Uncluttered House, Uncluttered Mind…

Have you ever watched Hoarders – Buried Alive?

No?  Well let me quickly debrief you.

Basically people accumulate so much crap that they eventually they suffer a slow death underneath all their “collectible” things.  Well not exactly.  The TV show on TLC tries to help them before the get killed under a newspaper avalanche.  You won’t actually believe it until you see it – that people can actually live like that.  They accumulate so much junk that they just can’t part with that they end up making tunnels to get around and sleep in a little nook that they have created for themselves.  It’s disgusting and legit whack.

(Also, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy watching the trash on TLC.  People be crazy yo)

Obviously I have a totally rational fear of ending up like one of these hoarders.  It’s hidden in my blood (my Mom may or may not still have her school uniform from preschool.  Just saying).

So obviously I go the opposite, opting to give anything and everything away whenever I have a moment.

The problem is that I just haven’t had a moment.  For a long time.  So we’ve been accumulating stuff.  And more stuff, and then some more stuff.  Every time I opened my cupboard I felt overwhelmed and finding clothes that actually fits the girls was a flipping nightmare.

Eventually enough was enough and it had to go.

I opened my cupboard and pulled out everything that I couldn’t fit into, anything I hadn’t worn in over a year and things that I knew I wouldn’t wear again (hello satin shirt that I bought in the very brief craze and never wore because it was too shiny).  I divided it up and gave some to Sandy (our house fairy) for her 4 kids and the rest I gave to our Swap Shop.

Never heard of a swap shop?  You should totes try it with your friends!  Basically you all go through your cupboards and bag everything you don’t want, then one afternoon you all get together and go through each others stuff, taking what you like and then donating the rest to charity.  At our last one we extended it to kids clothes too.  Pretty novel idea huh?

Anyway, for the kids I pulled everything out of their cupboards and only put things back that fitted them.

How we accumulated this amount of stuff just blows my mind (this isn’t even the hanging stuff!):

But dividing it up and keeping just a few treasured pieces was so liberating that I was on a high for a week.  We managed to get rid of a lot…

Next on my hit list is my tuppaware cupboard and kids toys.  (I can’t tell you how excited they are for that process!)

Now all I have to do is part with my own preschool uniform (high school uniform, matric dance dress, wedding dress and every bridesmaid dress I’ve ever worn) and I’ll be well on my way to steering clear of the junk avalanche. Hooray!

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