Pinterest Led Me Here

Over the last too many months (okay, years) I have been shaking my head at the indecent amount of CLUTTER in my home. I keep thinking how blessed I am to have so much STUFF and feeling half guilty and half humbled because we have SO. MUCH. JUNK as Americans. I don't think it's wrong, but I cannot keep up with it anymore. I have too much and it seems to be taking over. I wake up and feel overwhelmed at the idea of cleaning or organizing, and yet I so want to do it! I get motivated for a millisecond, at the thought of what it COULD be like to be clean and organized, but then I can never get started. I sleep in too much, I don't manage my time well and everyone (and everything) around me suffers for it, though they (the people, at least) never complain. I have a very patient, loving and generous family!  I am pretty good at working around the clutter, though (unfortunately). I have awesome tunnel vision when it comes to random piles of whatever on my counter, floor, in boxes, on the kitchen table, etc. But, when I actually LOOK at it, I cannot believe it's my home. This shouldn't be where my family functions! How are they to do well (school, meals, etc) when they are surrounded by clutter?! And yet, by God's grace, we aren't buried in it…thankfully, I have been able to avoid looking like an episode of Hoarders. Phew!

I have sensed an immediate need to DO something about this. We have been gone for Christmas and family funeral for nearly 2 weeks and we are anticipating a move in the near future. Our house is up for sale (showings are quite infrequent, so that hasn't kept me accountable enough) and anything could happen at anytime. When we arrived home from our trip, I was disgusted…coming home to a mess is the worst. thing. ever. I was overwhelmed. In the guise of "looking for a new house because we may move soon", I started searching Zillow for my "dream home." After a few lazy hours of that, it occurred to me that I was searching because I could not stand the home I was currently in (because of it's contents being strewn amiss rather than the home itself…the home itself is quite lovely). My pattern for getting out of trouble is to start over. I know that about myself and I knew that my "desire" to move was merely an outworking of my desire to escape the mess that I have built up slowly (or, rather quickly to be honest). I had to leave that in God's hands, as I know our move is completely unconnected to my messy habits. And if I wanted to keep a nice home ANYwhere, I'd better start here. 

Enter Pinterest.

I searched "Declutter" and a pin linked to A Slob Comes Clean came up and I clicked. And that was my night…reading post after post of "Nony's" journey to change her messy habits. Lord, this is ME! I needed to know I wasn't alone! So, like her, I'm starting my own blog to chronicle my journey and to provide some sort of accountability. I'm starting this anonymously as well and I'm not telling a soul for at least 2 weeks. I know myself. If I declare my intentions to my hubby, I will feel pressure to please versus motivation to just DO because I SHOULD. So, I'm keeping mum and hoping for hubby to SEE the difference before I even break the news to him. I'm going to ACTUALLY clean and organize and declutter! 

Now is a good time because I'm also doing the Advocare 24 Day Challenge, which I've already done once (terribly, might I add), so I'm super motivated and today was Day 1…and I actually didn't forget something (yet)! So, I may as well declutter my house while I'm doing the same with my gut. Ha! 

So…in light of that. I took pictures today. LOTS of "before" pictures of every embarrassingly cluttered part of my home…every random pile…every awful excuse for storage. Documented. That will be my next post (and I'm not gonna lie, I'm so terrified of posting them on the internets).