Tuesday Tidy

There are some things you might not know about me.  First, I am a closet minimalist.  One reason I am in the closet is that I have a husband and three children that are far from minimalist.  The other reason is that I love stuff.  I just hate the clutter it creates.  I dream of perfectly organized rooms filled only with things we love and use.  About three years ago, I dove into the concept.  I devoured blogs and articles about minimalism and we purged our house by a third.  And we were perfectly content doing that.  We even made a little cash along the way selling things.  Now we have been in our new house for just over two years and it is out of control again.

I don't follow any of the minimalism blogs I read 3 years ago except for one.  The Minimalist Mom is a Canadian living abroad and I love her down to earth approach to the subject.  She talks about finding a definition of minimalism that fits your lifestyle, not minimalism defined by deprivation or living out of a backpack.  And she acknowledges that maintaining a minimalist lifestyle takes constant work.  She is running a Clutter Cleanse through the first six weeks of this year and I am going to play along.  I might not follow her categories exactly but there will lots of stuff leaving my home over the next month (with my husband's approval but the kids might not know about all of it LOL)

 Load 1 was dropped to Value Village this morning.  My two body trunk was full and there was a TV/VCR in the backseat.  I was ruthless with the girls clothes after we opened gifts on Christmas morning.  Only the clothes that they love and wear often stayed and we can finally close all of their drawers!  There is also Christmas decorations that were handed down when we first started out, some kitchen appliance, a full bag of clothes from our closets and some toys/books.  The girls have noticed none of it missing.  The 7 year old even offered up two things that she doesn't use anymore :0

Yikes, sorry about the crappy iPhone photo!  Before Christmas, I really wanted to do some reorganizing in Alexis' (age 3) bedroom.  We had been keeping her books in a big basket on the floor but they were getting banged up.  So I pulled a bookshelf up from the basement thinking it could be 50% toys and 50% books.  She was so excited to start filling it and before long it was 75% books LOL.  That's something else you might not  know about me.  I LOVE books!  I have no problem storing a ton of good quality books for my girls.  I want them to be surrounded with them so it becomes natural and normal to grab a book and read as part of their daily routine.  But you will notice in the previous picture I did cull a few that were not favorites and/or of poor literary quality.

This weekend Jeremy and I got back to working on the basement.  Over the summer, the girls wanted to be down near me when I was working and began pulling toys out that I had boxed up.  It quickly escalated.  The most embarrassing part of this photo?  It's taken after an hour of work already completed.  The goal for this week is to sort through it and move it out of this space to make room for construction.  I plan on only keeping things that they play with regularly and are in good shape.  I predict at least half a trunk full will leave!

How about you guys?  Anyone decluttering in the New Year?  Any tips/tricks for keeping the toy monster at bay when you have overindulgent grandparents?