Out With The Old...

I don’t know about ya'll, but immediately following Christmas is the time of year I am most motivated.  I always have this urge to clean out everything, make a lot of lists and organize my life.  OK, I have no urge to take down Christmas decorations.  But in every other way, I am motivated!   A couple years ago, I did a “purge” of my house for Lent.   I decided that year that what I was “giving up” for Lent was all the things that I didn’t really need.  It was a lot of work but I loved it!  Being that I am so motivated at this time of the year, I decided to move that task up to January. I originally got the inspiration to purge from Hannah Keeley (www.hannahhelpme.com), who talked about doing a 30 day purge of her home.  So what is purging?  Going through each room, cabinet, closet and drawer and getting rid of things you don’t use.  You have to be honest.  You have to be ruthless.  And I found it is much easier to do it on your own (My hubby can be a bit of a hoarder and my kids?  Get serious.).  I prayed that God would put on my heart anyone that would want or need things I was getting rid of.  Some things I felt compelled to give to certain people and some things just went to Goodwill.  At the forefront of my mind, I kept thinking that I was blessing others with these things that I really didn’t need.  At the same time, I was also making way for more blessings from God!  I think this mindset was the key that kept me going.
By nature, when purging, you are also cleaning, so it does take time.  In the throws of cleaning out a closet, you will look around and think ugh!  But when it’s done, you’ll feel great.  I say “when in doubt, throw it out!” but on occasion, if I really wasn’t sure if all holy would break lose, (especially if I wasn’t sure if my daughters or hubby would ask for it later), I would put it in a bag and put it in the attic.  Now…you can’t do this for everything, people.  That would be cheating.  And, I would advise you put a date on your calendar – 3 months from now, 6 months from now.  Anything that has sat in that bag in the attic and hasn’t been requested in your set time frame....you got it, it needs to go.  Otherwise, you are just moving everything from your house to your attic!

This is how I approached this daunting task…working full-time, I knew I was going to have to break this down to actually do it.  So instead of saying “purge kitchen”, my list looked like this:
Kitchen Purge:

• Refrigerator
• Pantry
• All cabinets above     
• All cabinets below       
• All drawers
• Baker’s rack

You get the picture.  I continued to go through the house, room by room, and make a list.  Yeah, you need to start with a plan.  Some rooms are easier than others (yeah for the half bath!).  Based on how hard a room or task was, I grouped them together or assigned a date.  In other words, I might take a Saturday to do each step for the kitchen, or take Saturday to do half, and Sunday to do the rest.  I also broke some things into small tasks during the week (one kitchen drawer each night).  Whatever works for you.  Baby steps.  All about the baby steps.

Consider purging your house as a great way to make room for new blessings this year.  You will be amazed at how much lighter you feel on the inside from cleaning out things on the outside.  Holding on to things you don’t need (aka junk) is just weighing you down.  Those items collecting dust can really be a blessing to someone else!  And feel free to start with the half bath.  

Be Mindful to Be a Blessing!
K