Conquering My Home, One Room at a Time

Hmm, maybe "conquering" is too strong of a word.  How about "taming"?  "Domesticating"? 

Anyway, I've always been a clutter bug.  My school desk or locker was often alarming.  My family witnessed me sleeping on a bed half covered with possessions.  Doesn't everyone sleep with old school assignments, binders, rocks, stuffed animals, books, and dirty clothes?  Just my ten-year-old self?  Right...

I've been coming to terms with my near-hoarding tendencies.  And, yeah, that's a self-diagnosed term, but I read a book on hoarding, and while I don't have a home filled to the brim with everything I do have a lot of anxiety when it comes to chucking, well, anything.  And reading one book makes me an expert.

Besides, I believe I come from a short (maybe longer, but I only observed two generations) line of hoarders.  My paternal grandparents lived through the Great Depression and could never face going without again.  Therefore they saved everything.  I remember as a child going to help the entire extended family clear out my grandparents home and property because they had to move.  It was...disturbing.  You name it, they probably had it.  Piles stacked near the ceiling, trails to reach their rooms.  Their home was a fire trap and I'm grateful that things didn't end up that way.  They even kept their clutter with them, in any car they used or in bags hanging from my grandmother's wheelchair.  My grandmother was diabetic and they re-used her needles until they were blunt, and sometimes (if memory serves me right) sharpened them.  And (again, hopefully my memory is correct) they didn't really have a shortage of needles.  But there was always the pervasiveness of "not-having" due to their, well, not having during the Depression.

My father grew up in this "Must not waste!" environment.  Everything had it's uses and value.  What if he needed it someday and the store had run out?  What if he had no money?  Safer to save than to go without something important.  So my father collects every usable thing.  Multiple coffee cans filled with nuts, bolts, and other fasteners?  Check.  Car parts?  Check.  Fifty sets of skis?  Check.  An enormous garage filled with stuff?  Yup.  A vast amount of property with possessions strewn about?  You betcha.  So much saving and hoarding, anxiety and fear.  Fear of wasting.  Fear of not-having.

This angst over tossing things was passed onto me.  My dad would sometimes not even allows us to throw out something of ours.  To illustrate the point here is a pretty typical experience.  It was spring and the family decided to clear out some unneeded things.  Among all the objects that landed in the garbage bin was a little woven basket.  When my father came home from work he looked in the bin and pulled out this basket.  He came in the house and admonished us for throwing out something so useful.  "Who threw this away, this little basket?  I can't remember how many times I've heard someone needing a little basket, and here someone threw this away."  The basket was returned to the offender and is probably still packed away in their junk.

As a side note, if The Hubby or I are having a hard time deciding on our belongings, all one of us has to do is mention the little basket and it helps us get out of the rut of, "What if I need this someday!!??"  Useful phrase to have around.

My mother has a different kind of stockpiling situation.  She does hold onto things that have usefulness, but they are usually purchased items destined for a particular project or event.  However, my mother does seem to have issues with sentimentalism.  It's like she fears forgetting memories if she doesn't have a physical object to trace them.  After my wedding my mom gave me box after box of school work, art, notes, toys, and other items that were once in my ownership or created by me.  A lot of it was stored by me, but it was encouraged by my mother's questions, "Are you sure you want to get rid of that?  What if your kids would enjoy looking at it?  What if you want to remember *insert event here*?"  A different kind of fear, the fear of loss.  The fear of letting go of the past, of forgetting.  Of giving yourself permission to forget.

So, two different hoarding heritages, uniting in one person:  me.  I have a very hard time letting go of anything useful or sentimental.  Scraps of fabric?  I could use those!  Objects that bring back painful memories?  What if I forget the lessons involved?  Anything connected to my children?  What if they resent me for disposing of it?  Something of monetary value that I do not value?  I could sell that...someday.  Gifts given to me that aren't a good fit?  But they thought of me!  Tangible evidence!

Right.  I have so much stuff.  Junk.  Trash.  And it's kind of ironic that I own so much clutter, because when I think of my ideal home I imagine houses like these:

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Warm.  Airy.  Light.  Minimalistic to a large extent.  Uncluttered.  Roomy.  Only the necessary and beautiful things.  Only the things that elicit happy memories.  An embodiment of who I am, not who I was.  Focusing more on quality than quantity, and only keeping enough.  Being happy with less, realizing that having more actually makes me feel more stressed and anxious.

So I've been de-cluttering.  Many things make it to the local charity thrift shop.  Many things get tossed.  Some things were sold.  Many vital but currently unused items are being systematically stored.

I've found the process to be similar to a fever.  I have to contemplate a specific area, recently the coat closet.  I peek in it, assess the belongings, and ruminate.  I methodically examine each item in my mind, asking the pertinent questions:  Is this vital?  Is it beautiful?  Does it evoke happiness?  Do I already have one?  The internal agitation grows, roiling energy and anticipation through me until the fever breaks.  Instead of shivering and sweating I'm purging and organizing.  Ruthlessly.  I immediately take the trash out to the bin or recycling, the donate-able goods out to our bike trailer to drop off, and the items for deep storage into the garage.  Then I stand back and soak in the loveliness.  Space.  Breathing room.  Positive energy only.  I'm well again.  Until I find another spot that's ready for cleansing, and then I start all over.

I've done well.  And I'll be posting more about it in the future.  But for now I will tell you of my simple but astounding success.  And, again, those that know me best will understand why I consider this amazing.

With the help of BuggaBoo and Doozer we have cleaned BuggaBoo's room every night for a month.  A month.  It helped that we have partially gone through what we store in his room, throwing out or moving what doesn't belong and giving homes to the things that do.  I have been calmer knowing we will wake up to a cleaner space.  BuggaBoo and Doozer are happier knowing they'll have a place to play or escape as they need.  And I'm finding as these nightly cleanings become ritual I'm able to progress to other parts of the household.  It is too soon to proclaim it a habit yet, but the sink has been empty of dishes two nights in a row.  And those who really know me know how much I hate dishes.

The most amazing part to me was what ignited the transformation.  For years I've felt guilty for being a poor housekeeper.  I thought I was lazy, too distracted, not motherly enough.  I had felt judged and found wanting.  I had never grown up from my young self sleeping with my hoard.

It took me getting away from that to change.  The guilt didn't make me keep my house clean, it made me feel like a horrible person.  It was reenforcing my worthlessness.  It reminded me that I was lacking, not complete, not a person.  I had to realize that I am complete, exactly how I am today.  How clean my home is will not be a reflection on my worth.  My achievements are not me.  I am already whole. 

At the same time, for me to be able to let go of the object weighing me down, I have to give myself permission.  Permission to throw away useless things.  Permission to pass on useful things to others.  Permission to have faith in the availability of things.  Permission to forget.  Permission to give up potential.  Permission to appreciate people as they are now, not as they were.  Permission to enjoy moments instead of cataloging them.  Permission to grow and change.

Giving up my hoard is allowing me to change, to become a different person, because it will not anchor me in the past anymore.  Instead, I will fly.

Obligatory Resolution Post

Plus, happy 'blogoversary' to me! I totally spaced it and was reminded by Caroline today over at Church Sexy.

So, join me as I recap the year and fuss over my resolutions. It will probably be fun.


Have a productive garden

We started off with a bang, but then there was too much rain at the beginning which made a large portion of our garden bolt due to drowning. That was a bummer. We didn't use nearly as much produce as we wanted to. But we learned a few tips from last year, such as storing our Jerusalem artichokes in the ground and started our peas in January, which results in a longer crop. One thing that I did NOT learn was to pick my tomatoes before the fall rains begin, no matter how green they may be. I had a lot of mush this year. Oh well, there's always next season, right?

Start a Montessori program with my son

Yeah, not so much. But I'm finding out I don't really need to do this if I don't want to. Meaning, BuggaBoo's knowledge is growing and leaps and bounds just by living and interacting with us, the parents. I find it easier to follow his curiosity in the moment, and I hardly have time to sit down to do crafty stuff. So learning is happening, just not the Montessori way.

Stop caring so much what other people think

I think I deserve a gold medal for this. I've been working very hard on my personal growth and I've done very well. I'm learning to be more honest with my feelings, wants, needs, and expectations instead of getting mad all the time. I used to not share those things with people because I thought it would make them think poorly of me. I've also become a more patient mother because I think of how my children need to be parented, not how other people "need" me to parent my children.

Be out of debt by the end of the year

We were so close. We have $1,500 to pay off and then we'll be done. We paid $6,500 off in one year. Not bad! One of our major money setbacks was a surprise wedding. Not surprise in the way you're thinking, stop that. My sister-in-law met an amazing man earlier this year and they were married in December. Thing was, it was my family's turn for Christmas, so we weren't expecting on going down to California this year. We opted for renting a car, but the whole vacation took a big chunk of change.

The other money setback was The Hubby some C's this year in his courses. That's not bad at all, but his work won't reimburse school expenses unless he has B's or better. But I'm happy he passed his classes, no complaints from me.

We expect to have our debt paid off by April of this year.

Eat healthier

The last half of this year was in the toilets as far as healthy eating is concerned. Too much fast food, much too much. I let my kefir grains die. So, I'm cleaning up my act. The Hubby and I made a pact of no more fast food, but if we realllllly have to eat out (HAVE TO) we'll choose Taco Bell. Why Taco Bell? Well, they have filling cheap vegan food (Fresco Bean Burrito for $0.99), but they're pretty gross after a while so it'll hopefully cut down on our eating out.

On to happier things, Doozer can now drink out of a straw, so I'm going to start making green smoothies again and get her acclimated to them. And BuggaBoo has hit his Picky Threes, but we're learning that if we make eating a little more fun then mealtimes are more enjoyable for everyone. Today I told BuggaBoo that eating certain food would make him uncontrollably make sound effects. Sweet potatoes would make you honk, kale was "beep beep", onions were "auoooogah", noodles were "squeak!", and garlic was making raspberries with his tongue. Lotsa fun.

Sew more

I didn't do too bad with this one. I was able to finish my matron-of-honor dress...the day of the wedding. Still good! I finished Patternmaking for Fashion Design I and I'm starting PFD II on the 12th. Very fun!

Keep a blog

Well, it was kept. Not as often as I would like, and I still have so many pictures to share with you guys, but altogether a success.

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So, how was your year in 2010? Any new resolutions? Any insights? I hope the year was great for you, it was (mostly) wonderful for me.

Onward!

Resolution Update

How have I been doing with my New Year's resolutions? I've been doing like this:

Start a blog, post often

I had a few dry months there at the end of my pregnancy but I think I'm back up to speed. Kind of. I still need to finish a few post, notably ones about bobby pins and a birth story. I also need to be better about posting pictures, because I've noticed the blogs that don't use pictures are the ones that don't get read. True story. But overall I would give myself the grad B+ for even getting this far.

Have a productive garden

I haven't done hardly anything for this goal, but The Hubby has been growing up a storm. We're staring to harvest the first greens from our garden and the future is looking bright. Dear friends of our are letting us use some of their spacious backyard to grow some of the more sprawling plants, the melons and squash. We're also planting massive amounts of tomatoes and green beans for putting up at the end of the season. So this goal is getting an A++++ for being so awesome. Even though it's not my doing.

Start a Montessori program with my son

I've petered out a bit on this. We're working on people skills right now instead of academic achievements. Not that he's not learning (that's an awkward phrase) but I'm not pouring all my energy into Montessori right now. I'm just learning not to scream at his screaming. Grade, a big fat F.

Stop caring so much what other people think

Except for the most recent chicken episode I feel like I'm making good progress in this area. And I feel happier for it. So, I think I deserve an A-. What do you think?

(ETA: Haha, "What do you think?" I didn't mean to be ironic.)

Be out of debt by the end of the year

Well, we have $4,000 left of student loans but we've had some unexpected hospital visits. Not that hospital visits are ever anticipated. Luckily The Hubby has been able to pick up overtime so we should be able to stay on track. He also received a $1,500 reimbursement from work for school so that will help, along with the fact that we're fast approaching our out-of-pocket maximum for the year with our insurance. Grade, A.

Eat healthier

I don't think we're doing too badly...now. We weren't doing so well at the end of my pregnancy, but I'm cleaning up my act. I drink 3-5 green smoothies a week, and BuggaBoo helps me. We also go through a ton of veggies a week: a head of cabbage, 3-5 lbs of carrots, broccoli, greens, etc. One thing that needs help is our bread consumption. A friend of ours gets day-old-bread from a local community center that can't use all their donations. She gets enough to share, which is so loving and kind. But it's white bread, and I can tell a major difference. Soooo, I need to stop accepting it, which is difficult. I have a very hard time saying no to food. Anyone else feel the same way? Grade, B.

Sew more

I attempted to draft my own bodice pattern from my measurements. It fit about as well as a commercial pattern. Moving on... Grade, C, for effort.

So, not too bad. How are you guys doing? Did you make resolutions this year? What, if anything, is hampering you?

You do WHAT to Save Money?!?

My little family lives on a modest income. I am not the financial genius of the household, that title belongs to The Hubby with his super-cool budget set-up in Excel. But I do know what's going on with our finances, and we go over the monthly budget, well, monthly.

I've said this before but The Hubby grossed $33,000 last year. I made a little income from doing daycare but it all went towards student loans so I'm not really counting that. We have been asked a lot, "How do you do it?" So this post is about how it's done in our family.

First up, the normal, "easy" stuff we do to save money.

We don't buy new cars. Used cars suit our purposes very well, thank you. And we only own one vehicle at a time, and always with cash. This helps out in a lot of ways. We spend less on gas, we spend less in insurance, and we don't have a monthly car payment. Yes, we have to do a bit more repair work, but if the car lasts us long enough the monthly cost of that car can be very low.

We live in a cheap apartment. We pay $650/month for rent on a two bedroom apartment. That's cheap for around here, especially because this place is big. Bigger than the house I grew up in. And it has an attic and garage, so we can store things that help us save money (like free baby clothes). It's not the nicest apartment, but that doesn't matter too much to us. Also, we don't pay for water here, so that helps a lot.

We discuss large purchases. For our family that means anything over $15-$20, unless we use our "blow" money. Blow money is money we have set aside for ourselves if we feel the need to splurge. We budget $5/month per adult and then any money we get for birthdays or Christmas goes into our little envelopes. It's nice to have a little mad money that you're not accountable for. But everything else is discussed. We talked about buying a $45 blender for 6 months.

Now, the "Okay, that takes a little bit of work, but it's not too weird" ways we save money:

In the summer we use a clothesline 100%. This saves a lot on our energy bill. I even dry BuggaBoo's cloth diapers on the line and it's never irritated him. And the cloth diapers take the longest to dry in the dryer, 100 minutes. And I'm doing a diaper load every other day, so that is major savings. We tired drying clothes in the garage on a line this winter but the humidity made it impossible.

We grow a vegetable garden. We are super lucky to live in an apartment that has a backyard, and they let us use part of it for gardening. Our garden wasn't great last year due to various excuses, but this year it's off to a great start. We start our own transplants which does save money, even factoring in the cost of lighting. We're also able to grow exactly what we want.

We don't heat our apartment...often. In the winter the heat is primarily off. Actually, the breaker to the baseboards doesn't even get flipped on until the temperature in our house gets to 55*F. We live in sweaters. We also use a space heater in the bedroom at night because it's cheaper to run than the baseboard.

We bring reusable bags for grocery shopping. At Winco, the store we usually shop, they will give us $0.06/bag. If we use 5 bags a week that equals $15.60/year. You might not think it's worth it, but can you think of something else that saves you that much without any extra effort?

We don't throw out much trash. We compost and recycle a lot. We don't use disposable diapers. This means we only have one, maybe two, grocery bags of trash a week. We were able to downsize to a smaller trashcan and that saves us money each month. We're considering combining trash with our neighbor and dropping the cost even more.

Okay, now for the "Okay, that's really crazy" ideas. What makes them really crazy? I base it off the responses I get from other people. And these are the ideas that really help us save the money. Each strategy does not save a lot of moolah individually, but when used together it really adds up.

We use cloth EVERYTHING. This includes diapers, diaper wipes, hankies, napkins, cleaning rags and, yes, even cloth menstrual pads and cloth "toilet paper". Before you scream "EWWW!" and run away, just listen a sec. These things are cheap. Most of them I made myself from cast-away fabric. A lot of diapers were donated to us by families that don't use them anymore. And it is sanitary. I wash them in hot water, and the water is hot enough to kill germs (120*F). I use soap, sometimes vinegar, and, hello! It's a washing machine. It's function is to wash your clothes. An added benefit is in the summer when I hang them up to dry the UV rays kill everything. And, trust me, a dryer running for 100 minutes is also hot enough to kill anything. And those is much gentler on the environment. Yeah, you have to use water to wash cloth things, but think of how much water it takes to make paper or plastic alternatives? And if your baby is potty-trained from the beginning you'll still have to flush the toilet, so that uses just as much water as a washing machine. And it's not hard. Also, TMI, but cloth toilet "paper" leaves you much fresher than paper. Just saying.

We're vegan. Eating a vegan diet doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to replace meat, dairy, and eggs with faux meat, faux dairy, and faux eggs. We eat a mostly whole food diet, and whole foods are really cheap. We recently upped our food budget because BuggaBoo is starting to eat more and I'm pregnant and we wanted to eat some more expensive foods. Our budget FOR THE MONTH is $120. And it's possible to eat very well on that amount of money, it just takes some time. Thankfully I'm a SAHM and I'm able to take the time to cook real food. No, we don't buy organic or local or what-not. While we feel that's very important that's not a priority for us right now. Right now we want to pay off The Hubby's student loans and put ourselves in a position to buy our own land and become even more self-sufficient. But because we're eating lower on the food chain there are less chemicals in our food, even though we're buying conventional. And if you're worried about protein on a vegan diet read this.

We wash Ziploc bags. Hey, I can use a Ziploc bag at least six times, often longer, which means my box of Ziploc bags lasts, hmm, at least six times longer. Which means I saves the cost of five boxes. Those things are expensive! I have found once they're frozen they don't stand up to washing very well, so we're looking into rigid plastic containers for the freezer.

We saved all of our baby stuff. I didn't think this was a crazy money-saving strategy, but apparently it is. The Hubby has had a lot of people at his work look at him in shock when he said we weren't spending any money on Baby except for the birth. You see, all his coworkers threw out all their baby stuff after the initial child grew out of it, and they had to buy it all again when the new one came. This includes cribs and carseats. We saved all of it. We also have very generous friends that gave us their baby clothes after their children were done with them so we have boy and girl clothes up through 3T. We have spend hardly any money on BuggaBoo and expect to spend less on Baby.

We don't buy unnecessary baby stuff. Let me clarify that we find these things to be unnecessary for our family. Other families have different needs. We didn't buy a crib, we co-sleep. Eventually we bought a twin bed for BuggaBoo because our queen was getting cramped. We did not buy him a toddler bed because we knew he would eventually have to get a twin. We don't buy formula. We don't buy strollers, pacifiers, bottles, breast pumps, mobiles, bouncy seats, baby swings, or baby monitors. Some of these things have been given to use, and we have used the bouncy seat. But other than that we don't use them.

We use homeopathy. Homeopathy is alternative medicine. I've been successful with treating my family with various remedies. I usually buy Boiron blue tubes, they are a little less than $9.00 for 80 pellets. You take 1-5 pellets a dose. I've decided that homeopathy is cheaper than "modern" medicine, especially for things like colds and fevers. I've noticed that homeopathy actually cure symptoms while things like cold medicine just mask symptoms.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but I can't think of anything right now. It may be the whiny toddler on my lap is affecting my though process. If I think of anything else I'll be sure to tell all ya'll about it.

Ironic, isn't it?

I started this blog as one of my New Year's resolutions. I resolved to make a blog and post fairly frequently, at least twice a week. So, where's the irony? I'm shutting my computer down for an unknown time to try to start up my other resolutions, and I don't know when I'll be back. So I hope I don't loose my blogging steam in the meantime.

What's that you're asking? You want to know my other resolutions? Alrighty, you ask, I provide.

1) Have a productive garden.

We are lucky enough to live in an apartment with a backyard. I know, pinch me. Even luckier? It already had a 5'x12' raised bed when we moved in. Luckiest!?! The manager doesn't mind that we tore up the edge of the yard to make even more garden space. All of this adds up to 220 square feet of garden space just in the back yard. And that can mean a lot of veggies.

But last year I was dying from morning sickness, The Hubby was embroiled in school and work, and the aphids ate everything. Oh, and the raccoons. I used to think raccoons were cute and innocent until they stole Every. Last. Blueberry. And half my plums. So raccoons are now part of the Axis of Evil.

But this year is going to be better! And we want to actually preserve a portion of our crop, especially tomatoes, potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, peas, beans, and greens.

So thus starts our gardening adventure. We have a new grow table for starting transplants. Okay, it's an old changing table with three shelves and 18" florescent fixtures, but it's going to WORK! And The Hubby has spent the last few days plotting when to start everything, so we're feeling up to the challenge. Wish us luck.

2) Start a Montessori program with my son.

BuggaBoo is ready for a little more structure in his school. We really want to home school our children for at least the elementary years. BuggaBoo knows some letters, can count to five, and is really interested in matching pairs right now, so I need to sit down and put together some "jobs" for him. I'm really attracted to the Montessori way of teaching because the children are usually self-guided and learn through play.

So up in the works is making sandpaper letters, dressing frames, and file folder games.

Okay, something cool, I just learned how to do links, so yay me!

I need to get this stuff in order before Baby is born because, if you didn't know, newborns take a lot of your time.

3) Stop caring so much what other people think.

I think this is self explanatory. Actually I think it boils down to having more confidence in myself.

4) Be out of debt by the end of the year.

We have $8,000 left of The Hubby's student loans. We had about $17,500 at the beginning of 2009. The Hubby grosses $33,000 a year. I am a stay-at-home mother, but I've been attributing some income the last few month with doing daycare. I'm quitting that in two weeks and not taking it back up again after Baby is born. I am hoping to finally perfect some of my sewing patterns for babies and getting them up on Etsy for sale.

We've decided to not start saving for property until we're completely out of debt, thanks to the advice of Dave Ramsey. Seriously, check this guy out.

5) Eat healthier.

The Hubby is Type I diabetic and we do really well with our diet already, but there's room for improvement. I want to use way less fat in cooking and cut down on our already low amount of sugar.

6) Sew more.

This is one of those save-my-sanity goals. Sewing can be relaxing for me, and I like making custom clothes for BuggaBoo. Due to the fact that he's thin and cloth diapered it's hard to find clothes that fit him well, and I like the stuff I make for him better than almost any ready-to-wear thing I can get. I also want to make some more things for me, which will have to wait until after Baby is here and my body is a bit more, erm, normal. Also included in this goal is making a personalized sewing dummy for my usual body so next time I'm doing this whole pregnancy thing I can still make clothes for my post-pregnancy body.

So, what do you think? Ambitious, probably, but that's what I'm all about. What are your goals this year, and have you started yet?