Decluttering Originally posted 3/25/19

I took a break from decluttering while we were on our cruise and this last week as I was

trying to get caught up on the laundry from the trip and was subbing all week.  I also took a break from technology while we were traveling as well and as always I enjoyed that. I am

thinking I will limit my online time this summer to only an hour or so a day. I can live without my phone and computer and spend my downtime reading rather than online.

This weekend I have just taken some time to relax as I am worn out. I think this next week I will try to spend 20-30 minutes a night working on decluttering after school. I have a pile of

books to go through as well as a pile of magazines and some odds and ends in boxes in the living room that I need to decide if I want to keep or not and if I keep them where I am going to put them. I want to finish the living room before I leave on my trip with my dear friend from high school.  

I am working out a plan for decluttering this summer while we are also doing some work on the house. We are planning to strip the popcorn ceiling in the living room, kitchen, and hallways. I would also like to do my sewing room and Tom's room. He has all kinds of things in that room so I am not sure what to call it.

I would love to strip out the carpet upstairs this summer as well, but that may have to wait until next year. I will be leaving with my son Bryce in early August to drive down to Illinois where he will be attending graduate school. I plan to take a little trip and visit some friends and relatives while down there before returning home in September.

Here is a story of one of my previous decluttering projects for your enjoyment.

Last summer, before I had even heard of the Uncluttered course, I took my sewing room apart and moved everything out except my fabric shelves while my husband was out of town for two weeks. Then I went through all my fabric and rearranged it by color and pulled out what I would never use or thought was ugly to gift to a friend for her guild's charity quilts. I went through everything that had been in the room except three boxes that I need to pull and go through when I am done with the rest of the house. I had five or six 13 gallon bags of fabric to gift, three bags of scraps which I sent to other quilters for the cost of postage, a couple of bags of things to donate, and about four 13 gallon bags of trash. I organized all of my patternspatterns into binders by kind, and have my works in progress organized. I am now working slowly on completing projects and have a rule. I must complete three things or move them forward to a completed top before I can start a new project, and I need to bind two quilts a month as I have 37 quilts that are waiting to be bound. To be fair I got way behind about three or four years ago when I fell and broke my wrist and tore ligaments, so was unable to do any hand stitching for about four months and then only or short periods of time for a few months after that. Then I was also traveling back and forth to Tennessee a lot to care for my mom and step-father. I was also subbing full time when I was home, and then spent a summer from hell in TN and lost my mother so ignored my quilts for a few months. I am working hard at getting back on track and I send my larger quilts out to be quilted so some times they get done faster than I can hand bind. I still have my scrapbooking and cardmaking things to go through in the family room, but am thinking I will wait on that until May, as I am subbing the next few weeks and then will be gone for two weeks. I think I will just focus on finishing the living room and maybe my bedroom until I leave.