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Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 7: A Desperate Sally Forth

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Despite pain from old injuries in my right wrist and right ankle, this clutter warrior managed to battle the closet enough to clear one more shelf. This post, while being just a little shorter than usual, does represent one more victory.

The Constant Thorn in My Side: An Incomplete Shelf

About a year ago, I partially cleaned off the most accessible shelf in the closet (a little below waist level), just enough to store my HeroClix and other gaming supplies.

The problem?


I didn’t clean off the left side of the shelf…


…or the right side of it, for that matter.


Plus, there was a little stuff piled up in front of the shelf (sitting on top of massive stacks of junk, lol), which made it hard to get to the parts of the shelf I actually am using these days.

So, with braces wrapped around both my wrist and my ankle, I studied the closet, and determined that today was a good day to finally clean off those three un-cleaned areas. I figured it would be an easier task that wouldn’t strain my injured joints too badly.

I Crammed HOW MUCH Stuff On That Shelf?!


After a little work to clear the left side of the shelf…


…and a little more work to clear the right side…


…and even getting that middle stack a little lower…


I ended up with all of this spread across the bed. My powers of junk hoarding and compacting are unsurpassed. XD

Most of it is remnants of schoolwork, old projects, a few books, and the like–a childhood time capsule, if you will. I threw out all the obvious trash (such as a box of super-old Halloween candy corn…God only knows what year it was from, ugh), and carried the rest of the items down to the basement, where the Clutter Dragon’s infamous closet hoard is currently stashed.


A few avalanches of junk happened as I shifted the closet’s junk topography (LOL). This is one of the many little crashes I heard and saw as I moved junk and set it on the bed. Ah, the hidden dangers of cleaning! The closet never fails to try to attack me with the only weapons it has–clutter! 😛

The Shelf Finished at Last!



Finally, after moving all the junk off the bed, wiping down the shelves to get rid of any dust (or worse), and readjusting the remaining items, I had a finished third shelf in the closet. YAHOO! At last! I have yet to use the space I reclaimed, but I’m sure I’ll find something. You know me, there’s always a need for more storage in my room!

Next Week: The Part I Hate The Most

As I carried my burdens down to the basement, I realized something…the basement room is beginning to overflow with all this closet clutter. The LAST thing I need is for the Clutter Dragon to find a new home in my house! >:C

So, next week, you will see the true carnage begin, as I start to sort these remnants of childhood into “toss,” “keep,” and “sell/donate.” This is the part of de-cluttering that I have been avoiding for too long, and it can’t continue. If I don’t remove these items from the house in some way, then all this effort has just moved stuff around, like a kid avoiding eating vegetables by moving them around on the plate.

This is the takeaway lesson for this week, and for the weeks to come: if you want to de-clutter, then you have to actually GET RID of items. Hoarding them won’t make you happy, especially if you move them to another part of the house only to keep tripping over them. Stay tuned as I begin to toss, sell and donate items from the Clutter Dragon’s horrible cache!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Clutter Interlude: Finding the Stuff You Put Away

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(Don’t worry, I’m still progressing on the Clutter Dragon Saga! I’m just taking a little time off to regroup before I continue my onslaught on the evil Closet of Hoarding. 😛 )

Today’s post is about a very important part of de-cluttering, one that most people don’t take into account. Once you’ve cleaned up and de-cluttered your space, what do you do with the stuff you chose to keep? And more importantly, how do you FIND it all again?

If you’re like me, you probably stuffed the “keepable” items into any convenient box and put them away willy-nilly, all in the name of “keeping them from getting stomped on/destroyed” in the savage process of cleaning. However, that approach doesn’t help you actually FIND those items you stored when you need them next.

How Do I Know This? I Lived It

A couple of days ago, I was sorting through my HeroClix collection, admiring the way I could now access them all because of the cleaner state of the closet. All was going well, until I realized something: where were my HeroClix character cards? These cards, printed alongside the newer HeroClix figures, are essential to gameplay…and they were ALL missing.

You can probably imagine what happened next. I began to tear through the closet shelves, searching through all those boxes I had haphazardly stuffed items into, praying fervently that I hadn’t thrown them away. “Surely I would have known better,” I kept thinking. “Surely I wouldn’t have gotten so carried away as to throw something like THAT away!”

What I was experiencing is every hoarder’s nightmare, and probably one reason I stayed away from de-cluttering for so long. It seems that every time I get the cleaning bug, I end up losing track of everything I want to keep–even to the point of “keepable” items getting accidentally thrown away.

In this case, however, the crisis was over within an hour, as I found the box of character cards in the closet–they were crammed behind a box of items utterly unrelated to HeroClix, and thus they were invisible to my panicked eye. But the panic soon resolved itself into indignation: why is it that I can always find things in a messy room, but never find things in a clean room?

The “Logical Place” Trap–It IS a Trap!

It never fails: when I’m cleaning and reorganizing, I handle each item, then put it away in a place that’s “more logical” than the place I had put it before. “Surely I’ll remember to find it here,” I always think. “This location just makes more sense.”

The problem? The “more logical” place is definitely NOT the place I’ve been keeping the item for years on end. Thus, I never remember to LOOK in the “more logical” place!

That was the problem with my HeroClix character cards. For four years, I’d kept the box of character cards on my blue plastic dresser (the one I cleaned off in this blog post). I honestly did not remember having moved them to the closet, though I figured I’d probably put them somewhere close to the HeroClix figures which were already stored in the closet. Nevertheless, when I began my panicky search, where did I look first? The top of the dresser.

Solution: List and Label Everything AS You Organize

Don’t save this step for last, and don’t be daunted by how big this task sounds. I will tell you now, if I had stopped and done this while I was cleaning, I could have saved an hour of hair-tearing panic.

#1: List Everything You’re Keeping and Note Its Location

As you clean and sort items into “keep,” “toss,” or “sell” piles, keep paper and a writing instrument handy. Note all the items that you’re keeping, and out to the side of each notation, write a short description of the place you’ve put it in, or where in the room you’ve placed it.

An example:

  • Scissors (top drawer of desk)
  • Gift cards (bright red shoebox, middle shelf of closet)
  • Program install discs for computer (green box, top shelf of closet)
  • Hair accessories (small white box, top of dresser)

…and my list could go on and on…but you get the idea.

#2: Label The Locations

Listing your items, however, is only half the process. Once you’ve listed where everything is housed, at least temporarily, then you’ll need to label the locations accordingly. (Post-It notes or some other kind of sticky notes are absolutely GENIUS for this.)

Why do you need to label every box and container? Because in the wake of your massive cleaning effort, you have made the room a very different place, so you need to ease the disorientation factor as much as possible. (Think you can’t be disoriented in a clean room? I beg to differ. I still wake up surprised that I can walk to my window without having to wade through junk. XD)

So, using the first example of gift cards in a bright red shoebox, I would stick a label reading “GIFT CARDS” on the box, somewhere where I can easily read it. Label every location (especially closed storage!) so that you can quickly scan through your newly-organized stuff and know where everything is.

Why Does This Solution Work?

Writing labels on Post-It notes or other easily-removable labels means that you won’t have to scratch through or tear off more permanent styles of labels (like Sharpie labels or typed labels). It allows you to have a more flexible system as you determine what locations truly are “logical” for certain items, and which items you actually do need access to more or less frequently. After you’ve gotten your organization system in place, you can add more permanent labels to your storage areas. But let the organization be a little more free-form, at least for a little while, so you can make a few changes even as you get re-familiarized with all your new, tidy storage places.

For instance, if you decide to take the gift cards out of the red box to put them in with the program install discs in the green box, all you have to do is remove the corresponding Post-It note from the red box and add it to the green box. Done! What could be easier than that?

Those of us who are not tidy/organized by nature (like me) have to have some time to get used to being organized, and the list of items plus the temporary labels do just that. It also helps you be aware of just how much stuff you have, and possibly points out unnecessary duplicates along the way.

Summary

De-cluttering does not have to lead to the new stress of losing track of your possessions! Keep your will to de-clutter alive by keeping track of your kept items, and labeling their new homes within your newly-tidy space. Believe me, it will make the whole process a lot smoother!

Saturday with the Spark

In Remembrance: My Music Teacher

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Last Friday, my music teacher, Mrs. Myrtle Mashburn, passed away at the age of 97, having taught more than seven decades’ worth of piano and voice pupils over her long career of teaching and enjoying music.

As one of those many students, I came to the visitation and the funeral flooded with memories of my eight years spent studying piano and voice with her during my elementary, middle, and high school years. And I thought: “What better way to honor her publicly than to write about her impact on my life in my weekly “creativity” article?”

How I Met Mrs. Mashburn

This amazing lady not only taught me piano and voice, but she had also taught my dad to play the piano 40 years earlier. When I was a kid and beginning to show interest in learning to play the piano, Mrs. Mashburn was the first person my dad thought of, and we were all pleasantly surprised to find that she was still teaching piano and voice at the age of 79.

So my first memories of Mrs. Mashburn came down to me through Dad’s retellings, even before I met her officially. Dad remembered her as an energetic, encouraging younger teacher; the lady I met was simply a white-haired version of that unbeatable spirit, showing her joy in music not only by playing it herself, but by teaching others how to play and enjoy it as well.

As a girl of 10, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that she was so “old” by the world’s standards, and yet seemed no older than my parents. But that was Mrs. Mashburn’s personality–the years just didn’t seem to affect her mind or her hands, even as they affected the rest of her health a rare few times. She maintained a lively (and fairly large) group of private piano and voice students every year, even into the summers, and held recitals at the end of every school year.

Favorite Memories

Mrs. Mashburn recognized from the beginning that I had a good ear for music, but when she discovered I was relying on that ear a little too much and not learning how to read music properly, she sought to fix that, working with me on really learning how each note was written on the page. Even though I disliked trying to read the notes off the page at first (it was so much slower than just hearing the music and playing it back), she reminded me that if I didn’t learn these notes, I would always be dependent on someone else to play the music for me first. “You learned to read books quickly–your parents told me–so I know you can learn to read music just as easily,” she said, without a shred of doubt in her voice.

That certainty never wavered, even as I grew up and sometimes got out of the habit of practicing as much as I should have. Another of my favorite memories comes from a practice session in which I royally screwed up a difficult piece of music, and a curse word slipped out before I was aware I had spoken. I realized what I’d said a half-second later, and in the middle of apologizing all over myself, she burst into laughter, saying, “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before! Just start back at measure 38 and go from there–it’s all right.” She was great at handling mistakes, even off the keys. 🙂

The yearly recitals Mrs. Mashburn held generated another memory; one of the youngest piano students froze up during a recital and couldn’t get past a certain part of the piece she was trying to play. She tried a couple of times, and she looked like she was about to cry, and then Mrs. Mashburn came up and whispered something to her. I don’t know what it was, but the little girl’s face brightened, and she started the piece again–this time finishing it! The situation could have been so awkward, but somehow, Mrs. Mashburn knew what to say so that she would encourage and not embarrass the little girl. It was a sweet moment, and one that brings tears to my eyes remembering it. :’)

I remember that we always had a good mix of ages at recitals–there were always students who were just beginning, some who were fairly far along but still learning, and then the about-to-graduate crowd who were already so awesome. 🙂 Though we often didn’t see each other much except for at recitals, Mrs. Mashburn always encouraged us to be supportive of each other and helpful. Even when her health began to fail (arthritis, especially), she never seemed to hesitate in taking on a new student and working with him or her to teach them the same joy of music that she felt. And believe me, each of us students understood how wonderful music could be when she taught it!

What I’ll Miss Most

In a very real sense, Mrs. Mashburn brought together a little mini-community of music students and performers, across the decades. At her funeral on Monday, two-thirds of the 100+ people present were her former students, ranging in age from early twenties to mid-seventies (at least!)–we were all bound together by the music and the life of this one woman, who had guided us in how to play music, as well as encouraging us in our own personal studies of music. I don’t know if anybody else could do what she did…she was remarkable.

I’ll miss her dedication and joy the most, though I know she’s gone back to accompany the angels in their hymns. I hope I’ve done her life credit; to be caught up in that energy and love of music, even for a short while, made such a wonderful difference in my life. Thank you, Mrs. Mashburn, for giving us all that gift. 🙂

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 6: A Swipe at the Dragon’s Leg

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As late as 4:00 yesterday, I resisted working on the next part of the closet, which I’d ambitiously assigned myself last week. Procrastination plus a stomach bug and a series of headaches kept me away from the task, and by Monday afternoon I was seriously doubting whether I’d even have a blog post for you this morning.


I even parodied this song with a few appropriate lyrics:

“Looking at the closet,
Feeling down, down, down
Looking at the closet,
Whew! Don’t wanna work now
Looking at the closet
Feeling down, down, down
Looking at the closet,
Whew! Don’t wanna work now

5:00 in the evening
I gotta get this blog post done
Lord, I’m so tired
I don’t wanna start this now

Because I’m looking at the closet
Feeling down, down, down
Looking at the closet,
Whew! Don’t wanna work now…”

LOL! But after staring at the huge mess that awaited me within the closet for a few minutes, trying to psych myself up to tackle it, my thoughts took a different tack. “What’s keeping me from working on this, really?” I wondered. “What’s so daunting about this?”

Then, my eye lit on this area, directly in front of one of the closet doors:


This pile of junk has been sitting in front of the closet door for a good while now (at least 3 years), and it blocks the door from swinging completely open. Plus, it makes standing in front of the closet very awkward. In a way, I dreaded working on the bottom section of the closet because I knew I would not have room to work or to even stand comfortably, let alone get anything constructive done.

So I decided to fix that, with the little amount of energy I had left to my name after the week I’ve had. If I couldn’t do the bottom of the closet this week, I reasoned, then at least I could remove the last obstacle to getting it clean so I could do better next time.

Picking Up, Cleaning Up, Et Cetera, Et Cetera

I began by picking up all the items from the floor, throwing away all the obvious trash and paper clutter as I did so, until my bed was covered again with keepable items:


Yeah, that all came from that area behind and kind of on top of the TV. Amazing how much JUNK I can cram into such few square feet of space! XD


LOOK AT THAT! I FOUND MY CARPET!!! [/inordinate amount of excitement]

But seriously, folks, this is the first time I’ve seen that corner’s carpet in several years. Once all the keepable stuff was up out of the way, and all the big garbage was dealt with, I could actually see the floor. Small victory, but a victory nonetheless!

Side Quest: Sweeping Up Packing Peanuts and Other Floor Clutter

Unfortunately, not only had I found my carpet, but I had also found a huge mess of packing peanuts back behind the TV. The only thing I can figure: at some point in the (distant) past, I had a shipping box full of packing peanuts set on top of the TV, and the box had overturned at least partially. The box was likely carted off, but the packing peanuts hid in the corner, just waiting for me to find them.


Yep, packing peanuts plus a few other random trash items…this was what lay behind the TV.


So I set about sweeping all these little nuggets up and out of the way, recruiting a broom, dustpan, and a tall kitchen trash can for the job. (Pro tip: get small floor clutter out of the way ASAP, otherwise you’re going to end up tripping over it the whole time you’re trying to get the “big stuff” done. Learn from my fail.)


Have I ever mentioned how much I hate packing peanuts? Especially when they randomly jump away from the broom because of static electricity, and end up underneath other furniture, underneath your feet, and pretty much everywhere BUT the dustpan? *sigh* LOL

Getting Back to Business


But finally, after lots of sweeping (and grumbling), I had a clean corner behind the TV. Now, all I needed to do was to move the TV so that the closet door could finally swing open fully.


…Yeah, you can see what began to happen as I moved the TV. Small closet avalanche, ahoy! xD But at least the door could finally swing open, which is a small miracle in my room these days.


With both doors now free to swing open, I took the liberty of arranging hanging hooks so that I could use the hanging space temporarily.


Newly-freed Closet Door #2 is now an impromptu coat closet, at least till I can make room for these coats elsewhere in the house.


As you can see, the doors do not close fully because of the junk still left on the floor of the closet (which I was too exhausted to start tackling yesterday). But they DO open fully, allowing me lots of room to work when I do start working on it!

Random Stuff I Found While Cleaning

The corner of the room seemed to be a trove of hidden gems. For instance:


I found this little beauty (an old half-dollar coin) trapped partly underneath the TV. 😀


This candle holder screen, with electronic candles, was a gift several Christmases ago–a gift which I thought I’d misplaced permanently. YAY for finding stuff! (Double wow: it’s not broken! :O)


Also found: a hoard of super-old makeup. This dates back to at least early high school (1999-2000). Need to toss, much? LOL

The Fruits of My Labors


After a little repositioning and closet configuration…


The corner was finally finished, or at least finished enough for now. At last, there’s space for the closet doors to swing open, and I can finally begin work on the bottom of the closet, where childhood lies in wait for me. 😛

Stay Tuned!

Next time, the bottom of that closet WILL be tackled. Hopefully. “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” as my Nannie used to say. LOL!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 5: Nitty, Gritty, and Dirty

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This post about didn’t happen–but determination (and frustration/anger) won the day. 😀

Despite feeling generally awful all week (again, I was not about to let this project down in the middle. I’m a little bit infamous for that around the house–I get all gung-ho about a project, only to quit in the middle of it because I begin to lack the energy, support, and time to keep moving on it.

So, having conquered one shelf in the closet last week, I resolved to strike at the next shelf down, which you’ll see pictured below from left to right.



…Yeah. THAT’S what I had to tackle yesterday. I thought, “Well, okay, this will probably be a little more involved than last week’s effort, because there’s more stuff on this shelf, but I can still manage it.”

The (Gross) Discovery Lurking in the Closet

Well, I thought I could manage it easily, until I took the first big bin off the shelf. Below the big bin, which I thought contained everything on that part of the shelf, was a layer of junk. And not just any junk. Mouse-poo-covered junk.

I wanted to laugh, and then I wanted to cry. I used to love mice…now I wish I’d let my indoor cat run wild in my room and kill all the little critters so they wouldn’t poop all over everything. I really wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of mouse poo, either. (I know this is disgusting to read–it was even more disgusting to confront!)

I was disgusted with myself for having let the closet get this way, and disgusted that I had to deal with this RIGHT NOW…ugh. I stood there thinking, “Really? I have to get into THIS and make sense of it? I have to TOUCH all this?”

Anger Takes the Place of Determination

After a few moments of mental whining and cringing, I finally just started pulling stuff off the shelves in a mad scramble for cleanliness–the things I was mumbling under my breath aren’t fit to be written here (LOL). The disgust and shock of what I had found had resolved itself into anger.


In the process of going all RAWR at the closet, this small avalanche of junk happened. In that angry state, I was just tearing toys and junk off the shelves, shaking off the dust and debris as best I could, so inevitably some of the stuff began to free itself of its own accord. I kept working, picking up the fallen stuff off the floor as well, until finally…


…I was left with these random little items. I didn’t really have a good place to store them all, but there they were–obstacles to wiping down the shelf and really getting it clean again.


*heroic music* But never fear! A random shoebox is here!

During one of my earlier episodes of Slaying the Clutter Dragon, I had found and kept a lot of small boxes like this one, knowing that I’d probably need them for organization and storage purposes. I thanked myself for this, now that I’d found myself in need of a tidy way to store these little knick-knacks.

A Tip for Fellow De-Clutterers

As you de-clutter, keep any sturdy empty boxes just for situations like this; you’re probably going to run across tons of little itty-bitty stuff that needs to be moved and sorted later. This way, you can store the small things neatly until you have time to sort them all out. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later, just like I did!


And this is what the bed looked like, after only half of the shelf was cleared. SIGH…junky, dusty bed, yet again… :c

Half The Shelf Conquered–The Other Half Remains!


With the aid of a couple of paper towels (one damp with cleaner and one dry), I finally had half the shelf dusted and wiped down of all the mouse poo. Now for the next part of the shelf, which consisted of two old closet storage system units. (Forgive the blurriness of this pic–didn’t realize it was this bad till I uploaded it from my phone. :/)


After moving one of the units, look what I found–two random, tiny laundry detergent boxes stuck behind it. *shrugs* Who knows? This is just more evidence that the mess in my room randomly gobbles stuff up and spits it out in the most unexpected of places. LOL


Once I moved the other (surprisingly heavy) storage unit, I finally had a fully clean shelf to work with (once I had wiped it down, of course).

Using the Newfound Space

Now that I had yet another empty shelf in the closet to work with, I was temporarily at a loss as to what to put on it.



As you can see, that temporary uncertainty was quite temporary, indeed! LOL!

For this shelf, I chose to store some miscellaneous items that keep getting lost in the piles of junk in my room. This shelf’s contents, like the rest of the closet in general, will likely change as I work with the other shelves and areas in my room, but for now these items are up and out of harm’s way.

Last Step: Dealing with the Bed


As always, the bed held all the junk I’d removed from the closet. But I learned my lesson from last week–this pile of junk was going downstairs to the basement immediately, so that it would not stand in my way of doing the next shelf.

About 10 minutes of hauling boxloads and armloads of junk downstairs ensued, in which I sweated about as much as I do at Zumba classes (LOL). But at last, the bed was clear, and the floor was clear. The stage was now set for my next challenge in the Closet of Horrors:


…Um, yeah. There’s a reason I’ve waited to tackle this until now. xD But I have less fear of it now. After all, if I get this closet floor cleared, I can actually close the closet doors for the first time in 20 years! GASP! :O


And all this closet clearage IS having an effect–the piles of junk are slowly getting smaller. Soon, all that junk will either be donated, thrown away, or stored in the closet. Oh, what a day that will be when my carpet I shall see! 😀

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 4: Blundering in the Dark

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(This installment of the Clutter Dragon Saga brought to you by: sheer stubbornness and willpower.)

Illness, exhaustion, and my old friend procrastination teamed up on me this week, to keep me from sallying forth to strike at a single closet shelf. But by yesterday afternoon, I knew I could not wait any longer without disappointing myself and losing the rhythm of my accomplishments thus far.

So, around 4:30 yesterday afternoon, though I still felt under the weather, I began my clutter counterstrike, stumbling forward into a darkness of storage, which has held onto my girlhood much longer than I have.


Due to some freak fit of gravity, this little avalanche out of the closet had occurred at some point during the week. I got this out of the floor first, but put it aside carefully, since it had some items that actually needed to be back in the closet when I had room.

The REAL Work Begins: Clearing the Shelf


This first bit of shelf was cleared pretty easily, since it was only a couple of small boxes and a book or two. But I uncovered some evidence of mice (to put it as non-grossly as I can) lying about on the shelf, so I had to stop and disinfect the surface as well as I could before moving on.

Note to Fellow De-Clutterers

If you encounter such evidence of mice, which is unfortunately quite common when you’re cleaning up stuff that’s been sitting in the same spot for a while, BE CAREFUL how you handle it–it can make you sick! Use rubber gloves if possible, and make sure to use disinfectants in a well-ventilated space so you don’t get sick from fumes.


The second bit of shelf was much more difficult; not only was there more evidence of mice, but several toys from the shelf above attacked me as I removed items from the working shelf. (Guess they were defending their fellow toys from being removed from the closet? LOL!) Not to mention that when I tried to shift the largest box of toys, it began to vomit Lego pieces everywhere. xD

Disinfecting the shelf, defending my head from falling items, and picking up about a thousand Lego pieces slowed me down, but eventually, I did get that bit of shelf clean, too, as seen in the picture above. Small victories in the name of cleanliness!


The third part of the shelf was almost too easy after the near-disaster I’d had a few minutes before. There was only one box of toys left, and it was mainly big, soft stuffed animals. Once that was out of the closet, I disinfected the remaining surface, and was rewarded with this sight–one completely clear shelf in my overstuffed closet!

A Little Reward: Using the Newfound Storage Space


I had already planned what I wanted to store on this newly-cleaned shelf, so I had everything already picked out, stacked, and ready to be sorted.

From left: my Hawk & Dove comics collection; an old makeup box I used for Clix storage, which will be repurposed soon; computer doodads, install discs, and other techie paraphernalia, all in various gift and shoeboxes.


I was also able to store many small travel bags I’ve picked up over the years on this shelf. It’s a bit messy at the moment, but eventually I’m going to repurpose one of the small totes I recovered from the closet to store these properly.


This is where all the travel bags used to live–piled up beside the dresser, in a stack almost 3 1/2 feet high. Now you can nearly see the floor beside the dresser. It’s a tiny victory, but a victory nonetheless!


The three bins seen here (which I’ve been using for organization in the last couple of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon” installments) will stay in the closet, though their contents will likely change a lot between now and when I finally finish the closet reorganization. They fit well on the shelves and are easy to take down when I need them, thanks to the handles. (In fact, I’ll probably be getting a few more of them for other shelves, too!)

Work, Interrupted


As always, the bed ended up holding all the detritus from the cleared shelf–it’s literally a bed full of my childhood in this picture. LOL

In the beginning, I had planned to start sorting out which toys I wanted to keep for my own children vs. which toys I wanted to donate. Sadly, at this point my body sharply reminded me that I had been sick all week, and that if I didn’t want to be horribly sick/dizzy again in a few minutes, I should lie down as quickly as possible.

Thus…this had to happen:


Sigh. I worked so hard to clear that space in front of the closet, and now it just looks like my childhood puked all over the floor. xD Ah well, it was for a good cause. And actually, I can more easily pick up the work of sorting any time between now and the next installment of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon.”


(I even had to use some of the other bits of floorspace I’ve so painstakingly cleaned earlier in the series. Grr and grumble.)

But this is an important lesson of cleaning/straightening: you have to work with the space (and the physical energy) you’ve got, and you can’t expect every clean section of a room to stay clean while you work with other sections, especially if other sections are as cluttered as my closet.

The room isn’t absolutely finished till all sections are clean and straight–till then, it’s allowed to look like a work in progress. I can’t be mad at myself for making two giant steps forward, even if it looks like I’ve taken a giant step back. You fellow de-clutterers out there keep that in mind for your own clutter projects!

Next Week: Another Shelf, Another Pile of Childhood

Now that I have braved the horrors of dust, mice, and attacking toys, what else can possibly await me in the closet of horrors? Tune in next week to find out! 😀

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 3: Horrors in the Hidden Abyss

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I return triumphant, flushed with my most recent victory against the Clutter Dragon! *heroic music*

This week, I tackled the giant mess in front of the overflowing closet–this area has been jokingly named the “Clutter Abyss,” and this picture proves it:

This is where I started; my goal was to clear the floor immediately in front of the closet, and to uncover the old TV in the corner so we can take it to be donated. (Don’t see a TV in this picture? I promise you there is one–it’s just hidden by all the clutter! SAD!)

Task #1: Everything Off the Floor

Just like always, my bed became the staging area for all the keepable items:

Sadly enough, this is just the first layer of junk that I removed from the floor to sort through. When I took this picture, I had not yet waded down to the second layer of keepable items, which was hidden beneath yet another layer of paper clutter and trash. (Side note: that is my computer you see in the background–I needed a little cleaning music to keep my spirits up. 😀 )


As you can see, the layer of trash/paper clutter was quite a bit more daunting than in the last episode–more had been allowed to accumulate, and was actually covering up more stuff. Sigh, such is the life of a pack rat!


The most random things showed up when I began to sift through the mess…like this VHS case for the first Pokemon movie. I have no idea why it was mixed in with everything else; I have a theory that my room’s mess comes alive and just swallows stuff at random. LOL


Once the paper clutter and trash was all dealt with, this was the vista I was greeted with. Still quite a ways to go…my fight was not yet over! I still had plenty of stuff to put up–and nowhere to put it.

The Root of All (Cluttered) Evil: The Closet

I have not yet spoken much of my bedroom closet itself, though it is actually the main reason my room remains cluttered. Having been converted into shelved toy storage in my childhood, many of those girlhood toys have remained on the shelves collecting dust ever since.

The end result:

Um…yeah, it’s kinda bad. The closet was physically unreachable for many years due to severe pack-rat-itis, and when I finally did reach it during the Super Duper Cleanout of 2009, I did not tackle it; the project looked too daunting after finally clearing the rest of the room. My energy flagged, and so I procrastinated on completing this final task.

But the no-storage problem in my room has not gone away; indeed, it led to the Clutter Dragon taking up residence yet again in my room. (Food for thought: if I had tackled the closet 3 years ago, I might not be fighting the Clutter Dragon now. Sigh…)

A Small Closet Side Quest

So, to start using the closet space a little better, I rearranged the middle shelf in the above picture just a little bit, to allow for more things to be stored on it. Then I put up the few things from the floor that would fit onto it, being careful not to overload the shelf in the process.


Now, that shelf is better-used, though it still looks as messy as its brethren. But this won’t be the last you hear about the closet!

Uncovering the Bed


This time, after cleaning up the floor, I was left with quite a big pile of junk on the bed, none of which could leave the room–it was all my stuff and needed to find a home somewhere within the room.


Not to mention that there was still junk to be cleaned off the old TV in the corner. (You can just barely see it, bottom center of the picture.)

Though the sight of all these items left to deal with made my energy begin to waver, I knew I could not quit now. After all, I had this very blog post to write, and I did not want to disappoint myself by doing less than I had planned. So I struck out at the Clutter Dragon yet again, and began to work at uncovering the TV and the rest of the floor in front of it.


In the middle of this effort, I randomly discovered a box full of Christmas presents from about 2 years ago. I had forgotten I even owned these books! :O They were quickly taken from the room and put with my other books, elsewhere in the house, so they wouldn’t get messed up further in the cleanup effort.


Cleaning off the TV also meant that I found several of my colder-weather jackets strewn about. In need of a place to hang them, I finally made use of the six-hook over-the-door hanging system I had bought a few months ago, putting it on half of one of the louvered closet doors. It’s not ideal, but hopefully it won’t be permanent. (Famous last words, at least in my room. LOL)


Believe it or not, there’s a TV under there! With the floor mostly cleared and the random stuff atop it removed, now I can maneuver a dolly into the room to cart the TV off to Goodwill or wherever else might take it.

With that, the second half of the job was complete!


But there was still a problem: the bed was still covered with boxes of random stuff. And, unlike earlier in the day, I was not much in a mood to continue sorting. More than anything, after almost an hour working with little rest (or ventilation in the room, for that matter), I wanted the bed cleared off.


So, I reverted to a solution that always worked well for me in my childhood. I cleaned off the bed…


…and stuffed all the randomness into the next small area of the room, to be dealt with later. 😛 (This junk pile will be part of a future episode of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon,” I promise. :D)

One Small Step for Woman, One Giant Lunge at the Dragon


This is basically what the Closet Clutter Abyss looks like now–it may not look much better to the neat-freak’s eye, but it will enable us to cart away the TV, which will free up the corner space and the closet door. And once that space is open for maneuvering…


…the next phase of defeating the Clutter Dragon will go into effect. I know now that no room-cleaning will ever be effective unless this closet is confronted and conquered–the last three years are living proof of that.


So, next week, I will begin the unenviable task of tackling the closet, one shelf at a time. Though I might be trapped in the Closet Abyss for several weeks, I will not overload myself each week–that will only lead to procrastination and ultimately quitting. The closet must be conquered bit by definitive bit, rather than trying to do it all in one go. Kind of like weight loss, I guess!

Tune in next week for my first foray into the Closet of Childhoods Past! Who knows what I’ll find in there among the detritus of girlhood?

BONUS: The New and Improved Display Shelf

In the first installment of this series, I showed you how I first designed the display shelf for my figurines. I have since improved on it, using the display shelf as a way to store my DVD collection as well as my figurines.


This picture encompasses the smaller of the two Belle & Beast figurines on the left, my entire DVD collection, and my little collection of figurines off to the right.


I freed the Dove figurine from her packaging and set her up on the included stand; I added the small Belle figurine and a newly-acquired Princess Peach figurine alongside, to create a little vignette of some of my favorite characters.


The larger of the two Belle & Beast figurines did get her special display spot at last, sitting atop my dresser. Once the dresser gets cleaned off (in a future issue of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon”), she’ll be showcased properly.

Saturday with the Spark

The Most Dangerous Thing Any Artist Can Do…

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…is lose faith in their ability to make art.

Seems too simple, or even nonsensical. How can someone who makes art of any kind lose faith in that ability? And how can that stop you from creating, if you’re truly an artist?

Oh, it can happen, and all too easily. I’m stuck in it right now, as a matter of fact. And there is more than one path to this stupidly terrible mire I find myself in these days:

  • Suffering from self-censorship, and/or the fear that your art is “not good enough” for others to see
  • Making “art creation time” feel more like work than fun–over-thinking it and over-planning it, especially
  • Allowing someone else to bully you into making the kind of art they like, rather than what you like

Any or all of these things can strike you, as an artist, and they can all make your passion for creating art shrivel up and die. And when you’ve lost your passion for your art, no more ideas will come to you till you get it back. Thus, you lose faith in your own ability to make art, because the ideas aren’t coming. And all too soon, you stop even identifying yourself as an artist entirely.

Remember, Only YOU Can Make Art That Expresses Yourself!

[/shameless parody of Smokey the Bear’s “forest fires” slogan]

It doesn’t matter what kind of art you make, whether it’s poetry, paintings, choreography, sculptures, dramas, or jewelry–you have to have faith and passion for your art, otherwise the creative juices just won’t be there. You have to remember that you have a unique voice, a unique spirit, which is expressed through your chosen art, whatever it may be. You must let that come forth however it will, if it’s going to be truly representative of you.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you push aside help from other people. Others can guide you along, give you advice, and act as sounding boards for your newborn ideas. But only YOU can create art from that advice. God gifted you an amazing ability; only you can bring forth that idea that sprouted in your brain.

How to Get Your Faith and Passion Back

So, what to do if you’ve found yourself suddenly without the fire for your art that you used to have? Here are two things that have helped me:

  1. Re-experience your own artworks. Try to re-create that beautiful painting you did a few years ago; play through that old song you loved writing so much. Do whatever it takes to reconnect with what made you love making art. For instance, I took to my digital keyboard and played through a few of my more involved compositions, playing them in different keys, experimenting with their forms.
  2. Show or talk about a few of your most recent artistic attempts to friends you trust and/or friends who do the same kind of art. They may be able to offer a fresh perspective on the work you’ve lost faith in. In my case, I’ve been talking about my novel with a few more trusted friends, and slowly gaining a little more pride in what I’ve created when they give their reactions.

Remember, art is your personal expression, mirroring your experience of the world. No one else has quite that expression–will you then hide it or push it aside because it’s not “as good as” someone else’s? I hope you choose to keep working at it…your efforts ARE worth it, as are mine, as are every artist’s. Be proud of your identity as an artist!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 2: The Valiant Sword Sweep

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I’m back with another installment of defeating the Clutter Dragon in my bedroom! This time, flushed with the success of last week’s efforts, I endeavored to clean off the top of the plastic dresser next to the catchall bins.


This is what I planned to clean up, anyway. But there was a problem.


…THIS pile of junk was on the floor in front of the dresser. I could not even reach the other side of the dresser to clean it off without slipping and falling on the pile (and believe me, I tried). There were literally no places to put my feet, and no floorspace to work within.

The Clutter Dragon had struck back at me with its vicious tail. If I were to get anywhere with my original project idea of cleaning up the dresser top, I had to clean up the floor first…and that meant tacking on much more work than I had expected.

But it had to be done. I was heartily sick of living this way. And, after all, I didn’t want to disappoint myself, or you, my faithful readers! 🙂

Uncovering the Floor, and Hidden Treasures Galore

I began by picking up most every item off the floor, throwing obvious trash away as I did so, until my entire bed surface was again full of items that needed to be sorted.


Again, I amaze myself at how much utter crap I can cram into such a small space. Argh. >_< But surprisingly, I found that about half of this stuff did not actually belong in my room at all--I had just stored it on my room floor because it was a "temporary" storage spot. (Note to self: no place I set any item in is going to be just a "temporary" spot. If I've learned anything about my organizing habits, it's that.) Thankfully, I was able to take some items out of the room entirely and put them back where they belonged. AWESOME! 😀 (The less junk in my room, the better.) Other items just needed to find another, more permanent home within my space, so I took time during this first step to find each misplaced item a home to belong in. For instance: several travel bags, which were lumped in with the clutter, but which actually need to be stored with the rest of my luggage in a corner of my room. Once all these big items were dealt with (or stored on the bed for the moment), I discovered that there was a hidden layer underneath all the keepable items: a layer of paper clutter, unbeknownst to me.
Did I mention how much I hate paper clutter? Especially having to stop and read through it to see whether I need to keep or toss it? Drives me nuts. It’s the worst part of cleaning, I swear. >:(

Anyway, the trash bag again came in handy, as I slowly sorted through all this detritus pictured above. For this part, I had to sit on the floor; my ankle was beginning to complain, as was my back, from having to bend and lift as I had done for almost 45 minutes thus far.

But, once all the random paper clutter was cleared up (either thrown out or put aside for sorting/shredding), I had this lovely vista to gaze at:


This is what was left behind after clearing away the larger paper mess–little bits of paper randomness, crumbs, and general dirt. (How all that dirt got in underneath all the clutter, I will NEVER know. I think it just burrowed under there or something. SIGH…)


Lacking a working small vacuum cleaner that can maneuver into these tight spaces, I improvised with a broom and dustpan. Though my floor is carpet and really does need a good vacuuming, this will have to do for now.


As you can see, I did a pretty good job of sweeping up most of the crumby dirty mess. You can actually tell that the carpet used to be white, now. xD


First small win of the day: in the process of picking up and sweeping, I found about $2.50 in coins hidden on the floor. Hidden treasures, indeed! Every little bit helps! 😀

Tackling the Dresser Top, At Last!


With most of the obvious trash gone, and most of the large items sorted, I was left with less of a pile on the bed. I then deemed it was time to tackle that messy dresser top. So I took all the stuff off the dresser and put it onto the nearest available surface…the bed, again.


Um, yeah. I know this looks pretty terrible. But all this clutter carnage was necessary…see what happened?


See? Proof that there WAS a surface under there, and that I DID clean it off completely! 😀 I even dusted, which is a small miracle in and of itself. xD

Once everything from the dresser was on the bed, I began the sorting process again, throwing away obvious trash, laying aside important financial bits and papers (pay stubs, receipts, and the like) where I would not lose them till I have dealt with them, etc.

One of the unexpected wins I came across during this cleaning spree was a selection of shoeboxes, shipping boxes, and a few organizational bins I had purchased in a futile past effort to clean.


Each of these little boxes and bins came in handy to sort out and store little items from the dresser top which could easily get lost. (Pardon the blurry picture…my hand must have been shaking or something. 🙁 )

In the process of organizing, sorting, storing, and throwing away, I found even more treasure hidden by the Clutter Dragon:


Yay! I think there’s close to 4 bucks in there now. 😀

At last, when I finally got everything from the dresser top sorted and/or dealt with, I put back just a few items that were meant to sit there:


Mainly, the dresser top holds mail, my cell phone (especially while it’s charging), some assorted arts/crafts supplies (because I don’t have desk space for them yet), and other things I’m generally using on a daily basis. I even have a mail/paper sorter off to the side for bigger paper pieces. But I’m never going to let it get so stacked up again!


YAY a clean bed! Proof that I did actually do some real cleaning, right?


The floor beside the bed, which I worked so hard to clear, just has a couple of bags set there so they will not get damaged elsewhere in the room (because I am prone to accidentally trampling on stuff). Ultimately, they will both go somewhere else in the room…but that must wait for next week.

Next Week: The Cluttery Abyss


What horrors next await me in my battle with the Clutter Dragon? This picture does not even do it justice. Next week, this procrastinating warrior will face the hardest challenge yet: the Abyss of Closet Clutter! Stay tuned!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon: The First Sword Charge

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Hello, my name is Robin, and I’m a pack rat.


I really didn’t intend to let it get this bad, but here it is. This is the first of my set of “catchall” bins, situated right at the door of my room to catch my purse, library books, Sunday school texts, and anything else that kept getting lost in the black hole of my room.


It started out as a place of organization, about a year ago. You can see what’s happened since then…it’s lived up completely to its “catchall” nickname.

I REALLY don’t like this habit of mine, but it happens every time. First, I get a clean, flat surface available in my house, and I enjoy its cleanliness for a few days. Then I start thinking “COOL, I have a place to put [insert random object here]; I’ll just set it here till I have a permanent place for it.” Repeat this process about 1,000 times, and soon my “clean flat surface” is a “junky flat surface” again, often overflowing its junk into the floor at random intervals.

And when I say that every clean flat surface in my room is covered with junk, I mean that…


every single…


flat surface…


in my room…


is covered…


with JUNK.

And yet, it’s seemingly all “necessary junk.” I can’t really get rid of it, even when I search through it, because when I do check through this junk, it’s all stuff I need access to, or need to categorize, otherwise I’ll forget about having it in the first place.

Wait, How Can You “Forget” About Your Stuff?

When I put things away, I tend to forget about them. Out of sight, out of mind, LITERALLY.

This is one reason I can’t put library books anywhere but RIGHT at the door, easily visible from my bed, because if I put them somewhere else, they’ll never be returned, or even read. Items have to be staring me right in the face if I’m going to think about them (and even then, sometimes I still walk out of the house without that library book I’ve been meaning to return for a week).

The Intent of the Catchall Bins

Because I apparently can’t put things away without forgetting that I even have them, I got this set of open catchall bins. I will say it’s done its job fairly well, keeping my Sunday school books and Bible from being stomped on or lost, keeping me from forgetting about library books, and keeping my purse out of trouble on the floor. It just…well, it just looks like the rest of my room now–overflowing with junk.

The Solution: Clean Out, Categorize, Replace

So, this past Friday, I finally tackled these messy bins, marking the first “sword charge” in my battle against the Clutter Dragon, who had claimed my room for its domain.

The first thing I had to do was to take everything out of the bins so I could sort it all. (I also had to dust out all the bins, especially the bottom one…for being so crammed full of junk, it sure got dusty!)

The following picture shows the result of cleaning out the bins:


My full-size bed is almost completely covered with the junk from these four small bins. :/ I hadn’t realized, until this moment, just HOW much stuff was hiding in open storage. Yes, yes, I know, my “Severe Pack Rat” certification is in the mail as we speak. xD

It’s a terrible jumble of old bank statements, church bulletins, Sunday school textbooks, random books, magazines, and DVDs, even past Christmas gifts (the two red boxes in particular). But most maddening out of all this junk was the paper clutter, the stuff I have to read through to see if I still need to keep it. Paper clutter is probably THE reason I live such a cluttered life–it just takes so much TIME to read and sort through all of it, and it just makes me tired to look at it.

Anyhoo, once the bins were emptied…

(proof that they WERE empty at one time, lol)

…then I had to begin the unenviable task of sorting and throwing away–i.e., the most difficult part of organization and cleaning.

I put back the necessary stuff onto the bins, all the stuff I knew I was keeping there; my purse, Kindle, Bible, current magazines, and gym gear, mainly. Then, I just had this remaining stuff left:


Most of this was old Sunday school texts, random old magazines, a DVD or CD here and there, Christmas gifts, and, of course, paper clutter. I sorted through all the paper trash next, mainly because I was getting mighty sick of looking at it. (Sad to say, some of the paper clutter got shifted to yet another flat surface because I need a shredder before I can throw it out. SIGH.)

But, once that was done, I was left with two piles: old Sunday school texts, and past Christmas gifts.

A Side Quest: Creating a Display Shelf

The old Sunday school stuff already had a future home: back at the church, where it belonged. But the Christmas gifts? I devised a whole new plan on the spot to deal with those.

See, the Christmas gifts were all little statues and figurines my boyfriend has bought me over the last couple of years, and because of the lack of clean flat surfaces in my room, I’ve never even unboxed them; there was no point in doing so. But as I glanced across the room, to the desk which has stood there since I was a little girl, I caught sight of the shelf just above the desk surface, and had an “A-HA!!!” moment.


Cleaning off the shelf of girlhood detritus (a couple of small dollhouses) was the work of about 10 minutes; I was left with this blank, clean canvas. Thus, I unboxed the three figurines at last, and added to that total another figurine I’d been wanting to display as well.

Here’s the result: my new display shelf!


From left: Belle looking at the Enchanted Rose under the glass; Belle and the Beast dancing (from the iconic scene in Beauty and the Beast); Dove II (Dawn Granger), still in the toy packaging. (I’m going to get a stand for the Dove figure at some point, but I didn’t have one handy for this shot.) Pardon this shot’s slight blurriness–it’s very hard to get pictures in a room as cluttered as mine!

Sadly, the biggest statue my boyfriend had gotten me was just a wee bit too tall for the shelf, so I had to put it on the desk below.


She’ll get her rightful place on a display shelf someday, I swear it! 😀

The Result of the First Epic Cleaning Quest

Here’s the result of my hard work:


This is the top bin, which stores my purse, Kindle, CDs, and anything else that usually leaves the house with me. (My ankle braces are hung on either side to remind me to wear them as much as possible.)


The books/magazines bin, second from the top, which contains all that I’m currently reading and working on. Great for keeping library books safe, too!


The third bin holds only my Bible at the moment, but will soon hold my current Sunday School textbook for the new quarter–again, to keep it safe from the floor and my clumsy self.

…And I don’t have a picture of the bottom bin because it kept showing up very dark and blurry. Lighting in my room is terrible for pictures. But all that’s in there are my gym shoes anyway. LOL! That is a triumph in itself–now I no longer have to hunt through the piles of crap in my room every week to find my shoes!

I am immensely proud of this first effort, even if it doesn’t look like much. It’s the first time I’ve been able to DO anything with this room in months, and admittedly it was very difficult to get started. But now that I AM started, now that I have charged in and stabbed at the clutter dragon…I find myself eager to continue, before it gets the better of me again.

Next Epic Cleaning Quest: The Dresser Beside the Bins

Next week, I’ll be tackling the top of the overflowing plastic dresser unit near the door. I’m not even worried about what’s IN the dresser; it’s what’s on TOP of the dresser that’s bugging me. Tune in next Tuesday for the next installment of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon!”