Respect Yourself

I had baby clothes all over my living room. It was way beyond what I was comfortable with, what my husband was comfortable with, very much in line with what my dogs are comfortable with ("Get off the laundry! I'll have to rewash that!). I kept the clothes in laundry baskets, totes from Costco, chairs. (I told you it wasn't pretty.)

I think I have a solution. I have moves almost all the clothes out of the house (I have a basket of to-be-washed, and I think that's it!). What was the difference? I finally bought totes that I could move comfortably.

I bought large totes before. I could store several loads of laundry -- over a hundred items of clothes -- in one tote. But they sat in the house because they were too awkward to move. And it took me a long time to realize my problem was the size of the tote. My darling husband (who has put up with so much so far) would carry the totes out of the house, but I wouldn't. Now I can load up clothes, and store them until I am able to tag them. I can carry most of the clothes out, and just work on one small section at a time, so my family will only have one tote of clothes to ignore.

Most people don't have hundreds of items of baby clothes sitting around the house, so what's my point? The point is, it took me a long time to realize, I have to make sure I am physically comfortable with my tools or I won't use them.

If the laundry basket is too heavy, if the shopping bags are too large, if the cabinet is too deep, I will resist using it. If I resist using it, clutter will build up, and I will get frustrated, until I identify the source of the disconnect and fix that.

I am so glad to finally have all this clutter out of the way! We can go back to living in our house, especially as the weather makes living outside (eating on the porch, relaxing on the porch) more difficult.

I'm so excited to finally make progress with this problem!