Closet:

Bed (that I did sleep on last night):

I wish today were bulk pick up day so the 8 bags of trash could be gone. I’ll try to add to it by next week!

Emptied 4 shelves out of a closet outside the master bedroom, consisting of office supplies, school stuff, art supplies, craft supplies and some small games.

Here’s the closet:

Here’s my bed:

I have a lot of work to do before I can go to sleep tonight. Unless I sleep on the couch. Hmmm…

And California googlin’, too. There’s a chance we’ll get to accompany my husband to CA for a business trip next month and stay a couple of weeks. When we lived in AZ we took 2 trips to CA and I learned why people live there. I’d only heard all the bad about California – crazy laws, high cost of living, etc. But… it’s breathtakingly beautiful. I might love to live there if I could afford it.

That is a dream. The reality is I might get a visit! I’m searching LA and surrounding areas. Before we visited San Diego and went as far north as San Clemente. We’ll be doing Legoland again for sure, but I’m not interested in too many theme park experiences. I’m checking into museums and historical sites, like the missions.

But the main attraction for me is the beach, hands down. Aaaaah…

That’s…

2 trips to CCA and…

8 empty extra large plastic bins (they used to be full of toys):

5 big bags of trash :

And more to come!

I’ve been to CCA twice this week with toys. The boys are going to have limits to their toys – well, stricter limits than before. One son has decided to keep Legos but get rid of Megabloks, which are a Lego knockoff. They have mostly been kept separate, but there is more mingling than I can stand. My eyes are tired from scrutinizing tiny piece after tiny piece searching for the word “LEGO”. My son is helping, but there is a lot of stopping to play along the way (on his part, ha) so I am doing more than he is. This job in the decluttering stage does not produce quick results and can be discouraging. I think we’re on the last bin/box/container to be sorted right now and if we can get it done tonight then tomorrow I’ll try to do a bigger impact job.

It’s All Too Much talks about the trashcan being your friend, your very hungry friend. I admit there is something very satisfying about filling a trash bag! I have often dreamed of renting a large dumpster – one the size of a driveway – and just having a ball filling it up. My husband has always dismissed the idea, and it is expensive… sure would be fun, though!

I’ve been on a kick reading decluttering books the past couple of weeks. This isn’t the first time – I own pretty much all of Don Aslett’s books on this topic. It would appear owning books doesn’t cause permanent change, though we did purge quite a bit way back then. This time around, I read Scaling Down: Living Large in a Smaller Space first and now I’m reading It’s All Too Much. The latter I came across while looking to see if the library had a different book. Turns out this guy is from a cable show called Clean Sweep (and I don’t have cable so I don’t know much about it!). I googled to see if he has his Room Function chart online and ended up at Oprah’s website and found it. It seems he must have been on Oprah (or will be) and I’ve stumbled into it. I’m not a big Oprah fan, and don’t put much stock in her book picks because… well… why is a book a good book because one person says so? Maybe all the books she’s picked are good, I don’t know, but for some reason it bothers me that every book she mentions is an instant bestseller. Just because she likes it or it fits her personal agenda. On second thought, I guess I don’t really care and I’ve gotten off topic, but now I know why I can’t renew the book – someone else saw it on Oprah and wants to check it out.

Anyway… the author talks about how stuff can drag you down and keep you from living the life you want to live. That resonates with me because I know it’s true for me. I am going to get rid of the excess. If I don’t use it and/or love it, it’s going to go. We’re going to rearrange our great room and our computer set-up. We are going to change up the boys’ bedroom arrangements (they’re all on board with it). Today I donated a trunk full of toys along with some games and puzzles in the back seat. There will be no “playroom” in this house, which in reality, is only a big storage room for seldom used toys. They will keep their stuff in their rooms – there will be limits to the amount they can have. Same goes for the kitchen. The master bedroom. Everywhere.

I used to think that I could just keep getting more bookshelves because it was unfathomable to limit the number of books I had. Now I think it’s okay to have a limit; it’s okay to cull occasionally. I stopped buying pop fiction long ago. Don’t get me wrong, we have plenty of bookshelves and aren’t hurting for books. But it’s looking like I might have to buy It’s All Too Much because it’s not likely to be available again any time soon at the library! Gee thanks, Oprah! Just kidding, I think it will be worth owning and will probably be easy to find because of her stamp of approval.

… is the title of a book I’m reading right now. It is available here online. I am trying to read it on my computer but I find it hard to curl up with my computer. I don’t know whether to print it out or buy it or just slog through on the computer. I’m only in Chapter 2, but it’s a topic that interests me and maybe will help me think through some things. There’s got to be more to this life…

This book is on my wishlist, and since it comes out 2 days after my birthday… maybe I’ll have a little birthday cash. I mentioned this book before, and Lisa just posted this promo video on her blog.

Congratulations to First Baptist Euless! They are celebrating Debt Freedom today – they paid off $6.5 MILLION in debt in just over 2 years. As Dave Ramsey would say, “That’s ROWDY!” Read about it here.