The 'Puter Desk - Baby Step #2 or this procrastinator needed a kick in the butt

I have been a naughty little clutterbug, avoiding my responsibilities

so I set myself a deadline (like my new glass whiteboard for the kitchen? it's my new best friend aka 'to do list' $24.95 from IKEA)

My disaster area  computer desk -Before

A somewhat tidier After

OK so I have some filing to still do and a home to find for photos and other memorabilia but the desk looks a helluva lot better (right?). The filing cabinet contents is a task for another day when I have bought another paper shredder. At least now I can move onto to painting the walls (behind) and getting rid of that god awful curtain.

wading through the papers from my desk (still)... I have to ask myself why on earth I didn't just toss the stuff in the first place... this is ridiculous

PS I haven't been terribly dedicated in my quest to tidy the PC desk this week, lots of other things have claimed priority and now it's stinking hot here and I'm just not feeling the de-cluttering love :(

Guilty as charged

on my quest to de-clutter.... now tackling the computer desk (which is proving to be a monumental task!!!)... I have had to come to terms with how unorganised I can be for a person who considers herself a relatively organised person and how untidy I can be for a relatively neat person..... seriously I am ashamed :(

The computer area... a place I frequent everyday and can spend considerable hours is probably one of the worst problem areas in our household.... the dust I've let build up! the important papers overflowing from the in trays that I "will get to" but never do! and worst of the worst in my opinion.... the precious photos and memories I've let get mixed in with junk mail!!!

NOT. GOOD. AT. ALL!!!!!!

I have made it my mission to sort the desk and surrounding area out this week and not buy any "storage" containers etc until I have weeded out the unneccessary crap I have. I am forever stuffing crap into boxes and luring myself into a false sense of organisation. It's got to stop.

How I let it get this bad I don't know

And as I sort my sh!t out, I am chanting my new mantra (courtesy of Peter Walsh)

"Flat surfaces are not storage areas"

say it with me....

Awwww....

this was waiting for me on my puter screen.... how did he know I'd go straight there I wonder???

The Pantry... Baby Step #1 of The Big Clean Up of 2010

continued on with the pantry and got it finished today.... my main motivator being a trail of ants marching in and out..... discovered an up-ended bottle of Vanilla Essence was attracting them GAH!

anyway, it's done now and I've chucked out a lot of stuff that was old or would never in a million years be eaten.

my before and after shots... really not much to look at but still.

my next step is to make sure we make use of the foods that we have rather than  doubling up on things as I am prone to doing when out shopping and I can't remember what we have in the cupboard. It will mean drawing up menu plans for the week but I think that can only be a good thing now that we are so much busier.

the big clean up of 2010

wish this was a post full of proud boasting of how much I've done this last week, sadly it is not.

The whole family is reeling from the sudden change in routine now that we're back to school and here I was thinking how good I'd been getting Miss 5 back into routine in the last week of hols. No, nothing would have prepared us for how tiring full time school plus out of school activities (swimming lessons and ballet) would be.

I am going to bed at night with my head full of all the things I need to do the next day and it's keeping me up at night. I like to think I'm a relatively organised person and being organised is the only way to get through but I am still finding it quite trying and not a lot else other than the basics are getting done.

Add onto that my little Poss has had a temperature the last couple of days and my MIL also ill with pnuemonia, it's all a bit stressy.

So I haven't done much of the decluttering in the physical sense.... I have been thinking about it a lot, reading the notes by Peter Walsh on Oprah's website has definitely given me food for thought. More stuff to mull over in bed :(

All is not lost though.... feeling very unaccomplished today I thought I might tackle a shelf in my pantry, the top one... usually where all the tea / coffee making stuff goes, left over paper plates and other picnic / party stuff gets shoved after an event and where lollies often get hidden out of reach.

I discovered we have an obscene amount of candy canes.... none bought by us, Miss 5 is not keen on the minty ones but also struggles to finish the fruity flavoured ones and no one else touches them. The sheer volume of them makes me feel bad to bin them but if I can not find anyone else to take them that is where they'll go.

On that shelf alone, I tossed out a tonne of stuff and man it felt good! I think it's exactly what I needed to kick start me even if it was just a baby step.

It's like Oprah can read my mind

had a fantastic morning after dropping Miss 5 off to school, Baby Poss was ready for her morning nap and that gave me the opportunity to whizz around the house for a quick lap of surface tidying and cleaning the bathroom basin and tub. I figured that I could vac and mop tomorrow morning leaving my kid free Friday open for coffee out with a friend.

So that done and dinner in the slow cooker I sat down to catch up of a couple of favourite tv shows, The Big Bang Theory and Being Human over lunch while Poss cruised the furniture, she's not walking yet.... all she has to do is let go.... seriously.

Then Oprah was on and I am still quite partial to her show just not always able to sit down and watch it

Lo and Behold, it was a repeat of her series with Peter Walsh, organiser extraordinaire. Last year I saw the start of the series, Clean Up Your Messy House and loved it. Nothing like a declutter show to get me motivated.... (oh and as an aside this is where I got the clutter-bug name from, they had the cutest volkswagons named clutter-bugs)

So after watching today, I've gone and found the webiste and might just take up the challenge, anything to help keep me going

Clean up you messy house on Oprah the man has a plan so why try and invent the wheel?

the grand plan for 2010

funnily enough I write this but find myself largely incapable of putting what I speak of into practice today... the reason being my cyclone of a 5 year old daughter is home from school (the first 2 days were half sized classes to help the kids get to know their way around and the teacher better and Miss 5's day was yesterday) but we're back into it tomorrow and I tell you we all can not wait.

A bear with a sore head does not adequately cover her mood today, people talk about discovering their inner child... well my child has discovered her inner crabby old biddy! And it's all stemming from having a taste of school and then not being able to go the next day.... we're halfway through the day so the end is in sight.... it can't come soon enough.

But getting onto my grand plan.... you see the name of my blog up the top there? well that it seems is a pretty accurate description of me.... I don't like to think of myself as a hoarder, I'm definitely not in the hoarding is an illness category but I do let things pile up. And I'm not the only one in this family that lets things pile up so when we all do it things get pretty congested in our small house pretty quickly.

And that's how our house is feeling at the moment..... very congested

We're talking clothes that the kids have outgrown and need weeding out of the cupboards to paperwork that needs filing or just plain needs throwing out to kitchen cupboards overflowing with stuff. The whole house needs going over and de-cluttering. And lets face it, it feels good to live simply.

So I've been asking myself the question (as I'm sure everyone has done at some point) if there was a fire what would I take? The answer I think proves how very little we need in the way of posessions and is a good starting point for my de-cluttering expedition.

In order to make my plan work, I already know I must take baby steps.... launching into some gungho chuck fest is all well and good but I have a tendency to conk out quickly so I need to be a tortoise and not a hare.

Also there are other components to my grand plan for 2010...

I'm still painting the house, about halfway there but in saying that I haven't painted anything since October last year. It's definitely time to get back into that!

And there is the garden to tackle, I want it tidy and as low maintenance as possible. We started last year with rippig out a lot of nasty ferns that looked awful and replacing with pebbles and potted plants, now to tame the driveway bushes.... they have never looked nice so I'm thinking I will cut them all back to try and give them some shape.

All this with a view to selling the house possibly next year.....

I'm looking forward to making some chages around here :)