Who me? Junkie?

Decluttering Chronicles: Step I - Declaration

I'll never live in a model home for the same reason I will never be a swimsuit model.

Well, besides that.

Details, Details.

I keep things flexible and clean my house a-r-o-u-n-d whatever else is going on in life. Sometimes I ask Big Brother,

"Hey, what do you want to do today? Anything you want, we'll do it."

Because his preschool days are numbered AND because avoiding chores around the house is so naughty in the SAHM world.

My avoidance hit a high note last year when I was pregnant enough to really sell it. And the resulting chaos in my home is proof of how good I've gotten. (Or bad, if you want to be a glass half-empty kind of person.) I looked around last month after the Christmas stuff had been put up and things still seemed cluttered, unorganized, JUNKIE. My stuff has reached critical mass.

I started by giving things away. Little things at first. One big thing. Things on Freecycle. I cleaned out my husbands side of the closet to avoid working on my side. I fell off the wagon, but I'm back.

And there's this one thing, a purse, that's a metaphor for my "stuff problem." I know I will love myself more when I get rid of that dusty Coach purse I haven't used in ten years. It's cluttering up my life, err, uh, my closet. I've shaken it off a half dozen times over the years and thought,

"I really need to let this go." Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. "I wonder if my sister will want this?"

Junkers, you see, always want to keep "it" close. Its not familial generosity. Its actually a selfish security thing -- in case somewhere down the line I have a crazy urge to spend some time with my lovely old purse and hold it close once more. Not use it as a purse, but just know its there if I wanted to see it again.

We'll call that phenomenon charitable storage and if you love me you'd never, EVER, let me get away with it! That's called enabling.

Maybe you understand me because you have pile somewhere... A little something in a closet you pretend to forget about or excuse yourself for on a sentimental basis... Maybe its a whole closet when you only have four in your whole house... No? Oh, that's called projecting.

I like my stuff, but I'm not one of those crazy hoarding people that that you see on TV and think,

"My God! She looks so normal."

They should make a made for TV movie about those freaks. No, I just collect, recreationally. Years ago, MMA set down a rule that if I bought a pair of shoes, another pair had to go. I've kept up my side of the bargain on the easily quantifiable. But girls have their ways of getting around silly roadblocks. And we had a smaller house then.

That doesn't sound like justifying AT ALL.