This time of year everyone is focused in organizing and decluttering. It’s a new year with a fresh start and we want to make big, lasting changes.

But will the changes really stick?

Not likely.

I’m not here to rain on your organizational parade because I believe organizing and decluttering are incredibly important; however, we will never be able to truly release the clutter and get our house in order if we don’t have the right attitude about our possessions.

We are a society full of stuff and there’s really no getting around the plethora of things available for us to acquire.  For many people, this means buying more containers and dividers and baskets and bookcases in order to house the stuff they own.  More often than not, they have acquired so much there is no way they could ever use everything they own.  Their stuff owns them instead.

As I am beginning to pack up my home for the 10th time in 15 years, I am reminded of something I learned long ago about possessions.

I don’t need them.

That’s why I’ve written a FREE ebook entitled:

Let Go of What You Own
a Biblical approach to decluttering

How can you get a copy of this free ebook for yourself?

Like the Raising Arrows facebook page, click on the Only Likers tab on the left sidebar and grab the download!

I wanted to start the Welcome Home Link Up with this post because I truly believe we must have the right attitude about everything we own before we can create a welcoming home we enjoy caring for.

Won’t you join me on this journey?

Remember, you can get your FREE copy of Let Go of What You Own by liking the Raising Arrows facebook page, and then be sure to join the link up below!  You can grab the link up button in my sidebar.

This post is brought to you by Victorian Rose Soap – we love these soaps and we know you will too! And all this month, you can take 15% off your order using the coupon code: Raisingarrows – Enjoy!

This post is linked to The Better Mom.

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It’s Cyber Monday and here I am telling you to get rid of stuff! And not only am I telling you to get rid of stuff, I’m also going to tell you that you probably don’t need to replace all that stuff with more stuff!

You see, come February 1 (that’s not all that far off!), we will be moving…AGAIN. So, my admonition to you to clear the clutter and make wise buying decisions is really an admonition to myself. {and this post at The Better Mom cheered me along!}

So, I am being brutal!  I’m working through my tried and true decluttering methods (someday I’ll let you in on those, but now just isn’t the time!) and really focusing on getting rid of things!  So far, 10 (yes TEN) bags have gone to the thrift store and just about that many have hit the trash!  Even though I’ve done this before (see my Half My Stuff posts), clutter never really is conquered until you learn to not allow it in.  And even then, it still accumulates because we are not able to control what others bring into our homes.  It really is an ongoing process.

This holiday season, you won’t see a lot of posts here at Raising Arrows about the best holiday deals or buying more stuff to add to the stuff you already have.  In fact, what we will be doing is sharing our family traditions and the things we do during the holidays that have become near and dear to us.  We celebrate Christ and the family of God this season…not stuff.

So, buy less, declutter more and join us for a Raising Arrows Christmas!

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Here’s the scoop on the Guest Room/Sewing Room…

My mom had been staying with me (in this room) while my husband and oldest son were away at the 2010 Scout Jamboree near Washington, D.C.  As soon as my mom left, we would have houseguests moving in with us (in that room) for approximately 2 weeks.

It wasn’t that the room was horrible–after all, we’ve had people in and out of that room for months with it looking just the way it did, but it was cluttered and as sewing rooms tend to get, a little um…”thready.”

Once again, I forgot to take Before Pictures, so you’ll have to use your imagination about just how cluttered and thready it was.

When I go to clean out a room, I like to start on one side of the door and work my way around the room–usually clockwise (not sure if that’s because I’m right-handed or some other totally random reason).  In this room, the scrapbooks are near the door, so I tidied those, straightened the bed, and then dug into my daughter’s sewing stash.

She has her own sewing machine and her own stash of fabric and other crafting things.  Most of her things were already fairly well contained; however, they weren’t in any sort of order.  So, I rearranged the drawers in the 3 drawer nightstand we use to hold her things and made it make more sense. My mom folded all her scrap fabric and neatly put it back in her tub.  (Any fabric I get my goodie out of gets passed on to her.  She likes to make doll clothes and pillows and sachets from the scraps.)

Now, my sewing stuff was a different story.  I have a cutting table next to my serger and sewing machine, but I’d like to see you try to cut anything on it considering it is usually covered in projects!  I also have a 3 drawer chest for my sewing things, so I made one of the drawers for unfinished projects and stashed all of the items cluttering up my cutting table into there.  I figure if the drawer gets too full, it’s time to actually FINISH a project!

I also decided I needed to separate out my cloth diapering fabrics and supplies from my other fabric, so I bought another tote (neon green to boot!) and that’s where I put all my diapering fabrics.  I also moved them to a different area of the room since their presence was also hindering me from cutting out anything on my cutting table (they were just too close behind me to really be able to move around).

I had a lot of ribbon from my “I’m-going-to-make-hairbows” days, so I decided to make another drawer in the 3 drawer chest a ribbon drawer.  The last drawer was for serger thread and the instruction manuals for my serger and sewing machine.

I tidied my pattern box and put together a box for my shipping supplies.  The final destination was the closet.  All it really needed was a good tidy and the doors shut.  The end!

(Note the lovely red carpet and the mirror over the bed?  I live in a rental, folks. )

Have you missed any of the Half My Stuff Saturday posts?  Check them out HERE.

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Remember I said I needed to psyche myself up to actually get started on the basement?  Well, once I’m ready to tackle something, I rarely remember to bring my camera!  Pictures in this post are all AFTER pictures. (which my mom says is probably a good thing since I might scare you if I show you too much of my messy side )

So, I had my mom here helping out for the week.  Because of that, it seemed like the perfect time to tackle the more difficult projects–the clothes and the toys.   I needed to pull out baby things anyway, so that’s where I started.

A few months ago, we moved my oldest son downstairs to his own room which had previously been the home of the tubs.  We found a space for the tubs of clothes in another storage area, but they always seemed in the way.  In fact, they were so in the way, that instead of putting away the clothes I would cull from the upstairs bedrooms, I would just toss them on top of the tubs, waiting for the day when I would have time to actually wade on in there and put them away properly.  In addition to this mess, the tubs were not labeled in easy-to-read places.  Talk about a nightmare!

So, mom and I dug in!

There were tubs of shoes and baby things and cloth diapers, not to mention tubs for every child in this house.  We sorted and culled and pulled out stained items and got them to soakin’ and sunnin’.  Tubs were labeled and moved around into a much more user-friendly arrangement.  Here’s the final result:

The tall closet in the foreground of the picture is my homeschooling closet.  I also cleaned that out and got the doors shut!  As far as the tubs go, I got rid of about 5 bags of stuff!  Pretty good!

I decided to move out of the storage room and head into the main living area downstairs…also known as the Toy Room.  Several months back we moved all the kids’ toys downstairs to try to keep the upstairs neater.  You know what that equals: Out of Sight, Out of Mind!

As I was cleaning and sorting, I kept thinking how overwhelming it all was and how my children were probably even more overwhelmed when I asked them to clean up!

I was pretty determined to get this room under control and I would definitely say at least half the toys were either thrown away, donated, or sent to grandma’s to be stored.  The room is in much better shape now and not nearly so overwhelming to keep clean!

I must admit, I’ve always dreaded going down in the basement, but yesterday evening, I went downstairs to put away some things and I actually sat down in one of the chairs down there and just rested.  Usually, the basement is anything but restful to me.  Amazing what an uncluttered, clean palette can do for a very visual mama. *sigh*

Now, where to next???

Would you like to catch up on all the nesting going on around here?  Check out all of my Half My Stuff Saturday posts!

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The last room of the main level!  Can you believe it?!

I really, really, really want to get the entire house gone through before this baby comes.  That’s 7 weeks from now!  I’m not even sure that is possible, considering how S…L…O…W I’ve become.  And I know there is a Pregnancy Wall that is coming…you know, the one where anything requiring you to actually MOVE makes you feel like taking a nap!

So….I’m not sure I can do it, but part of me (that nesting part that NEEDS the house in order before we add another little person) is pretty sure I can meet my goal, while another part of me is busy fussing over ouchy hips and lack of sleep.

One baby step at a time…here I come!

So, on to what you really came here to read about…MY BEDROOM!

A few weeks ago (because my husband could no longer stand it), the dresser went from this:

(ok, it was actually WAY worse than this, but I forgot to take pictures beforehand!)

to this:

This is still one of my main Hot Spots and has to be cleaned regularly, but starting with a clean slate does make you more apt to keep it that way.  I also didn’t really get rid of much because I just tidied, rather than really deep cleaning.

Two other Hot Spot areas of the room are my bedside table and my closet floor (ugh…do you see a reoccurring theme here?  As in, “MY” stuff is what is causing the troubles???)

Now, that’s embarrassing!

So, I sorted through the bedside table and rearranged some things and ended up with this:

I want to point out a few things here:

1. Those of you who have followed this blog from Emily’s death, might remember me talking about my corner for memories.  This is it.  I never shared actual pictures of it until now because I just wasn’t ready.  The linked post explains all the parts and pieces of it and just how precious it is to me.

2.  Yes, those are animals on the wall and yes, that is an animal on my bed.  My husband hunts.  It’s his bedroom too.   Here’s a closeup of the buffalo robe on my bed if you care to take a gander…

3. Lastly, on the bedside table sits one of my favorite magazines…SALT.  Over in my sponsor’s section in the sidebar, you’ll see a link to them.  The magazine is only $24 a year, PLUS you get to sign up a friend for FREE! That’s what I did with my friend Sarah.  There are other options you can choose when you click on the link, but that one is my favorite!

Next…

I tidied up the shoes and got rid of two pair; however, I still have a dilemma…there are two pair of sandals and my tennis shoes NOT in this closet, and I’m out of room!

I *could* get rid of more shoes, but honestly, I wear every single pair of these.  Also, some are seasonal, so I’ve got both sandals and snow boots in there.  I hate to rotate them because I might forget where I put the other season’s shoes!  Anyone have any great ideas on how to make this work?

It hadn’t been too long since I’d cleaned out closets and dressers, so I left those alone.  The top of the closet could have been cleaned out, but nothing up there was mine and Ty wasn’t available to arrange and dispose of things.

Someday, I hope to dye the curtains a dark brown to match the bed (and the buffalo!), but that can wait.

The final big change in this room is something that happened one night this past week…

I was sitting in my chair, staring at my computer watching Inherit the Land.

I watched these families running around their farms and talking about leaving the city and much of technology behind (or at least relegating it to a lesser position), and I knew something Ty and I had been thinking on for weeks needed to happen that very second (yeah, pregnancy makes me rather impulsive).

Here’s the end result of my snap decision…

It’s not completely set up yet, but already I’ve seen a huge difference in the draw it has on me.  You see, my chair in the living room is my favorite chair and just about the only place I can stand to sit for any length of time.  Since I’m all about sitting these days, I find that once I’ve plopped down in that chair, the computer beckons to me and I’m sucked in for longer than I’d like to be…multiple times a day.  I do have “work” hours set up, but work hours are only as good as the person controlling them…and remember, self control is something I’m working on.

I’m hopeful that having this separate place for my computer will be a step in the right direction.  I do not want my children to remember me as the mommy who’s face was glued to the computer screen.  How sad is that?

Sometimes we have to set things in place to help us succeed.  Moving the computer out of the living room falls into that category.

So, there you have it!  One more room down!  Now, on to that dreadful basement!  But, guess what is down there???  Baby clothes!  Woo Hoo!  It’s time again!

Perhaps you’d like to see the other posts in this series…
Just click on the link to find a list of all the Half My Stuff Saturday Links.

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Quick update on the state of the home…

Getting rid of things has definitely helped in the overall efficiency of cleaning our home. However, I have noticed that stuff continues to multiply and must be tackled on a consistent basis before it gets out of control. This past week my bar began to look scary again (not nearly as scary as the before pics, but scary enough I knew it would soon look like that!)  I had to make a conscience effort to declutter it and put things in their rightful places.  Not exactly at the top of my fun list, but remember, fun is not always the name of the game.

With that, I move onward…to the bathrooms.

Let me just say, this is the first home I have lived in as a married woman with more than one bathroom.  Sometimes I feel blessed.  Sometimes I feel cursed.

The main bathroom looks fairly harmless at first glance, except for these two places:

I pitched several bath toys (bath toys kind of yuck me out anyway) and sorted through the closet.  I was amazed to find essential oils I thought I was out of tucked away up there!  Here’s the finished result:

I also added this rack on the wall to house the toothbrushes.  Our curious 17 month old is a toothbrush stealer and a toothpaste eater.  However, he has yet to figure out how to get them now that they are off the counter!

Oh, and here’s something that will really gross you out:

This is supposed to be pretty?  This is nearly 3 years of caked-on dust!  I wonder how many of our house guests noticed this?!  They’ll be happy to know I dusted them off…we should be good for the next 3 years! {just kidding!}

The other bathroom is my master bathroom.  It’s a half-bath off our bedroom.  It’s nothing stunning, but organizational-wise it really wasn’t too bad.

There were a few hidden issues…but I cleaned all of those out. {and for those of you who like to snoop in people’s medicine cabinets…tough! }

I managed to find some new homes for the things on the countertops.  After my son cleaned the bathroom on Wednesday, I was pretty pleased with the finished result.  The only thing I would change in this room are the curtains.  But, that will have to wait.

All in all, these were pretty easy projects for this week.  The final upstairs project awaits me for next week…the master bedroom!  Then, I’ll be taking a couple of weeks off before tackling the downstairs.  You know, give myself some time to psyche myself up! lol

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I have to admit, the only thing keeping me focused as I declutter is the fact that I feel obligated to bring all of you Half My Stuff Saturday each week.  I was all over the place this week decluttering different spaces, but never one room until I realized I better get on the ball and do a room for Half My Stuff!

So, as always, when there’s dire decluttering needed, I call my mom.

This time the emergency was the girls’ room. Bad does not even begin to describe the state of the room on any given day.  They clean it, but moments later, it is a mess.  They are paper collectors, stuffed animal collectors, and trash collectors…literally.  As in, I put it in the trash, and one child in particular digs it back out.  Taking out the trash around here requires stealth!

This room has been rather neglected since we finished painting and putting up border.  I had put all the girls’ stuff in a big box and that box ended up overflowing.  I am so glad all of you got me motivated to tackle this room!

Here’s the BEFORE:

They had JUST cleaned it the day before!  It is obvious TOO MUCH STUFF was the culprit here!

The hardest part of cleaning this room is keeping the girls out of the room–the Trash Digger in particular!  But, we managed to persevere and get the job done.

Here’s an overview of what we did:

Once upon a time, I had a set limit as to how many stuffed animals could live on each bed.  At some point, I got lax on that.  So, one of the first things we did was remove all the stuffed animals and put all but 2 or so downstairs where the stuffed animals belong. The top bunk child was sleeping with something like 10 animals!

We also pulled all the papers out from under the bed and tidied up the beds.

My 4 year old son shares this room with his sisters until his younger brother is more accustomed to sleeping in his new toddler bed.  The 4 year old’s toddler bed had been sticking out in this room like a sore thumb.  We managed to get it pushed up against the wall at the foot of the girls’ bunk beds.

That left space against the same wall for a shelving system I had downstairs that wasn’t serving any real purpose.  We brought that up and organized toys and things that most often find their way into the girls’ room.

I hung Megan’s horse coat rack above the shelf so we could keep hats and bags there.  The top shelf has a basket for crocheting and a plastic tub for paper dolls (the girls’ latest craze).  On the second shelf are their 18″ dolls and a basket for clothes.  Bottom shelf contains stamps, beads, and favorite magazines. {as you can see, Micah pulled a fast one on me before I snapped this picture by turning the yellow magazine holder around!}

The closet mess you saw was really yet another paper overflow mess, so I got that under control and got rid of some shoes, and ended with this:

Long ago, we gave up on the closet doors staying on their track, but I don’t mind an open closet as long as it is neat!  The wicker chest contains stationery and keepsakes…mostly of the Megan sort. {have any of you guessed yet which child is the collector???}

I also made a printed copy of the photo of the shelf and hung it next to the shelf so the girls can tidy it on their own. This was an idea I got from somewhere I can’t remember right now.  At first, I thought it was a little cheesy, but I totally see the merit in it now!  Can’t wait to see if it actually works!

While mom was here I toted 3 boxes of books and 8 bags of miscellaneous stuff to the thrift store down the street!  If it hadn’t been so thrilling to finally rid myself of that clutter, I might have found it somewhat depressing, considering no one ought to have that much “junk.”

One full bag of trash and one full bag of thrift store goods came from the girls’ room alone, so as for whether or not I got rid of half THEIR stuff…yes, I believe I did!  Maybe they will sleep better too!

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My little boys don’t actually share a room to sleep, but they do share a room to house their clothes.  Eventually, they will both be in this room, but not until Micah learns to sleep a little better and Keian learns to be a bit quieter when he goes to bed.

This room is probably the least cluttered bedroom we have.  There is one dresser, one crib, one toddler bed, one diaper stacker, and one closet.  Nothing else.  No toys, no nonsense.

I had just gone through the dresser weeding out things to make room for the matching outfits I had purchased, so really the only place to get rid of things was the closet.

I moved the diaper stacker out of the closet and color-coded the clothes hangers (most of the clothes in the closet are church clothes).  From there, I tidied and pitched things that didn’t belong on the shelf above and the floor below.  It was a fairly quick job.  Painless?  Not so much.  Still having major sciatica issues.

I am hoping to get a changing table for this baby (I’ve never had one!) and stack the diapers in there.  I think that would just look so much neater, plus I could really stand to not have to bend over to change diapers!

So, let’s see…tally for Half My Stuff Saturday?

I’ve done the Dining Room, the Living Room & Hallway, the Books, the Kitchen (most of it), and now the Boys’ Room.  Upstairs all that is left is the Girls’ Room, the Master Bedroom & Bathroom, the Main Bathroom, and the Coat Closet.  Downstairs? I have three words for you…

Full Basement

Ugh.

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Since I didn’t quite get finished last week, I thought I’d plunge right back in this week.

I also had a renewed mission thanks to my mom.

We got to talking about small kitchens and brainstorming how to get more counter space from my little kitchen.  I decided the countertops on either side of my sink HAD to be cleared.  That meant the coffee/tea area I had put together would need to find a new home and the recycling that seems to always fill up the other side would need to find a new place to meet before heading to the garage where the recycling tubs reside.

So, I started in the most logical place:  the cup/glass/mug cabinet.

How many people live in this household? 50?

I’m sure some of you are scratching your heads about why I would start there, but really, I have a reason.  This cabinet is where I proposed to put the coffee/tea fixings from the cabinet below it.  However, looking at the state it was in, this would not be a simple task.

I organized and pitched, then added the coffee and tea things, ending up with this:

Now, remember these are the overflow because I have 7 cups on the other side of the kitchen that are the ones we are to use daily.  I’ve entertained thoughts of putting a lock on this cabinet so they can’t pillage through it, but of course, then how would I retrieve my beloved coffee?  So anyway, my countertop now looks like this:

I ended up putting my recycling in a box in my dishwasher (that I rarely use because of my new system of keeping things clean)

Onward and forward…on the other side of the sink is a cabinet that holds my herbals teas and some extras:

There were some seriously outdated items in there.  See that Enfamil?  That’s from when Micah was a newborn and the meds from the C-section zapped my milk supply.  Needed to be pitched!

I got rid of tons of stuff in there and ended up with this:

Awwww, much better!

The next cabinet has no pictures because it all happened so fast.  Ever read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?  Well, my storage containers/mixing bowls cabinet went about like that!  I needed a bowl to make banana bread in, but when I opened the cabinet and everything came crashing down on me, I decided I must first clean out the cabinet and get rid of, you guessed it…half my stuff!  I did that, only to realize I then needed to go through my lids drawer to get rid of the corresponding lids.  Once that was accomplished, I was able to start my banana bread…only to discover my oven had finally bit the dust.  Lovely.

Next stop…the stuff that lurks beneath the sink!

And the after:

Some of those products I don’t use often.  Some of them my mom uses when she comes over.

Is anyone else worn out yet by my tiny kitchen that seems utterly overwhelming?  How is it possible such a small space could create such angst?

I have 2 more areas that need to be addressed before I can put this room to rest (and hopefully keep it looking neat and tidy from there), but those will just have to wait.  I’m at a homeschool conference this weekend and need to expend my energy elsewhere for the time being.

So, how is the decluttering coming with all of you?  Leave me a note and if you post pics on your blog, leave that link too!

By the way, remember I was going to keep you updated on my FLYlady progress.  Well, there is no progress because I decided FLYlady really wasn’t for me at this juncture in my life–a conclusion I had come to before, but thought was quite possibly my own mental roadblock.

I’ve since gone back to something tried and true I will share with you next week.

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I have to admit…I’m scared.

On any given day, my kitchen looks like this:

It was worse, but I cleaned a bit prior to this pic being taken! *gasp*

Now, I KNOW I’ve told you how my husband’s friend taught me to clean my kitchen, and you know I was back on the FLYlady bandwagon, but if I were to be totally upfront and honest (which I strive to be at all times), my kitchen is a disaster.

Why?  I don’t know.  I wish I could pinpoint the why behind it, but suffice it to say it has ALWAYS been this way (well, except for those 2 years I was a full-fledged FLYbaby).  I suspect it has something to do with, dare I say it, laziness?

I’d like to blame it on the fact that my kitchen is tiny.  I’d like to blame it on having to cook 3 meals a day for 7 people.  I’d even like to think it is simply a matter of having too much stuff (which is why this is the room I chose for this week), but I really don’t think that’s all there is to it.  By the time the meal is prepared and eaten and dishes cleared, I just want to retreat to my comfy chair and stare off into outer space…the rest of the afternoon…

And alas, my lack of gumption is rubbing off on my children.  I’ve been so convicted of this lately it isn’t even funny!  Everywhere I turn is a mirror pointed in my direction showing me precisely the person I truly am. When it comes to cleaning the kitchen, I am lazy about it and just don’t want to do it.

So, I came up with a plan…

Several of our summers have been spent vacationing in cabins where all you have is just what you need and that is it.  One cabin we frequently stay at barely has enough plates and cups for our family.  We wash after every single meal because we have to. Laziness cannot live there for very long.

So, that’s what I decided to do.  I’m not going to get rid of all but 7 dish and cup combinations, but I can make all but that many totally inaccessible; therefore, forcing me out of my laziness.  That’s what I did on Monday.  By Monday night, my dish cabinet looked like this:

Is that an empty shelf I see???

On the bottom shelf are 7 cups, 7 bowls, and 7 plates (of varying degrees of breakability).  Everything else that used to litter that cabinet is packed and stacked into the top shelf, far beyond my reach.

I also managed to get the lower cabinets on one side of my galley kitchen organized.  There were a few things I could get rid of, but most of the things on that side were needed items.

That’s all I managed in the kitchen this week, but it’s a good start!  Anyone care to share the state of their kitchen???

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