I am so excited! Check this out!!
The Self Cleaning House was selected by Redfin as a top Idaho organizing expert. See the Redfin article we were featured in From Cluttered to Clean: 9 Garage Cleaning Tips For The Overwhelmed | Redfin
https://www.redfin.com/blog/garage-cleaning-tips-for-the-overwhelmed/
Just had to share that with my readers! It is an honor to be chosen to write a little snippet for a large magazine/blog.
Thanks for reading!
Elizabeth XOXO
I was inspired to write this after hearing several parents talk about how difficult it was to get kids to clean their rooms and that they just couldn’t have a clean house until their children were grown.
There is hope! It is not only possible but it is extremely important to have a tidy home for you and your family. Your home should be your safe space that is a haven from the world, not a place of chaos. Teaching your kids the skills to be organized and clean will be invaluable to them in school and get them far in their careers down the road as well.
Every parent has a love hate relationship with toys. On the one hand, they keep our kids entertained and happy. We love to see our kids happy! On the other hand, we can not stand the clutter and the mess and even the arguing that happens with too many toys.
We love our kids and we want to give them things that will bring them joy. So much so that we continue to buy them more toys for Christmas, birthdays and Easter and use them as bribery for being good in Target, even though we know there are already just too many toys at home!
The toy box is soon overflowing and the kids are “bored”. The Playroom or bedroom looks like an earthquake happened at Toy’s R Us! You are at your wits end and the kids truly don’t know how to clean up. How can they?
So what can we do about all this fun clutter everywhere?
Donate and Dump
Go through ALL the toys!
This can be done with or without your child. You know your kids best. If this is just going to be a crying, fit throwing, unproductive session and they aren’t going to miss the toys anyway, do it without them. If they are very mature and can understand giving to those in need maybe it would be a good life lesson sort of thing for them. Most often doing this without kids is much more productive.
Put ALL the toys in a giant pile and really look at how much is there. Pick each one up. Is it broken or damaged? Dump. Is it no longer interesting or age appropriate? Donate.
Do not donate or dump a favorite toy even if it seems like garbage to you. You don’t want to betray their trust and also don’t want to turn them into hoarders, afraid to let go of anything because you got rid of that one thing that time.
Sort
Make piles of like things. Dolls, doll clothes, bottles, blankets, doll stroller in one pile. Legos of all kinds in another pile. Little people farm, castle and cars grouped together. Barbie’s and all accessories. Cars and race tracks. You get the idea!
Anything left that is just a unique item and doesn’t belong to any of the piles, will go into a toy box. If there are too many of these things and they don’t easily fit into the toy box, go back to step one, dump and donate.
Organize
Each one of your piles will need an appropriate sized box or tote of some sort. Preferably with a lid so they can be stacked. Some items may not fit into a container. That’s ok. I have Dolls, and clothes and bottles in a diaper bag and that fits into the doll crib. The Little People Farm is on top of a rubber maid container that holds all the little farm animals and tractor. All the Legos are in one rubber maid container as are all the Playdo things.
Store
The next step is finding the best place to store these items. The goal is to have them slightly difficult for the kids to get to. They will be coming to you to ask for the Barbie bin or whatever it is they want to play with next. If they are just on the floor of the playroom it is way too easy to have them all open at the same time. The closet in an extra room, shelves in the garage, even just shelves in a play room that are just out of reach are good places for these. All should be lined up or stacked neatly together.
Teach
This is where the real work comes in. Kids don’t just know how to clean up. You have to teach them. Kids ARE great with routine though! Once you’ve established a routine with them it will be easy peasy to keep things in order. It is up to you to make it a habit!
Every time the kids move from one activity to the next, CLEAN UP! If your kids are small you will need to do it with them. Even if they aren’t small you will need to do this with them for a while or at least supervise it.
For instance, the kids are playing with toys from the toy box and decide they want to play babies. Clean up the toys! Put them in the toy box. This should be pretty simple because everything now fits in the toy box.
Go to the closet, or wherever you have the other toys, and take out the baby things. Only the baby things are out and being played with. When they are done with babies, all the baby things are put back in their container and returned to the closet. The next thing can then be taken out to be played with.
Indoor toys stay indoors. Outdoor toys stay outdoors.
You could have 8 kids 0-10 years old and still have a tidy living room or playroom using this method! I promise!
Enjoy. You can be a better person and parent when you have taught your kids how to play and have fun and also to clean up. Enjoy having a tidy playroom, bedrooms and house with less stress and less stuff. You and your family deserve it!
Donate and Dump. You can’t organize clutter. Get rid of what is broken or no longer useful.
Sort. Sort into piles of similar things to be stored together.
Organize. Put the like items in their own bin or tote.
Store. Find a good place to store these bins that are up and out of the way.
Teach. Kids don’t know until they know. One group of toys out at a time! Clean up after every activity.
Enjoy. Enjoy your family more and stress less.
Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.
Proverbs 31:29
Happy Organizing!
Elizabeth XOXO
It’s finally starting to feel like Spring in North Idaho! It felt like a long time coming….like a looooooooong time. We have never needed spring like we need it now!
We have had a couple of beautiful sunny days that make me want to throw open the windows and clean the garage! Okay, maybe that is just me?! But seriously, have you noticed how the garage seems to turn into a disaster over the winter?
I think we tend to dump things out there, maybe not as neatly as we should because it is COLD out there! It just isn’t as easy or pleasant to put things away properly.
Spring is a great time to spruce up the garage and get it looking nice again! Many of us are home with time on our hands and the last thing we need to be doing is being idle in front of the TV. So, if you are wondering what you should do next….
Here are tips on how to clean a garage.
I hope this inspires you to get that garage clean! I know I will be working on that this week. It’s in desperate need!
Happy Cleaning!
Elizabeth XOXO
I am going to be honest. I am good at keeping things clean. I am not good at coming up with clever organizing ideas. That makes keeping things clean harder. Organizing is something I really want to work on! I have been doing some reading, blogs, Pinterest, magazines and the like to get some ideas. Some are great, some are weird and some are just not even feasible. I mean, these pantries…. do these people actually have any food? Super pretty, but hardly anything in there! I shop at Costco. We have cases of vegetables, not just a few cans. We buy pretzels that come in a ten pound bag. I buy white flour and wheat flour in fifty pound bags each!
Speaking of pantries, have you noticed that most houses don’t have pantries anymore? Ours doesn’t have one. It has a nice sized linen closet in the hallway which I use as a pantry of sorts. I store my small appliances in it and my spices are in a behind- the- door hanging shelf. It’s a bit of a walk to go get the spices for dinner, but it works and who needs a linen closet!? I don’t have extra sheets and only a couple extra blankets and those live in my closet in my room. Tablecloths are stored in my dining room hutch. I have a very large book shelf in my garage that is our main pantry. Flour, canned goods, extra baking supplies, snacks, rice, pasta, toilet paper, napkins, paper towels, foil, Ziploc bags, and the like are all stored out there. Between spices in the hall and the food and supplies in the garage, making dinner is a work out! But it works! So if you live in one of those houses that someone who doesn’t cook designed…. be creative and fine another space for a pantry! Coat closet, linen closet, laundry room, garage… think outside the box!
I found a really awesome blog about organizing your pantry and wanted to share it with you! Kelley has fantastic and realistic ideas for organizing your pantry, even if you don’t have much space. Go check it out here!
I recently did some major decluttering in my laundry room. I had never really taken the time to make my laundry room “look cute”. I don’t know why, it just never occurred to me! I do spend a lot of time there however and after cleaning it all up and getting rid of a lot of unnecessary things, I decided to make it look nice.
I made a bag for bags! I have wanted to have an attractive way to store extra grocery bags for a while now! I found a neat tutorial on how to make one right here! It was super easy! If you have a sewing machine and know how to thread it, you can make this! How much cuter is that than a grocery bag stuffed with other grocery bags stuffed in the corner?!
I think it really helps to have our laundry rooms look pleasant and our cupboards and pantry’s look tidy and organized. It goes a long way toward improving our attitude toward the mundane house work.
I have said before that I have a mantra. “Improve every room you are in, even if it is just to smile in it. ” It’s much easier to leave a smile in a room that is inviting, cute, and seems to smile at you!
I am not sharing pantry pictures as of yet… don’t expect that it will ever look super “Pinteresty” with matching baskets and chalkboard labels, but I am working on it being better organized and finding what works best.
How does your laundry room feel? Does your pantry give you anxiety? Take some time this week , even just fifteen minutes, to declutter, rearrange and make those areas look pleasing to you. You would be amazed at what you can get done in just a few short minutes.
You deserve to have a home that smiles back at you!
Love ya! XOXOXO
Hi Friends! Just a short little thought today, because sometimes all you have is a minute or two. That is what this is about! Using all those little scattered minutes.
We all have those awkward minutes between things that we think are useless minutes. The three minutes waiting for the water to boil. The five minutes standing in the bathroom waiting for your toddler to pee. That unusually long time it takes for your washer to stop actually spinning when you thought it was almost done. You know what I am talking about?! If you added up all those awkward minutes and put them together you would probably have a good chunk of time to get something done, but you can’t really do that. But why waste them?!
Make use of time, let not advantage slip.
William Shakespeare
I have a running list on my refrigerator of random things that need to get done. Some are things that would take quite a bit of time, some are short little things and some are things that my husband has to do. Some of those longer things can be broken down into small pieces though.
For instance, I have on my list to trim the bushes out front and to cut the dead blooms off my hosta and my hydrenga . At first that might sound like a weekend long project. Today the babies were sound asleep, the toddlers were playing nicely in the living room. I grabbed a garbage bag and the shears and left the window and front door open so that they can see me and I can hear them and I took less than five minutes to cut the dead blooms off the hosta. Ta-da! Maybe at nap time today I will get to the hydrenga!
So next time you are waiting for your toddler to pee, grab a Clorox wipe and wipe the baseboards. Dust the shelf in the laundry room while waiting for the washer. Clean the slider window while waiting to let the dog back in. Clean out the cup full of pens and pencils while waiting for a friend to arrive.
My iphone tells me each week how much time I have spent on my phone and on which apps. In other words, it tells me what I have been doing with my “awkward minutes”! Take back all of your awkward minutes and turn them into productive minutes! And don’t forget to break down what seems to be a big job into to little chunks at a time!
Have a wonderful productive week!
E XOXOXO
Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.
Charles Richards
We have all heard that “Cleaning with kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos”! It’s funny, can be true, but it doesn’t have to be.
What if I told you that you can have toddlers, teens and in between and still have a clean house without screaming and yelling. In fact, don’t do that! That will most likely defeat the purpose.
Is it hard work? It can be at first, but mostly the hard part is the training yourself and being consistent. The hard work is not you running around following all the children and picking up after them or nagging them non stop!
The key is routine, habits, consistency and discipline. (For you and your children).
Be an example. If you don’t make your bed, take care of your coat when you come home, or put your shoes away….. Why would they? I can’t stress this enough. Children do what you do, not what you say.
Let them see you clean your bathroom, do the dishes right after dinner, take the trash out, etc. Always put your things away before doing something else and always go to bed with a clean and tidy room. Let them see your routines and good habits.
I have heard all too often that when your kids are little it’s ok to have a messy house. Is it? What life skills are you teaching them? Let them see what work is. Impart a good work ethic. Have them help! You are not denying them time with you. You are teaching them something invaluable for life just by letting them see you have good habits. It’s ok to make them wait a minute. When they want something and you are just finishing the dishes, it is ok to say ” Ok, honey. I will get that for you as soon as I am finished.” Learning a bit of patience and noticing that other people are doing things are important for them too.
Let them know what is expected of them. Outline for them what they are supposed to do and when. Make a chart, Send them a list that they keep on their phone. Tell them that you expect them to clean up their toys after each activity. Tell them they are responsible to make their bed. Tell them they are to do homework immediately after school. Be specific. Have an attitude that tells them that you believe in them. If they think you don’t think they will do it, they won’t. If you don’t tell them it is expected of them, they won’t do it.
Break it down. Kids, and for that matter big people, come in all different personality types. I can tell a room full of 2-3-year-olds to clean up and I am going to see a lot of different responses. Some will start putting things away in all the wrong places, some will walk around dazed and confused with a toy in hand, some will pick up a toy to put away and then forget and start playing with it. Sometimes there is even that kid that eagerly puts everything away in the right places after the other kids have dumped them in all wonky.
You can’t send that kid that picks up the toy and starts playing with it to his room when he is 10 and expect him to clean the giant mess on his own. Not happening. Most kids need some guidance. Even if you can’t stand there in the room, you can break it down for them. “Go pick up all your books and put them in the shelf and then come tell me when that is done.” “Now go find all the legos and put them in the box.” You are teaching them great problem-solving and organizing skills this way without overwhelming them.
Assume the best of them. If they left their backpack on the couch, just say, matter-of-factly, “Susan you must have forgotten to put your backpack away, I know you are normally good about that. Would you please take care of that?) They will respond better to that than telling them once again they have failed just like you thought. Not that you would say it that way, but they often hear that. This way they are still hearing what you expect of them and that you believe they are well-intentioned and worthy of trust. They will try to rise to that.
Be the parent. “She wouldn’t let me do her hair.” I couldn’t get him to put his coat on.” “All they will eat is chicken nuggets so that is what I have to make.” This might not make me very popular but, be the parent. When they are told to pick up the toys, they need to do it. If they are told to sit at the table all through dinner, they need to do it. Kids don’t know what is best, they don’t know what is good for them. That is why God gave them parents to teach them and train them.
If I rob a convenience store and the cops show up and say “Freeze! ” and I don’t….. Do you think they are going to shrug and say “She wouldn’t do what we said.”? Or will they offer me a candy bar and say if you freeze you can have this! No, I am going to get a really quick lesson in consequences!
It is not fair to let our kids go through childhood thinking that if they throw a fit or refuse to do things that they get their way. Life just isn’t like that. I won’t get on a political soapbox, but let’s just say I believe that is a lot of why our country is the way it is today.
Consequences for not obeying, refusing to listen will nip those in the bud. You have to be consistent though. If you aren’t …. well, kids know. Having to dish out a consequence a few times to have your kid respect what you say is so much kinder than forever after nagging, yelling and the constant power struggle. Better for both of you! Your child obeying you the first time you say something might just save his life someday. You are the parent! You are in charge.
Kids respect what you inspect. You do need to have a good expectation of your kids, but if you never check to make sure they have followed through on what is expected, they WILL notice. At 15, you obviously don’t have to check to see if he’s brushing his teeth ( I hope) but at 6 you sure do. Your 8-year-old child still needs reminders and supervision to get morning routines done and get off to school. Kids need to have homework checked. You show your kids that you are interested and that you care by checking to see they’ve done what is expected.
Praise for a job well done. When kids hear praise for what they did well, they want to continue doing it. That goes for all people, little ones and big ones! When your two-year-old puts his toys back, tell him how great a job he did! When she “makes” her bed, tell her how proud you are of her. (Don’t fix it… at least not in front of her!) If your teen cleans her room, tell her it looks nice!
I personally don’t believe in an allowance for daily things that are expected. Those are things that are just part of life for us and for them. If you want to teach the value of money and work then pay them for extra things like raking leaves, pulling weeds, that sort of thing. No one pays me for brushing my teeth and making my bed. Paying them for things like that gives them the idea they are doing it for YOU, not because it is just a life skill.
Give grace. be kind, be thoughtful. Have you ever had a really rough day? Of course. We all have! On those days that you didn’t seem to get anything done and things just didn’t go as planned, wouldn’t it be nice if someone took one of those things off your list for you and did it?
When your little one is having a harder day than usual; when the kids at school called her names or the spelling test was harder than she thought, be thoughtful and help her tidy her room before bed or turn her bed down for her.
Remember what it was like to be a teenager? I do! It was the worst thing EVER. Teens go through so much! The stress of changing hormones that they don’t even understand, horrible peer pressure, self-esteem is tough, other teens are not the least bit kind. They are required to make huge life decisions, do an enormous amount of difficult school work and do it well to get into schools they want to get into plus hold jobs too! It is a LOT!
When your teen is having a particularly rough day and they rushed out without making their bed, make it for them! Do a load of laundry and put it away for them! Make them feel that home is a safe place to be. A place where they feel loved and accepted even if they don’t quite get all their chores done now and then. Of course, respect their space. Make home a place they want to be.
By teaching your children the skills to organize and clean and giving them grace and love when they need it you are giving them the skills and character to be amazing successful people that this world so needs!
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
Blessings! XOXOXO
Hey Friends! I have been using this CBD oil for quite some time now and I am loving the results! It helps a lot with the pain I have in my neck from some surgeries. Did you know that you can get CBD oil in lotions and oils that you can apply directly to sore muscles and joints? How amazing is that?! If you would like to learn more about it click this link!
We all know someone whose home we are in awe of. That home that always seems to be perfectly clean no matter when you drop in.
How do they do that? What kind of magic is it?! Their magic is in their habits!
Here is a list of habits that I have compiled that people with clean homes do. If you would like to have a home that is always in a state of “near company ready”, try adopting these habits.
There ya have it! I hope you can pick up a few of those habits to help you have a super clean and happy home too!
Blessings! XOXO
Hey Friends! I have been using this CBD oil for quite some time now and I am loving the results! It helps a lot with the pain I have in my neck from some surgeries, it helps with keeping emotions in check because let’s be real…hormones can do a number on us ladies and this really helps! It helps keep me be calmer and able to handle the stress of a bunch of toddlers daily. It also helps me sleep well.
Below is a link where you can check it out! Please feel free to message me with questions!
You deserve a good night’s rest!
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for human beings.
Colossians 3:23
We are BLESSED! We are so very blessed that our homes are full to bursting. We are so blessed that we have garages and sheds and storage units to hold it all!
We are so blessed that I think we sometimes forget what it means to really need anything. I have several coats and jackets, but there is one that I really want at Target. I have a lot of really cute boots….but I know there is a pair with my name on it at Kohls!
We are so blessed that our closet rod is sagging in the middle…. I know, ’cause mine is. Yet there are people in our own towns that don’t even have a coat. Can you imagine what a difference your “extra” stuff could make for someone in need?
I am not for a minute suggesting that you don’t deserve to buy things or have nice things just because there are people going without. I believe that if you earned the money to afford it then you most definitely deserve it! I am suggesting that we all get rid of our “extra blessings”. What good is a sweatshirt that you have not worn for seven years, hanging in your closet? What if we took all those things to women’s shelters or homeless shelters? What a blessing it would be to them!
I was reading a devotion by Rick Warren. I will link it here, but I am going to share a portion of it with you. I encourage you to go and read the whole thing. It’s not lengthy.
Empty Hands Receive Greater Blessings
Rick Warren
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9:11, “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (NIV).
What an amazing verse! God makes you rich in every way so you can be generous on every occasion, which will result in thanksgiving to God.
God doesn’t bless you so you can be greedy; he blesses you so you can be generous. You give away, and God gives back to you so you can give more away and he can give more back to you and on and on and on. God doesn’t give you things so you can pile them up. When you let go of what’s in your hand, it’s now empty to receive greater blessings from God.
But as I’ve said before, God’s giving to you is based on your attitude. That’s why it’s so important to live with an attitude of gratitude.
I just love that! “Empty Hands Receive Great Blessings”! I am so excited to continue to let go of my excess blessings so that God can continue to bless me so that I can bless others!
Let’s not ever forget to be grateful for all the things we have and to never be dissatisfied because we don’t have the best car or pretty carpet or the newest phone. Let’s choose to be grateful for all our overflowing blessings! We ARE truly blessed.
Let’s continue to be grateful for what we have, declutter our lives and homes of our “extra” and bless others in the process so that God can continually bless us. What a wonderful win-win!
Luke 6:38
NIV
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Blessings! XOXO
Hey Friends! I have been using this CBD oil for quite some time now and I am loving the results! It helps a lot with the pain I have in my neck from some surgeries, it helps with keeping emotions in check because let’s be real…hormones can do a number on us ladies and this really helps! It helps keep me be calmer and able to handle the stress of a bunch of toddlers daily. It also helps me sleep well.
Below is a link where you can check it out! Please feel free to message me with questions!
CBD Oil What it is and how it works in our bodies
I just pulled out my copy of Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life”. It has been many years since I have read it and after finding the above passage I felt I wanted to read this book again. I highly recommend it! If you would like a copy for yourself click on the image below to purchase from Amazon! You will be supporting me at no extra cost to you! Thank you!
Boxes. Cardboard boxes. Sometimes taped together to make a particular shape. A shoebox, a cereal box cut to the right height, toilet paper tubes taped together.
When I was newly married we had next to nothing. Then we had three children and had even less. But we managed! I didn’t have money to spend on Rubbermaid boxes or cute baskets to organize my things. It really never crossed my mind! I just made do with what I had to organize our things. So cardboard, packing tape, and yogurt containers were often used as “organizational tools”.
I share this to say, don’t wait until you can find the right baskets or till you can afford the containers for the pantry. Declutter, see what you have left, decide what shape and size things you need and then find a shoe box or a salad bowl and use that for now. Write down in your notes in your phone the exact size etc of the things you need. Next time you are at Walmart or Target you know exactly what you are looking for. Do not buy a bunch of cute baskets and wooden boxes before you know what you need!
You don’t need money to organize. If you never get the perfect basket and your bathroom is primarily organized by shoe boxes and packing tape…. guess what?! It’s still organized. Currently, the drawer that holds my cleanser, moisturizer, deodorant, contacts and the like is completely coordinated with boxes taped together to make dividers. Classy, right?! At least it is organized!
I am sure by now you all have heard of Marie Kondo. If you haven’t, she is a Japanese woman with an incredible amount of wisdom about decluttering and living a simple clean life. I will link her book here. You can click on the image to order from Amazon if you are interested! She has a show on Netflix called “Tidying Up”.
She does suggest that you do huge decluttering sessions and I don’t find that very feasible. As much as I would LIKE to do that I don’t have a lot of time for that and I don’t imagine you do either.
Declutter in a small area every day. Instead of putting off decluttering at all until you have time to pull everything out of each room of the house, I suggest doing little bits every day or as often as possible. Yes, it will take a long while to get through everything, but at least you will be making progress.
Decluttering is not a one and done. Hopefully next time you declutter and reorganize the junk drawer it will be much better, but you are going to have to do it again.
If you have the time and inclination to go all out… don’t have the kids at home, have pizza planned for dinner and have help! The likelihood of becoming overwhelmed is very possible so it is imperative to have a friend to help you.
Don’t start it if you can’t finish it! Don’t pull everything out of a dresser or the kitchen cupboards if you only have an hour to do it. Make sure you have the time to completely finish. Take it out, sort it, put it back, bag up garbage and take it to the trash, bag up donations and take them to a thrift store or charity of your choice. Do NOT leave donations in a bag in the living room or by the front door. Get it out! Decluttering is supposed to make your home less chaotic and more peaceful. A pile of junk left on the kitchen table when you got tired of doing it, is just the opposite.
Here is a super great article on what NOT to do when decluttering! Check it out!
Pro Organizer Tips: What NOT to do when decluttering your home
I hope you do something fun this weekend. Spend time with your kids. Our time with them is so short. Be with your spouse. Enjoy the life you’ve been gifted!
1 Thessalonians 5:16
Be joyful always
Blessings! XOXO
I have a guilty pleasure. I get tremendous enjoyment from watching “Hoarders” and immense satisfaction watching them clean up all that junk. At first, it’s like a train wreck and you can’t look away. Then you want to shake the person and say “You don’t deserve to live like this!”! The cleaning process begins and it is amazing to see what is under all that garbage. You can see that at one time they had a beautiful home!
Unfortunately, I am sure that without a lot of intense counseling those people will go right back to living in filth. Somewhere in their lives, they decided that they weren’t worth anything but garbage…. and lots of it.
I am not suggesting that any one of us has a problem even remotely like this! If you did, you probably wouldn’t be here reading this. A lot of us do struggle with excess stuff though.
Let me tell you right now that no matter what life has handed you, you are worth more than your junk, your clutter, and garbage. You are a daughter or son of God! He wants the very best for you.
If you are drowning in “stuff” and find it hard to get rid of, I want you to ask yourself when it was that you decided that you didn’t deserve a nice clean home. If it is really a difficult challenge for you I strongly encourage counseling. Sometimes it’s fear. Fear of letting go of things because of the fear of not being provided for. Sometimes it is surrounding ourselves with a layer of stuff so we are protected from hurt. Our minds do funny things while trying to protect us. Without some help to learn to forgive, let go and heal it will continue to be an issue and keep you from being the best you can be! Therapy is for everyone because this is am an imperfect world full of imperfect people!
I read an article by The Minimalists called “Decluttering Doesn’t Work”. I will link it here. They talk about what happens if we don’t address the “why”. If the reasons we have our clutter don’t go away then getting rid of it won’t help. We will just find ourselves replacing our “pacifiers” as they call it.
When we remove our possessions we have to face who we really are. What is really important to us? Are material things so essential? Where does our happiness come from? Who are we without anything? Some pretty deep questions to consider and some serious soul searching to do!
Every single one of us deserves to come home at night to a well organized, clean, healthy, safe house. Not just certain people, not just rich people, not just other people. YOU! Your home is your castle, your refuge and a place of peace.
This is the reason and the passion behind this blog. I want to make that clean, organized dream home come true for everyone! YOU deserve it! So…. on with decluttering and maybe some inner cleansing as well.
If you are part of the VIP Self Cleaning House Facebook group, I hope you are enjoying the daily challenges! If you aren’t, please enter your email to follow my blog and you will get an invite!
The Self Cleaning House 