bullet and do it. I'll probably just chew the bullet up and spit it out because I don't want the calories, but bite it I will.

now it's getting personal

Quick update--we've been working on a kitchen remodel, which was started before the halve-ing project, so that has taken up some of our time the last few days, but we did have a brief "discussion" over whether or not to eliminate the toaster oven that Brett had bought for me for either my Birthday or Christmas two years ago (my birthday is 5 days before Christmas, so those gifts tend to run together in my mind).  When Brett gave me the toaster oven, I was very excited, because despite already having both a toaster and an oven, I thought it would be nice for making toasted sandwiches (you can't put an entire sandwich in the toaster, and it seemed silly to me to use the oven for one tiny sandwich).  It was also convenient for making garlic bread to go with baked ziti, since I could be baking the ziti in the oven, while cooking the garlic bread in the toaster oven simultaneously, and time it just right so the ziti would just have enough time to set and be ready to eat right as the garlic bread finished.  Though, more difficult than giving up the aforementioned conveniences, particular for Brett, was parting with the fact that that toaster oven has a POEWR button instead of a POWER button--making it infinitely more POEWRFUL and special than an ordinary toaster oven only possessing mere POWER.

This "discussion" lasted a couple of days.  First, I simply suggested maybe we could think about getting rid of the toaster oven, even though it was a fantastic and thoughtful and PERFECT gift.....and after some grumbling and arguing about it's usefulness, and could we really tolerate putting the garlic bread in after the ziti finished and then having to wait the extra 5-10 minute that would take....Brett came around and agreed that we don't really need it and we could use the extra counter space.

Here is our final picture of the POEWRFUL machine that we parted with yesterday:

And I have to say, it's only going to get tougher from here.  This project is all about creating the life we want to live, and it's going to take some tough self-love along with the ever present Peter Walsh voice in my head saying things like, "No more excuses!"  "You are the only one standing in the way of the life you want!"  (yes, Peter Walsh can be harsh, have you ever watched Clean Sweep?  But, let's face it, he's right)  And when we think about what we hope to gain out of this experience, we know it is so worth it, to clear the clutter from our lives and create the kind of peaceful, easily maintainable home that will allow us to spend more time on the important things like playing with our kids, cooking healthy meals together, having quality family time, enjoying the company of friends, and fighting over whether we should watch Survivor or The Office on Thursday night since we only watch one T.V. show per day :)

Thanks for the comments, and especially the ENCOURAGEMENT!!!, because we are gonna need it!

Great - now we're half as fun

When I look back upon days of yore, seeing our closet full of board games, I can easily recollect those magical times when anyone in the neighborhood just knew that we were the house to come play "Parcheesi" at. I can almost relive those wondrous occasions when our friends would call us to tell us how they could barely wait to come to our house and play a rousing round of "Texas Hold-em Yahtzee". Or those boisterous times when our house was so full of people that we needed to break out our extra box of "Tri-Ominos". And then I remember something very important - not a single one of those things ever happened. Which begged the question of why our "gaming closet" looked like this yesterday morning:

I can't remember the last time we played 50% of these games - which made it quite easy to get rid of just over 50% of them; we started with 101 games, and got rid of 51. Here's the loot that will soon be arriving at a Goodwill near you (if, of course, you live near us):

And that's just the stack of stuff we are donating. We also have a game that wasn't ours, and a few we are throwing out - because it turns out "Scene It" games aren't as fun if you can't find the DVD, and, well, a couple of games we apparently bought after hopping in the way-back machine with Mr. Peabody to 1953, and they are indeed showing their age and/or missing pieces. But it turns out we don't need two "Harry Potter Scene It" games (or one, since we got rid of them both), 11 decks of cards, or a slew of games we either never played or played once.

So, what does the closet look like now, you ask? Like this, I answer:

As you can see, we're much less fun now. Sorry, all you mythical "Pictionary" fanatics that are our dear friends, you are gonna just have to find somewhere else to spend hours playing your favorite game every Thursday night. No more all-night "Trivial Pursuit" parties, either. They just aren't happening anymore (never did), so please, stop calling (keep calling, please - we're still fun, we swear!).

sorry mom, and why I love my husband (with more pics)

1.  Sorry about the toothpaste dispenser, mom, and thanks for reading my blog :)

And sorry about the movie, Flushed Away, sis, but thanks for understanding. When we decided to get rid of half our stuff, we didn't think about the casualties and how one goes about explaining to family members that it is not that I didn't like and appreciate the gift, I just didn't like it enough to keep it.

But, as my favorite organizational expert Peter Walsh would advise, we should not keep something out of guilt, and we must not lose sight of our goal, because that is what got us here in the first place!  So, on we go, trying to only keep things that we truly need or that bring us joy and are worth making room in our lives for.

2.  My husband loves a challenge, and once he commits to something, it's over.  He will not only succeed, but he will continue to outdo everyone, including himself, on his inevitable path to victory.  We've been talking about our categories, and at first Brett was going to make entertainment one big category so he wouldn't necessarily have to get rid of half of his DVD's, since he was planning to get rid of several old gaming systems and the games that go with them, that would have bought him a few extra movies, but then he started going through his DVD's and decided he could get rid of half of them after all.  (See pictures below)  And then he got to thinking more and decided he thinks we can get rid of half of our furniture, and maybe we can part with half of our small appliances, and while we're at it we should probably include getting at least halfway to our weight loss goals (since when was this part of the plan?), and maybe we could cut our grocery bill in half....and while his suggestions get a bit scarier by the day for me, I can't help but love and admire him for taking this challenge to a new level, and if he thinks we can do it, who am I to say, "You Want to do WHAT?  Who's the crazy one?!?"  He even outdoes me at being me....what can't this man do?

Brett's original DVD collection numbering over 500 filled these custom shelves he built:

And, this smaller black DVD rack that you can see to the left of laundry-covered love seat--the right side has a door that is closed and covering more DVDs (yes, we should have opened it for the picture, but said DVD rack is no longer with us):

Now, here are the stacks of DVD's that left our home for good last night:

And here are the now half-emptied shelves:

And as I mentioned earlier, Brett decided to also part with the black DVD rack, thus halve-ing his DVD holding furniture, and that item will count towards our furniture total.

So way to go, awesome husband! 

I watched you, I liked you... I must own you

Turns out this is an attitude that accomplishes only two things: accumulating DVD's that you own but don't watch for years, and the creation of choice anxiety every time you want to watch a movie - "sure, I maywant to watch this movie right now, but what if I want to watch one of my other 500 movies? Maybe I can bring the TV in from the other room and watch two movies at once!". That's right, I - until yesterday - had about 500 DVD's filling up a custom made 8-shelf cabinet that fills in an unnecessary doorway in our house and another smaller DVD rack that someone gave us as a wedding gift many moons ago. Now, the smaller DVD rack is essentially cleaned out and the larger rack is 25% cleaned off after I decided to get rid of over 140 DVD's in the round one cuts. Unfortunately, I have to get rid of another 100 or so... which will not be nearly as easy as round 1. Now we're getting into the movies I am at the least a bit attached too for one reason or another - which begs the question of how the hell I ended up with over 140 DVD's that I wasn't really attached to at all? This is clearly one of those areas where I don't just need to get rid of stuff, I need to change my way of thinking. Just because I like a movie doesn't mean I need to possess it - the only reason to buy movies will be if I know I will watch it repeatedly. Or, if like "Frosty the Snowman", Ginny will want to watch it repeatedly :)

(Speaking of Frosty - It was sad to see the Christmas season finally end yesterday. That's right, the Christmas lawn ornaments finally came down in our yard yesterday - just like everyone else's did, right? Sad to see Christmas go so early this year... now, if you'll excuse me, I must go put up our Valentine's day decorations.)

But enough with Christmas - back to getting rid of stuff. Along with DVD's, I'm also getting rid of video games. But, more importantly, I'm getting rid of video game systems. A PS2, PS1, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis will be leaving our house, along with their games and controllers. They'll be donated, or given to the highest bidder. When all is said and done, we'll be down to our Wii and Atari 2600. And, as the games and gaming systems are part of the "Entertainment" category along with DVD's, perhaps I won't need to make as many DVD cuts as I'm fearing... don't worry, original Transformers movie - your fate will not be the same as the three "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" movies, the "Super Mario Brothers" movie, or the Dolph Lundgren "Masters of the Universe" movie. And no, I'm not kidding.

3 meat thermometers?

Yes, until today, we had 3 meat thermometers....did I know we had 3 meat thermometers?  Not until today.  This is part of what I want to change with this whole challenge, and I'm hoping to transition to a new way of life in which I would either a) at least know how many meat thermometers I have, or hopefully b) become the kind of person who would NEVER have 3 meat thermometers in the first place.  One was one of those old-fashioned metal ones that I vaguely remember trying to use once to determine if a turkey breast roast we attempted to rotisserie over our grill for thanksgiving was actually done or not, and that I concluded did not work very well; the second was a digital one that may or may not work and that may have been bought after the rotisserie'd turkey fiasco--and for now that is the one I'm keeping; and the third one (this is the most embarrassing) was stuck at the very back of the drawer, bent, and was likely left by the previous owners of this home.

In addition to getting to add 2 meat thermometers to my ever growing list of things being donated or trashed, over the past 2 days we have eliminated 3 ice cream scoopers, 6 sets of chopsticks we have never used, 2 dust ruffles and pillow cases that don't match any of the comforters we currently have, and 3 random curtain rods lying in a closet that inspired Brett to create the "what the hell are these doing in our house?" category.

Like Brett, I'm feeling a mixture of excitement at the prospect of having a well-organized, streamlined, and much more manageable home, combined with fear that despite our absurd amount of stuff, actually eliminating half of it might be more difficult than we anticipated.......but I'm going to hold us to it because I believe that we need to really learn the difference between needs/wants/and just plain laziness.

Words of encouragement are always welcome and may, at some point, become necessary :)

How the hell are we gonna do this?

24 hours ago, I was thinking "this is gonna be so easy - we have so much stuff we can get rid of!"... and yeah... those days are gone.  After getting rid of 66 items of clothing, I just knew that I was well on my way to halving my clothing.  And then I counted the items hanging up in my closet.  I had 69 items there - which would be awesome if I didn't also have dirty clothes in laundry baskets, clean clothes in other laundry baskets, and clothes on a shelf in that closet, four drawers of a dresser filled with t-shirts, exercise clothing, socks, and unmentionables (which I have clearly just mentioned... so are they now mentionables?  Have I just split us into dual realities where in one world they are still unmentionables and in the other world I'm stuck on an island trying to kill a smoke monster?  Clearly the answer is yes.).  So I'm now left with multiple thoughts:

A. I wish I hadn't thrown out or donated about 20-30 pieces of clothing last year.  I could really use those to donate now.
2. I need to either donate the stack of shirts/pants I cannot wear because they are too small as well as my drawer of exercise clothes; or use those exercise clothes much, much more often so I can fit into those shirts and then donate some of the larger shirts I would then no longer need if I could fit into the smaller ones.
D. I don't know if I like this anymore.  Not only am I gonna have to get rid of half my clothes, but we're gonna have to do laundry more often - and we already don't do it enough.

And then there is everything else.  I'm a DVD freak - it's one of my vices, I love to own DVD's.  But, I'm going to have to get rid of a lot of them.  Not half of them, because they are in the same category as video games and video game systems, but an awful lot of them... like 150.  This will be difficult.

I'm still on board with this (but I've fitted a life jacket and found what I consider to be the best lifeboat), despite all the trepidation that is arising.  I know we'll be better off when we're done, I certainly don't need 400 DVD's - I have movies that I've probably watched once in five years, and some I've perhaps never watched... but what if I want to watch one?  It's not like there's some store out there that you can just walk into, pay a few bucks, and borrow a DVD to watch any time I would want to, that certainly doesn't exist (*shoves fingers in ears* La la la la la... I can't hear you...).  And I certainly don't need 30 t-shirts, I just like them.  But to have my dresser less packed, to not end up leaving ten loads of laundry to do every three weeks, and to spend less money on these things in the future will be a good thing.  Or so I'm told.

And, with all that said, I think things are going well.  After donating/throwing out the aforementioned 66 items of clothing, I was able to move all my hanging clothes into one closet, and Lauren and I actually went through the other closet and got rid of a bunch of other stuff - a sleeping bag we've never used, some ratty blankets and comforters, and a bunch of random stuff that we have decided fits into the joint "what the hell is that still doing in our house" category.  That's gonna be a fun category.  Who knows what we'll find - there could be a family of Keebler elves baking cookies in a tree that is growing in one of our closets and we wouldn't know it - that's how bad some of our closets are.  Luckily, we'll probably find a box full of broken pencils, Pez dispensers, and an extra flux capacitor that we can get rid of to offset keeping the cookie tree.

I feel oppressed by this dresser

We started last night and it felt pretty good.  We are still working out the exact rules, like whether we have to get rid of half our stuff in each category, or if we can just get rid of half our possessions overall and still manage to keep most of our socks and silverware (some things will be harder to give up than others), but part of me is kinda hoping that as we go through this process and focus on needs vs. wants, that maybe we'll be able to halve every category as well as our overall total number of possessions.

On the cover of "O" magazine's March issue it reads, "De-Clutter Your Life!", and when Brett brought it in from the mailbox two weeks ago, he said he almost didn't give it to me because he knew that after I read the articles I would get another one of my crazy ideas about what we need to do to eliminate our clutter and stress and arrive at the streamlined, peaceful existence I fantasize about, and he was right, but this time I've managed to convince him that this is a good idea.

The message that seems to be repeated by everyone from organizational experts to Zen Buddhist masters all offering advice on how to achieve peace and happiness in this life is that one should fill one's life with only those things that are absolutely necessary and things that bring us joy, and it turns out this dresser was doing neither for me.  It was in reading some of these articles that I realized I actually was feeling oppressed by the thing, because I had bought it from an acquaintance who was moving, because she was selling her entire bedroom set, and I needed a bed and decided I could not turn down the $50 dresser that was part of the deal--wrong mentality completely.

I am the opposite of "highly organized people", as described in the article, "Everything You Need to Know About Taming Chaos But Were Too Disorganized To Ask" (did I mention this magazine was written with me in mind?), in that I tend to accumulate ridiculous amounts of unnecessary stuff by listening to the voices in my head that say, "I could need this someday..."  Or  "Sure, I don't have anywhere to put this, but it's on sale!"  and coming from a clutter-collecting, organizationally-challenged family also adds the, "I don't want to hurt my mother's feelings, so I guess I will keep this" (see the As Seen on T.V. toothpaste dispenser on the far left corner of the dresser that has been sitting there since my mother gave it to me for Christmas.....that will be donated along with the dresser, and the T.V. that Brett has had since his youth that we were keeping in the bedroom "In case we ever decide we want to watch movies in bed again"). 

Here is the before picture of the oppressive dresser:

And here it is after I cleared it off and emptied it and we moved it out to the front porch where it is waiting (with the aforementioned T.V.) to be picked up by a local charity:

In addition to trying to halve our possessions, both for the fun of seeing if we can do it, and, more importantly, in the pursuit of a more peaceful existence, I am hoping to also achieve an attitude makeover so that I come out of this the kind of person who values things, takes good care of them, and therefore only allows things into my life that are worth caring about.  Like the Seinfeld episode where Jerry rejects a new friend saying he only has enough room in his life for 3 friends and those spots are currently filled, I want to be the kind of person who can say no to stuff that I don't need, or don't want, because I only have a limited amount of space in my life and it is reserved for things that I need or that give me joy.

You want to do what?!?

"I want to get rid of half of our stuff"

When Lauren said this to me, my sleep deprived mind very briefly thought "why do you want a divorce?" - but I quickly realized what she meant and began to think "but I like my stuff... can we just get rid of all your stuff?  That's half our stuff, right?".  A couple of conversations later... and we're getting rid of half our stuff.  Six months from now, that's where we are gonna be - a streamlined house with half of each of our possessions donated, thrown out, or if we really want to hold onto it for another day or two, eaten.  There will, of course, be ground rules - but more importantly, there will be competition.  Who can get rid of half of their stuff first, you ask?  (What?  You didn't ask that?  How about, just for me, we pretend you did...)  Over the next six months, that is exactly what we will find out.

Here's the basic rules:
1. We clearly will not be getting rid of any living creatures, so Lauren, Ginny, Sorin, the dogs, and myself are safe.  I did not list the fish, because with our success rate so far, getting rid of half (or all) of them should be unintentionally very simple.  Poor fish...

2. We will be deciding upon categories from which we must part with half of the items from each category.  Otherwise, I could sell all my baseball cards and have gotten rid of well over half my possessions if they are counted equally, and Lauren could donate/throw out all of her mismatched socks that I can never find a partner for and have disposed of 90% of her possessions.

3. Categories will be divided into three categories: Lauren's, mine, and joint.  To claim victory, the joint categories must also be halved along with that individual's categories.

4. It will be a running total.  So, any new shirt adds into the clothing category, a new DVD goes into the entertainment category, and any new dark chocolate goes into my stomach.

5. Not everything fits into a category - we won't necessarily be getting rid of half our furniture, cars, kitchen appliances, tools, or rooms in our house.  This came as a huge relief to me, as I was not at all sure how we were going to go from 2.5 to 1.25 bathrooms - neither of us were looking forward to attempting to sit on half of a toilet.

6. Other items may fit into a "catch-all" category.  Only having one of something we don't need doesn't mean we don't get rid of it, it just means it comes out of the "other stuff we probably don't - or Lauren strongly assures me I surely don't - need" category.

So, in the upcoming days, we will make our counts, assign categories, and take some photographs of our... um... slightly(?) disorganized house.  But the clock is running... August 31st is only six months away.