Decluttering Craft Supplies

Are you one of my fellow lovers of craft and/or office supplies? I love pens, paper, pencils, folders, and such. I also love craft supplies, especially sewing and scrapbooking. I love to go into scrapbook stores and look at 1,000 kinds of papers and plan out how I will scrap a certain event and set of photos. I used to spend a lot of time scrapbooking. I'd plan big sessions for my school breaks and knock out a year at a time, hunched over my desk until the middle of my back went numb. My books from that time weigh about 7 pounds.

 

Here is the point where I am confronted by my Ideal Self and my Authentic Self. My Ideal Self is a scrapper. The kind that creates pages that could be published in magazine. The kind that regularly attends and photographs events that you'd scrap. The kind that does this regularly. But this isn't the real me, y'all. Not anymore. I don't make "real" scrap books anymore. I order them from Shutterfly and they are less than 1/2" thick.

 

Right now I am having a kind of "reverse nesting," where I want to purge and sort and organize. I want to contain and label. I want empty shelves so that I have a space to fill with baby clothes, books, dishes, etc. I want less and less stuff to keep track of. Today I ventured into what we call the "back bedroom," which is a room that is totally empty except for a video game chair. This won't be the baby's room, but it is where I store empty suitcases and a very small amount of craft supplies.

 

In the closet, I found this box of stamps. I am not a stamper, friends. I think my Ideal Self is a stamper, but the honest truth is that I don't make my own cards and I dont' want to make them. I don't want to own the supplies, I don't want to go through the process, and I absolutely do not want to store the finished product until I have a reason to send a card. I am also not really a card sender. I went through the box very, very quickly and found about $100 worth of stamps. Most of them I've had for about 10 years and most of them have never been used. I kept the one stamp I like to use when I send out Christmas Cards (I order those from Vistaprint, I don't make them). The rest are now in my very full donate box.

 

I bought about 99% of my stamps during a time in my life when I didn't know myself very well and did an awful lot of impression management. I really, honestly wanted to be the person that made and send handmade cards! I really did! My Ideal Self is that classy of a lady, y'all. But I still have cards that I made in August of 2007. I don't have a craft in mind that invovles stamps and I am honestly not interested in finding one. So I am getting rid of them. And now I have a nice empty ziploc containter that I can fill with baby socks.

 

If anyone out there is a REAL stamper and wants a few more, let me know. I'll have the box around for another 4 or 5 days.

The One Thing I Regret

My mother tells me, from time to time, not to get too crazy with purging because I may really, really regret getting rid of something. The one and only thing I have regretted purging over the last 5 years has been my Topsy Turvy. I am not even kidding- I really, really wished I hadn't gotten rid of this- but not until it had been gone for about 7 years. Luckily, I found a new one at Target last week for $5.99 and didn't think twice about buying it. Since then, I have turved my topsy three times. It makes my pony tail and unwashed-for-three-days hair feel classy and glamorous. Dressy, even.

 

So, minimalism. I go back and forth about this idea. It seems so charming and elusive. And by that I mean I'm afraid someone will judge me if I tell them I am a minimalist and still own Snoopy Figurines. I'm obviously not comfortable labelling myself as such.

 

I found a new-to-me blog called Becoming Minimalist and I've been reading through the archives. The writer is a pretty down-to-earth guy, which I prefer to the confrontational-minimalist that I normally picture. Reading the archives gave me a bit of motivation to look around my home and purge, just a little. The Yankee is laid up with a cold and a good cold front came through on Saturday night, so it was a low-key weekend- perfect for a lil' cleaning and a lil' purging. When I purge, I always ALWAYS remind myself of the golden rule for minimalizing successfully when your partner is not a minimalist: do not purge your partner's items. Don't do it- seriously, don't. It's not nice and won't be  appreciated. I won't be doing anything but pissing off my husband by getting rid of his stuff.

 

Here are the items leaving my home tomorrow:

• The textbook I used in my high school French Class
• The workbook and CD's I used in my college French Class
• The prayer journal with five entries in it
• Three magazines
• Three cook books
• Five elementary-level chapter books
• A box of Emergen-C that my cousin left when she moved in for a month
• Five coasters
• One wobbly, chipped, scratched side-table-ish thing
• A large mound of recyclable paper
• One red shirt that I have owned for over 4 years and literally never worn

 

I can write and write and write about my quest to declutter, unclutter, purge, clean, organize, and get the crap out of my home, but I'm not sure anyone would stay tuned long enough- it would definitely be longer than four paragraphs. I wonder if, when I am pregnant, I will have reverse nesting and really REALLY start throwing things way and be left with six articles of clothing.

 

A Very Valiente Book Review

"Need a bit more simple in your life but unsure where to start? "

Last month I was a aprt of a book launch team for Simple Living – 30 days to less stuff and more life. This book was written by a blogger I like, Lorilee Lippincott, who write Loving Simple Living.

 

Lorilee and her family practice minimalism, which I admire and desire. Even if minimalism isn't exactly your goal, this is  still a great book for anyone who wants to pare down and simplify. if minimalism IS your goal, first, please email me because I really want to talk to you; second, this is a great resource for really assessing why you own what you own and why you choose what you choose. It's a 30 day primer with practical ideas for streamlining and organizing. This is not FlyLady, whom I do love, and Lorilee even states that this is not a book for housecleaning. It's more like a book for putting away, giving away, clearing away. It's not a "get rid of all your stuff and you'll be happy"; it's an "I tried this and it worked and here's why it made me happy." The book gives you a small job to do for 30 days- things like clearing your counters and creating a system to make donating/purging things easy to do.

 

The book is $2.99 on Amazon for Kindle and you can buy it in PDF format if you have a nook (I do) or don't own an e-reader. How stinkin' great is that price?! $2.99! That's less than a latte (btw, have you tried the salted caramel mocha from Starbucks? Because it's fantastic).

 

Take a look, give it a read- I think you're really going to like the ideas.

A Very Valiente Wrestling Match

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. Genesis 32:24

During my horse's ass phase, I wrestled with God ECW-style. I was mad at God for not going along with my carefully crafted plans! I took my life into my own hands, and once I came out of that phase, I knew I had to turn it back over to God. I decided to stop wrestling with God about the direction of my life.

I never anticipated the weighty feelings I have about my past. I am not a killer, drug user, thief, etc. But I treated a lot of people really badly for a long time, in various ways and I carry a lot of guilt and regret about that. I made some terrible choices and banked on being able to simply ask God's forgiveness and press on. I did not even consider consequences. When I went through my journals last weekend, so much of my wrongness and rottenness was in front of my eyes!

As I contemplate the concept of CONTENTMENT this year, I do believe I shall have to confront the weighty feelings about my past that I carry. This week I've spent a lot of time in prayer, simply repeating these words:

thank you Lord that my past is my past
and not my present
for today is indeed a gift
thank you that my past need not be my future
please help me to carry the lessons
without rehashing the details

And you know what? It's helped. The physical effects anxiety and sorrow that creep in when I dwell on old memories longer than a second have been noticeably decreased. I do believe this may be a life-long project, but this small prayer has been my spiritual leatherman this week.

Have a nice weekend, Lovelies.

A Very Valiente Recollection Collection

If you've spoken with me for more than about 30 minutes in the past month five years, you know that I have been uncluttering since the spring of 2007. I talk about it, write about, and think about it literally every.single.day. Today I finished reading five years' with of blog posts on Unclutterer, my new favorite blog. I generally prefer to offer items I am getting rid of to people I know, and I normally encourage people not to take my crap if they don't want it. I mean, I don't want it either! Generally when someone has given me a gift that I no longer plan to own, I offer it back to them.

So as I've been conquering my mountains and boxes of clutter, leaving my mother to wonder if I plan on owning any things once I'm done, I've had this stack of journals. The date back all the way through high school and chronicle some really rough times in my life. Sadly, though, they are penned from the perspective of a child. The accounts of the highs and lows of my family and my past are captured in those pages through the eyes of a teenager and then a very young woman. It's true to say that it appears I have recounted the facts of the events and seasons correctly; however, I naturally put my own spin on them. It is also true to say that if I were to tell the stories again, I wouldn't tell them in the same way that I told them in my journals.

So I've lugged this pile from Texas to Georgia and back, and again to New York. They've been bundled and hidden away; the Yankee graciously agreed not to read them. I have been holding onto them thinking they chronicled my story and growth. Today I confronted the pile. I went through them chronologically and skimmed the pages.  First of all, WOW were a lot of the entries just plain boring. I don't think my future heirs really care about a recap of a sick day spent on the couch. Second, they contained a lot of very, very personal details that I wouldn't want someone to read. Even in 20 years, I doubt I'll want any person to know how I felt about some of the events from my past. Third, they referred to people I don't even remember now. Lastly, they contained a lot of emotional baggage. Lots.

So I tossed them out. All of them, except one. I saved one that genuinely tracked my growth out of my horses's ass phase and into living a life of intentional decision making and planning. I also kept the one page I wrote on September 12th, 2011. I kept a portion of an entry that had a bit of reflection that I considered genuine. The rest are currently in my trash can. They are covered in coffee ground and applesauce, soaked with old beef broth that I chucked because it had been in the fridge for awile. The one that I kept is locked away and hidden. And it shall stay there.

One day I will convince the Yankee that we should only own six pieces of furniture. Until then, let the uncluttering continue!

A Very Valiente Commentary on Contentment

Last night over dinner the Yankee said he read the last entry on our my our blog and asked if everything was okay. We had a short conversation processing my views about contentment, which led us down a path of other conversation topics.

In August of 2010, the author of Unclutterer quoted Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man:

Even modern replacements for priests, rabbis, and Zen masters — the positive psychologists — have something to say on this point. That new breed of shrinks has discovered that happy people spend a lot of time being grateful for what they have and savoring their experience. They don’t rush through “now” to get to later. They don’t make taking care of themselves or taking care of their families something they have to get over with so they can get to the good stuff. Instead, they insist that this moment, whatever it is, is the good stuff.

 All my life, I've been in perpetual wait mode. Life consisted of my dad's next deployment, our next move, finishing a grade, finishing college semesters, etc. Then it was waiting to graduate, to get married, then to move to New York. So now we are here. We have some major life goals on the far horizon, but mostly we're just living life. We don't have any real deadlines for our goals, other than the fact that eventually my body won't be suitable for carrying children. It's hard to get out of wait mode, even if I have nothing that I am waiting for.

Please allow me to backtrack a tad and state that I am not unhappy. I have a joyful life that I love. I am, however, restless. I'm generally more comfortable in motion; I don't care to spend a "lazy day" on the couch, watching TV. I prefer to take an alternate route if I can avoid traffic, and I'll call it a short cut. I want to enjoy my life, here and now.

A Very Valiente Collection of Crap

Minimalism is so fascinating to me; I admire and desire it, and yet it has eluded me for the 9 years I have lived outside of my parents’ home. A lifestyle of living with less and enjoying more- seems so delightful to me- sort of serene and easy-to-breathe. A loved one of mine confessed that she almost, kinda, just-a-lil-bit was jealous of the people who lost everything in Katrina- that sometimes she wished she could pare down to almost nothing, lose all her possessions, and be left with nothing but the barest of necessities. Not the “possibly going to die” part, or the disease or anything- she didn’t make light of the situation, I think she was just overwhelmed with the stuff in her life.

So my One Word this year is LESS. We’ve moved into a home with exponentially less space and I constantly feel overwhelmed by the amount of “things” that are just hanging around, taking up real estate. There was a time when I lived in complete excess, engaging in retail therapy instead of addressing how unhappy I was with my life. But that’s another blog. So I have been in constant declutter/purge/throw-my-crap-the-F-out mode since 2007. In 2006, I moved to El Paso with a 25-foot truck; when I left in 2008, I had a 14-foot truck (but that's another blog). And yet, I still feel crowded and cluttered and stuffy.

So the Yankee reins me in and prevents me from making a pile and lighting it on fire. He also saves his precious mementos from me and my junk box. I tend to go a bit crazy when I get into the mood to organize, and he knows it about me. My mother cautions me about getting rid of something and wishing I had it later. To be perfectly honest, the only item I’ve gotten rid of that I now miss is my Topsy Turvy, because I could make my ponytails look cuter- but I could also recreate this with a popsicle stick and a piece of string.

Like most people, I struggle with the thought that I’ll get rid of something and either want it or need it later. And I’ll be broke or stuck in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse and won’t be able to get it again. But it’s been occurring to me lately that just because I enjoyed collecting and owning something at one time doesn’t mean I cannot just get over it. I am a huge fan of Charlie Brown and the Yankee really like Snoopy. But does that mean I can’t just downgrade my loving to liking and boot the knick knacks? I also really like Cow Parade cows, but do I have to keep my collection? I don’t think so… and yet I’m not quite ready to get rid of them yet.

I like to give my items away to people that I think might like them, or find them useful. My friend who shall be referred to here as “B like a Sharpie,” always delights in getting my crap- and somehow, my stuff looks better in her house. But just because I offer, doesn’t mean any person is ever obligated to take it- I won’t take it personally and it won’t hurt my feelings. I mean, I don’t want the stuff either! So if you get a message in one form or another from me, offering you some stuff, please don’t be surprised. And if you’ve given me an item and you show up and it’s no longer in my home, please just know that I have sufficiently loved it and consequently let it go.

A Very Valiente Crap Alert

We are here in New York! This is an exciting place to be. Currently I am sitting at my desk, looking out across a park, and feeling a breeze that is gettng colder and colder and as cold front moves across the Tri-State Area.

So the move went pretty well. Sort of. Actually no, the moving part itself was pretty much crap. It rained, we took too much stuff on the plane, some of our items got destroyed by the movers- it was a rough couple of days. In my next few posts, I will relay some of our adventures and lessons.

I always overestimate the amount of allowable space and have and under estimate the weight of items. I cut wrapping paper too small, I grab a hand basket at the grocery store and end up struggling under the weight of 25 items when I should gotten a cart. We knew we could both check 2 50-pound bags and carry on one small bag at Southwest. We also knew our items would take awhile to get there, so we had a pile mountain of stuff that we were taking with us. I didn't want to pay to ship a box, but as we started packing our stuicases, we realized it was inevitable.

We had planned to take blankets, sheets, towels, and air mattress, and clothes for a few weeks with us. We had an apartment and didn't want to stay in a hotel, so we were trying to bring "essentials." By essentials I mean 25 hangers, a coffee press, every.single.piece of clothing we own, and a few other things for fun.

We bought some space bags so we could fit everything into four bags. We bought a 4 piece luggage set. We made stacks. FAIL. Everything DID fit, but zippers broke and when we plunked the items on the scale at the airport. three of our bags were overweight. This left me doing a scramble to re-allocate items into bags and left the Yankee and I carrying a LOT of crap onto the plane.

We landed in NYC to a lot of rain and an hour-long line to get a cab. The Yankee waited with out TEN BAGS while I waited in line. We finally got a cab, got home, and were in bed by 3 am. We borrowed an air mattress from my parents, and it turns out we took the twin mattress, not the queen.

Because I'm somewhat of a Crazy Girl sometimes, I scheduled an interview at 10 am the next day. That interview led to a referral to another agency and a trip down to Wall Street. Stay tuned: this referral paid off BIG TIME.

So that's adventure number one. We now have to PAY to send two suitcases and an air mattress back to my parents. Stay tuned for the story of the Arrow Mayflower movers and why you should never ever use them.