Post two of the week for Tuesday. Let’s talk about what’s happening (and not working) with my stuff in my house.

At Home. The house is a freaking disaster. I scaled back my work week in April a bit to try to get on top of things, and LOL that didn’t work. I’ve been stubborn and reluctant to admit that we just have too much stuff and need to declutter and simplify in this very, very busy season(s). I’d like to scale work back more, but that’s still TBD. Suffice it to say that no one wants to keep up with the cleaning (including me, but someone has to be a grown-up around here and I guess I drew the short straw), and as mentioned, we have too much damned stuff. So, decluttering is chief among my goals and sooner rather than later. I want to specify that because a lot of what is driving me batty is my kids stuff, “decluttering” means something different than it has in the past.

Let me explain.

OK. So my basement. I organized the poop out of it in 2020-2021 and felt really good about it. And it’s filling up again. In a more organized manner, thank goodness, but still too much stuff. And part of this is because a lot of this stuff isn’t mine to give away. I mean, technically, my sprogs can’t legally own biscuits, so every stupid fast-food dinner toy belongs to me and my hubs, but I assure you, we aren’t holding onto those for us, right? Right. Still. I liked toys and books from my childhood my mom doesn’t remember us having at all, and different things evoke nostalgia in 2023 than I could have guessed in 1985, so I’m accepting that my understanding of what is lasting and important to these Tiny Humans might not be something I can predict in 2023 for them in 2050 or whatever (I’m highly unlikely to care by then however things play out).

So, as things have gotten overwhelming around here, I’ve taken a different tack. I ask the kids to pick up over the course of a couple of weeks, and then the stuff that never gets put away is either (1) the stuff they always play with, or (2) the stuff they never play with. And I box up the latter and plop it in the basement. When I have the bandwidth to declutter and organize further, I will do so, and have a bin of dolly stuff and building bricks and character toys that we can root through to find what we need if the need arises. And in the meantime, I don’t have a carpet of LOL eyewear and metal Creepers to step on or worry about the dog eating.

That’s Tuesday!
xo/Roo