Tag: de-clutter

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De-Cluttering My Stuff

Sondra Jennings

William Morris said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” While I love that quote, I have not lived by it.

I’ve been de-cluttering for what seems like 25 years. Seriously. I got married, acquired all this junk, and I’ve been trying to get rid of it for the past 25 years. I throw something away and three things immediately appear in its place. No joke.

I’ve read books, I’ve watched episodes of Horders for inspiration; and yet, I still have a junk problem. What gives?

This fall my husband and I bought a camping trailer. It isn’t fancy. In fact, we have a lot of work to fix it up. This summer it will be ready for me to live in. I’m a teacher, so I have the summer off and I’ve decided to do a little experiment in which I live in the camping trailer.

A little backstory. My husband works out and is gone through the week. And my two adult sons still live in our home. I need space. I need room to breathe. I need to be able to have a “no-pants” day when I want!

So I’ve decided to live in the renovated camper for the summer. When I decided this, of course, the first thing I thought of was, what can I take with me? And then I thought about all the stuff I have and what I could and could not live without. Oh my!

I have no idea what I’m going to take with me into the woods this summer, but one thing is for certain, I can’t take much.

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No More Junk

Sondra Jennings

I’ve been on the “simplify” bandwagon for quite some time now. I’ve read books about de-cluttering. I’ve spent hours on Pinterest looking at ideas on how to de-clutter and what to do with the stuff that I don’t get rid of. All of those pictures look amazing, right? If only my house looked like that…and so the dream goes.

Thanks to a couple borrowed mantras, “Have nothing in your house that you don’t believe to be beautiful or purposeful” and “Don’t just wish for it, work for it”, I finally stopped daydreaming and I’ve been actively “de-junkifying” my house for several weeks. It’s not just a little bit of junk We have lived in the same house for 16 years and my husband’s grandparents lived here for years before us. So I have my junk and then I have the leftovers of their junk. Basically I just pick a room and start going through stuff until I’ve gone through everything. It’s a slow process, but it’s happening.

I try to throw out a bit every day, but I’ve noticed something. It seems like the more I things I throw out, the more I add in its place. I trade old junk for new junk. And the cycle continues.

We all do this. We trade the old junk that we don’t want for new junk that we think we do. In our homes, in our garages, in our bodies, in our relationships, in our careers, in our minds. Truth is, we might want it right now, but how long before it becomes the junk we’re trying to get rid of all over again?

We need to stop allowing junk into our lives. Period. It’s not easy. We’re bombarded with it. It accumulates almost effortlessly. We have to choose to be intentional about not letting anymore junk in.

So today, I pledge, as much as it depends upon me, NO MORE JUNK
1. Will enter my mind, whether through what I read,, watch, or listen to. I choose to keep my mind and thoughts pure.
2. Will enter my mouth through what I eat. I choose to keep my body healthy.
3. Will come out of my mouth by the words I say. I choose to speak life into my own life and the lives of those around me.
4. Will enter into my marriage because of contempt, disrespect, or lack of compassion.
5. Will enter into my family because of bad choices I make.
6. Will enter into my relationships because of my sensitivity or lack thereof, my insecurity, or neediness.
I will not dwell on the past or the negative, but instead will close the door and remember who I am and whose I am. It. Is. Well!!!!!
This is my declaration!