Mama’s little helper

I decided to tackle the clothes in my closet and dresser last week. I have fallen behind in my cleaning schedule over the past few weeks, thanks in part to both kids getting sick and then Abby’s birthday. Since all of that is behind us now, I decided to take back my house and start reorganizing again.

I began by reorganizing the upstairs hall / loft closet earlier last week. I’m a clutter bug and I know it. I also know that it is one of my traits that Ray doesn’t like so much. I’ve been trying to change my ways, but old habits die hard so… even though I cleaned out the hall closet not long ago, there was quite a bit of clutter in there again. Not any more though!! It felt great to purge anything that wasn’t needed – from old receipts to random notes I had written. I have to say that it felt like a load was lifted off of me every time I got rid of something. There’s still some work to do in the closet – I’m not quite satisfied with the way that it is right now, but I’ll post some pictures when I am! =)

Skip forward a few days… Noah was napping, so I decided to clean out my side of the closet… with a little help from Abby.

Once again, I felt like the clutter slowly started to take over and I had finally gotten to the point today where I said enough is enough. So Abby and I went into the closet and I took out anything that didn’t belong in there – the Pack and Play that I had used to keep Abby out of trouble, a laundry basket over-flowing with Ray’s work shirts needing to be ironed, papers to be filed or put away, and and and… it all came out. I then started going through my clothes… now, this is nothing new to me… in fact I tend to go through my closet and dresser once or twice a year and take out anything that hasn’t been worn in the past two years (give or take a few years since I’ve been in some pregnant or post pregnant stage for the past 3+ years).

This time though was different. I looked at each and every piece of clothing and decided if it stayed or not. In the past, I usually found an excuse to hold onto an item… not this time though. I was ruthless with my cuts and it shows! I was not only able to condense my clothes in the closet from 3 racks down to 2, but I also was able to end up with a completely empty dresser drawer (or 2)!

The only clothes that I kept are ones that I’ll actually wear – some might not be worn everyday and some will look better once I finish losing weight, but they are all pieces that I wouldn’t hesitate putting on either now or in the near future.

Unfortunately I didn’t get before pictures, but I did take a few after shots – I also took a picture of the clothes (plus a pair of shoes and 2 bags) that I will not be keeping . Some things will be donated or given away, others will be reused in other ways and a few others are just plain trash to either be thrown away or be used as rags.

Once again it felt good to go beyond that feeling of “I don’t want to get rid of it because…“. I think that is what I struggle the most with – in the back of my mind there is a voice that asks “what  if I need it or want to use it later and I don’t have it…” Slowly though, I’ve come to realize that thinking this way only adds to the problem and doesn’t help eliminate it. I’ll be brutally honest though, I’ve got some very old habits that are hard to kill so this isn’t very easy for me!! What I’m hoping is that if I keep looking at the following photos it will help me stay on track and not let the clutter take over again!

The top of the closet – I was able to condense all of my tops to this shelf!!

Here’s a view of the bottom – my pants and skirts… and Abby!! =) I did end up spacing the pants and skirts out to cover the whole bottom row – it is easier to see and get to them with that little added space between the hangers.

The space in front of the shoe holders had been filled with clothes… I love that I can now see what shoes I own! Can you believe that I actually forgot that I had some of the pairs that I “found”?!?! Crazyness!!

My PJ drawer =) The empty space up front is no longer empty, but I am still proud of the accomplishment, since this drawer was overflowing with clothes before.