CLUT-TER

–verb (used with object)
1. to fill or litter with things in a disorderly manner: "All kinds of papers cluttered the top of his desk."

–noun
2. a disorderly heap or assemblage; litter: "It's impossible to find anything in all this clutter."
3. a state or condition of confusion.

Haha...ain't that the truth.

So...since Em will be moving in to our office in 14 days...I've been trying to clean the mess out of this room. DECLUTTERIZE. Once a place for piling or storing or keeping-of-things-needlessly...now no more.

Almost. It's closer, thats for sure.

I started with the small things...like box upon box that looked like this:

filled with random pictures I didn't want to throw away. I hang on tight to my pictures, I {LOVE} them. Even though I know they are duplicates or not needed....I have always been searching for ideas on how to preserve them, w/o wildly scrapbooking EVERYTHING. Cause, really most of these pictures don't warrant a whole page just for themselves. So, one night I was whining to James...and he says "Why don't you put them all on one page?" Um, genius...and he was really just trying to make fun of me.

So, I did it...I put them all on one page.
And I LOVE it. When I'm working on them...I look over at James and say "you are a genius"...which he replies with an "I know" and a smile.
My next step was to go thru my paper...yikes. This is how I store it...I love the system b/c I can just thumb thru it when I'm looking for something specific. But it looks way messy, even though it's a contained mess.
So, I went to Joanns and bought a couple of these beauties....now I can organize by color, type, set, etc...and go right to what I need. No more thumbing...

This is my next adventure...there are...count them....7 scrapbooks FULL off pages that are 1/2 done. That was my Do-Everything-Halfway Phase. Which I am in still, by the way....slowly breaking the cycle. I want to go thru each one, discard what I don't need, and rescrap what I do.

Along with that I've:
*condensed 2 bookshelves into one.

*cleaned out the "box closet" and put the christmas decorations in there, which free'd up a BUNCH of room.

*finished painting the girls room...yes that's right FINISHED. I can't believe it myself. I just need to put the polka dots up.

*spray painted a chair...and not have a nasty cramp in my forearm - odd.

*prepared/preparing a Sharing Time, Music Time and a partial Primary Activity and primary presentation...yay for callings!

...and even after all that, I still have a list sitting here in front of me. Will it never end?

And the worst is when I get one area of my home organized and semi-put together...these two have destroyed another area! We are learning the basics of picking up after ourselves...tho it's not an easy thing to KEEP remembering.
Good thing they are cute.

The mermaid got her tail back...