My Two Cents on Organizing Shows…

Last night, I watched the first episode of “The Amandas”, a new organizing show about Amanda LeBlanc who runs an organizing business in Birmingham, AL.

She has style, great organizing solutions, and the worst case of OCD I have ever seen! She made her daughters late to school because she just HAD TO refill the sugar container in the kitchen and make sure there was a spoon in it “just so” before she could leave the house – yikes!

Well, you figure someone with OCD would be a great organizer, and she is – but man, would it suck to work for her! She employs 5 ladies as organizers, and they all wear dresses and high heels to work. To work IN. HIGH heels, like 4-6″ high! And they all talk about how they have ruined dresses and designer shoes wearing them to work (Here’s a tip for you, ladies – DON’T WEAR your Manolos to rip up floor tiles – DUH!).

As if that’s not bad enough, she makes a schedule for every detail of a job down to the minute, and according to her employees, she underestimates how long things will take, so she’s always on their cases about being behind. She got so upset with everyone on last night’s show for being behind that she gathered everyone together and cried because they were going to “look like fools” if they didn’t finish on time. So, of course, everyone straightened up and got the job done on time and the clients were happy and it was fabulous.

UG! Too much drama for me. Mind you, all the drama came from the ORGANIZERS, NOT from the clients. The clients were the happiest people on the show! No boo-hooing over having to go through their closets and purge, no complaining about getting kicked out of their house for 3 days while the work was being done, nope, not a negative word out of these guys!

Okay, I get it – this show is all about how crazy OCD Amanda is, and how beautiful her employees are, and how hard they work and how many fancy clothes they ruin to do a beautiful job for the clients. I’m not really sure if I want to keep watching this annoying show or not…

Speaking of organizing shows, here’s my opinion of some of the other ones out there:

Hoarders: I HATE THIS SHOW! First of all, it isn’t really so much an organizing show as it is a Freak Show. People like to watch it for the shock value, that look behind closed doors of lives gone horribly wrong. It is just sad, creepy voyeurism.

Secondly, they try to tackle waaaaay too much in a short period of time. I mean, this person’s entire house is literally filled with clutter and they try to fix it all in a few days???  There’s all these people (and cameras) in their house, invading their space and calling their stuff “junk” and telling them to get rid of it. Then the hoarder either starts having cursing fits and crying breakdowns – wouldn’t you too?

The shrinks on this show always say hoarding is a “disease”, just like alcoholism or drug addiction. I agree with that analogy – something bad happened to these people and now they do this thing to feel better or safe. But then the docs expect the hoarders to “go cold turkey”? To just “snap out of it” and start purging all the crap they’ve been living with for the past however-many years?

Usually by the end of the show, they’ve managed to get one or two rooms semi-cleared out, but that’s it. A good start, with lots more work and therapy for the hoarder. It always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, like as soon as the crew leaves, this poor person is doomed to fall back into old habits. This show would be so much better if they continued filming the entire process, over months or years or however long it takes, so that we get to see the entire transformation and are left with a better feeling at the end.

neat: Canada’s organizing and makeover show is hosted by Hellen Buttegieg, who seems very nice and smiley and oh so Canadian, but she does always manage to work in a few snarky comments with that smile. One thing I do like about this show is they only try to tackle a few rooms at a time. It is more manageable and more doable than the “whole house” approach. Hellen and her Clean Team show up and empty the room and lay it all out (nice!) so the homeowners can go through it and decide what to keep and what to purge. Hellen always comes up with cutesy names for the bins, such as “Present” (keep) and “Past” (purge).

A couple things about her approach irritate me: She stands there with the homeowners, going through every single piece of stuff with them. When the homeowner (usually a woman) wants to keep something for “sentimental reasons”, Hellen starts giving her the 3rd degree like: “Why do you feel the need to keep this item?”; “How will keeping this item make your life better?”; “Is this item worth the space it’s taking up to keep it?” This is usually the part of the show where Hellen makes the woman cry. I mean, sometimes you just want to keep a souvenir because you want it! You shouldn’t have to justify it to the mean Canadian organizer lady!

And sometimes, if Hellen feels that the homeowners are not purging enough, she’ll tell them in her passive-agressive way that unless they purge X% of their stuff, she won’t be able to give them the room that they want. Essentially, she’s making it their fault if SHE fails at what they hired her to do!

I do like that she explains several storage solutions and organizing tips throughout each show. And for the most part, her makeovers are pretty livable. She does seem to organize things so they “just fit”, with not too much room for growth, and then implements the “one in, one out” rule, which means if you buy a new one (book, blouse, etc), then you have to get rid of an old one “to keep the balance” (because there isn’t enough room).

I enjoy watching this show for the tips and tools, plus they do give you great befores and afters, but I will always think of her as the “mean Canadian organizer lady”!

Extreme Clutter: Peter Walsh, who we first met on the show “Clean Sweep”, has a new organizing show on the Oprah Winfrey Network called “Extreme Clutter”. The first episode I watched of this was the notorious Mackenzie Phillips episode – so riveting!

I *LOVE* Peter Walsh! Why? Because he’s a good organizer, yes. But also, because he seems so genuinely interested in helping people live better, more organized, more clutter-free lives. He tries to help people figure out the reasons for their clutter, to understand it so they can conquer it. To know their “clutter” enemy in order to defeat it.

I like his new verbage for keeping things and purging them: he says you have to “create a vision for the room”, and then only the keep the things that fit that vision. (Love it!)

Peter does make people cry, only cry for joy, not cry because he’s berating or belittling them. He creates neat, functional, growable spaces for people. I really like his style, his approach, his philosophy. Peter Walsh is THE MAN!

4 1/2 Boxes of Progress

I just got back yesterday from a FABULOUS four-day scrapbooking retreat in Myrtle Beach, SC! Me and six girlfriends went and HAD A BLAST! It was SO FUN!

Scrapbooking is one of those hobbies that can very quickly turn you from a casual shopper into a hoarder. Scrapbooking is all about the cool and the pretty. We see the cool and pretty things, we want them, we buy them. Now we have them – what to do with them? We just hold on to them – someday we’ll use them! But we must never give up the cool and pretty things – no, never! (My precious, my precious…) So we keep those things. Only people keep coming out with new cool and pretty things, and we must have those as well. And so our cute little hobby that used to take up a small wheelie cart in the dining room has now grown exponentially to fill an entire spare room and them some! Exhibit A:

Yes, it’s my scary craft room again, full of scrapbooking treasures – things I just had to have, things I would use to make all these fabulous scrapbook pages! But what good are they doing me like this? Either I can’t find them, I can’t get to them, or I don’t even remember that I had them!

Well, the week before the retreat, I was forced to venture into this cave of endless piles and mystery bags because I had to pack. When you go to a crop, you need to take (1) enough projects to keep you busy, and (2) all of the supplies needed to do the projects. The best way to do this is to put together what I call “Project Packs”. I gather all of the papers, photos, and embellishments (ribbons, accents, alphabet letters, etc.) I need to make a layout, and put all these supplies together in a resealable bag. Great idea, huh?

But first, I had to FIND all of the supplies! I managed to find a clear spot on the floor, and sat down and started going through all of my ribbon. They were pretty organized in 3 stacking clear bins, but I must’ve had 100 rolls of ribbon! Would I ever really USE all of it? I decided I wouldn’t, and I decided to pare down my ribbon collection from 3 bins to JUST ONE bin. I grabbed a green banker’s box and started sorting ribbons. Clear bin meant “keep”, green box meant “get rid of it”. And I sat there and sorted ribbon for an hour, and by the end of that hour, I had gotten the “keep” ribbons down to ONE BIN! (Ah, yes, small victories…)

Then I decided to go through all of my stamp sets. I had quite a lot of these since my sister-in-law used to be a Stampin’ Up rep and she had lots of stamping parties and there were always new cool and pretty stamps to buy… you get the picture. I got out another green banker’s box and started sorting. I had no expectations of how many sets I would keep or give away. My only criteria was “Do I use it? Will I use it? Do I love it?” If the answer was yes, I kept it; if no, then I “green boxed” it. (That is a new phrase I made up during this process which means “I put it in the get-rid-of-it box”.)  : )    Another hour later, I had reduced my stamp set “collection” by 75%! Peter Walsh would be proud.

Over the next few days, I worked on the biggest culprit in my room – my paper stash. All the pretty papers – I love them all! But there was just no way I was ever going to be able to use them all! So out came the green box… 2 green boxes, actually. I had one for loose sheets of paper and one for paper packs and paper kits. Paper packs are those thick “books” of papers that coordinate with each other. Paper kits – I used to belong to a kit club, where every month, they would send me a kit with coordinated papers and embellishments, such as ribbons, buttons, stickers, alphas, etc. Both of these things are really helpful for scrapbooking because everything already goes together. But, as they say, “Too much of a good thing is still too much.” Since the loose paper was all over the room in different places and the sheer volume of it overwhelmed me, I decided to focus on the paper packs and kits for now. I have a certain spot in my room where I keep my kits and a spot on the shelf where I keep my paper packs, so locating those items was pretty easy. Then I just started sorting. “Will I use it? If I have used some of it, will I use the rest of it? Do I love it?” A lot of it got green boxed. I did pull out the occasional papers from the pack or embellishments from the kits that I did love and wanted to keep without keeping the whole thing. It felt really good to let this stuff go!

In the end, I had three green boxes and two  12″x12″ clear bins full of giveaways (plus an old crop bag I hadn’t used in years). So here’s what I did – I took all of it to the retreat with me and set it out and made signs that said “FREE to a Good Home” “FREE Scrapbooking Supplies” “FREE – Take some!” After all, who else but other scrapbookers would want all my scrapbook goodies? And boy did they – they went nuts! Ladies would come by and get some stuff, and then go tell their friends and their friends would come too. It was great – they were cleaning me out! This photo was taken only about 4 or 5 hours after I put out the 5 FULL boxes and bins:

Everyone was talking about the crazy woman giving away all of the scrapbook supplies! They would ask “Why are you giving it away?” and I would show them the pictures of my craft room and simply say “I have too much stuff!” One group of ladies offered to buy me a bottle of wine in trade, but I don’t drink, so they said “What candy do you like?” and I said “York Peppermint Patties”, and later they brought me a bag of them with a “Thank You!” post-it on it. How sweet! (Ha Ha, pun intended!)

So my Freebies were the hit of the weekend. Plus, a funny thing happened – other people started green boxing things too! They would bring things over and put them in the boxes, hoping someone else would have a use for something they no longer needed. How stinkin’ cool is that?  : )

So, after 4 days, this is all I came home with:

Half a bin of miscellaneous stuff. From 5 full boxes and bins to one half – I just love that! I know, I know… I still have *this* stuff to deal with. Plus all the rest of the stuff in my craft room to go through and deal with. But this weekend, I made 4 1/2 boxes of progress! That’s 4 1/2 boxes of stuff I took out of the room that isn’t going back into it.

Plus, I made a whole lot of ladies smile.    : )

2 Kitchen Cabinets Done!!!

How cool is that? I started off organizing one cabinet and ended up organizing its neighbor too! My goal was to purge and re-organize my “TupperMaid” cabinet, making room for my lovely new set of Rubbermaid containers:

Check out their new home:

Yes, they have their own basket in the cabinet now. And the bottom basket looks like this:

This is all that is left from purging my previous collection of assorted containers. These are misc. items, as well as the “disposable” type containers I use for packing my kids’ lunches. Which is how I ended up organizing the cabinet next door – it used to house the kids’ lunch containers, as well as their cups & mugs, plus all of our various water bottles. Moving the lunch containers over to this basket freed up a basket in the other cabinet, so now I can store the kids’ lunch bags there instead of them taking up room out on the counter. Check it out:

This is what it looked like mid-sort, just so you don’t think this was as easy as it looks:

I ended up with 2 bags of containers with lids to be donated. Containers that were old or discolored got recycled, as did containers and lids without a match. (How does that happen? Where do they get off to? Seriously, it’s like socks in a dryer…)

I am SO THRILLED right now! I know I have a looooooong way to go, but “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I have taken that first step, and I can’t wait to see where my journey takes me next!

Kitchen Cabinet Project

I was at BJ’s today and this box of Rubbermaid containers was calling my name!

My “TupperMaid” cabinet (that houses my collection of various brands of plastic containers: Tupperware, Rubbermaid, Glad, Ziploc, etc.) has been a sore spot with me for a while now. Not that it’s a crazy jumbled mess, like in that ad on TV where the lady opens up her cabinet doors and every container and lid she owns comes crashing down on top of her! In fact, it’s quite organized:

I have these two huge baskets – the containers are in the top one and the lids are in the bottom one. The problem I have with this “collection” is more of an “80/20 Rule” type of problem: Most of the time, I am only using about 20% of these containers over and over. Maybe because they are the best size and shape, maybe because they are always on the top and easiest to get to without having to dig through the rest of the basket.

So I saw this box of containers and thought, “Why not start fresh?” Why not sit down and go through all of those containers I’ve collected over the years and get rid of the ones I never use? I can recycle the containers with no matching lids – and vice versa – and I can donate the ones that are still good that I just don’t use.

So that’s my next project. Stay tuned for an update…

The Ultimate To-Do List!

I am following another blog about decluttering, 365 Days of Muchness. Her post for Day 3 knocked me for a loop! She suggested you write down “a personal assessment of all your responsibilities, projects, priorities and tasks.” In a spiral notebook, you write down everything you need to get done: day-to-day tasks, errands, home improvement, doctor appointments, things for yourself, your family, your job, your church, your pets -  EVERYTHING! That’s quite a project – I call it “The Ultimate To-Do List!”

I started out just writing everything down willy-nilly, as I thought of it, as it came to me. But then I thought I should organize the ideas by subject so they’d be easier to keep track of.  I labeled the first blank page “To Do”, and then skipped a few pages. This will be where I write my day-today stuff. Then I made a page called “Family” where I will write things for the kids’ school, their doctor appts, dinner with my husband’s family, etc. I don’t work and we don’t have pets, so then I went straight to the house! I labeled each page with the name of a room, and then did a walk-through of each room (like I did with my “Before” photos) and wrote down everything that needed to be done in each room.

In her post, Carrie-Anne warns: “This process will take you days.” She also said this process would be “painful”. Well, she was right! It was really overwhelming to realize just how much work I have before me this year to get my house decluttered! I know it will be worth it in the end, but here at the beginning, it looks like a looooong, hard road.

Starting with the little things…

Let’s face it – this “Uncluttering My Life” project is massive. It’s going take time and effort and energy and a whole lot of jammin’ music to get through it. I know I will have really productive days, days I do hardly anything, and days where I actually add to the problem!

Life will go on throughout this Uncluttering as it did during the cluttering. We’ve all learned to step around the boxes and move the bags to open the cabinet door or not bump into the piles (lest they tumble over onto us). And there is always shopping to do and dinner to make and homework to check and driving the kids to karate and piano lessons.

So, somedays, it will just come down to the little things. Like yesterday. Being January, the beginning of a new year, I thought, “Let’s start some things out fresh”. I changed out all of our toothbrushes and got the kids some new toothpaste (theirs was all sticky and twisty and the cap wasn’t on it – gross!). I did put out a new tube for me and my husband too, instead of squeezing that last little bit out of the tube. I changed the blade in my razor (which I hadn’t changed since ???? Scary!). I changed the batteries in the TV remote so I would no longer have to sit in the “sweet spot” on the sofa for it to work! I changed out the gloves that were in my jacket pockets – the other ones were my big, clunky wintery gloves that I can never  do anything with, like unsnap my purse pocket to get my keys. It’s not “big clunky glove” weather here yet, so I switched them out for my soft knitted gloves that work just fine.

All of these changes may seem minor and small and teeny-tiny and hardly even worth mentioning.  But they were all important to me because they were all annoying to me. Why live with annoying little things when they can very easily be fixed or replaced? I read this quote once on this computer adventure game I was playing (I know, I know, but hear me out…) The quote was “In the forest, it is not the mighty elephant that gets you, but the thousand tiny mosquitoes.” (See? It’s relevant here…)

Life is hard enough without all the little things in your life annoying you, so why not start there? I was a happier woman yesterday for it, and that’s all that matters!

Where to Begin?

I don’t really know where to begin – what to do first? It all needs help! So I decided to go with the classic approach – STEP 1: Identify The Problem. Not hard to do – it’s all around me! Let’s take a little tour, shall we?

Let’s start where I am now – at My Desk (technically this is the Breakfast Room table, but obviously we can’t use it as such…)

Here’s the whole view of the Breakfast Room (yes, that is a telescope you see – my husband’s hobby. Also notice the first of many bins you will encounter on this tour…)

Across to the Kitchen Bar (see, what did I tell you?)

Around the corner to the Back Hallway (ditto)

And the Back Stairs (yeah, we don’t use those…)

And over to the Laundry Room (a.k.a. “Dumping Ground #1″)

A close-up of the clutter pile:

Hey, cool – look what I found in there: a VHS tape version of “Organizing From The Inside Out”! (YAY – all my problems are solved!!!)

And now over to the Master Bedroom(ah yes, what a relaxing place to begin and end my days… NOT!!!)

Here’s another view of the Bedroom (a.k.a. “Dumping Ground #2″)

(Here is one of my attempts to get organized – I separated my clothes into categories in these boxes. Three years ago. Yeah, the boxes still there. Empty. UG!)

And now, the Bedroom Closet (notice the empty shelves and the full floor!)

(That box system for my shoes [far right] is one thing that I did that still works – yay me! Small victories, folks…)

So now let’s head upstairs. Here’s the hallway…

Squeeze past all the boxes and bins to behold truly one of the scariest sights in the house – My Craft Room – NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! (the horror, the horror…)

Come on in – I left a pathway for ya!

Don’t be distracted by the feeble attempts at organizing – just watch your step!

Here’s the pathway to the desk:

(Brace yourselves!) Here is my desk (I’m sure you can imagine all the work I get done here… NOT!)

Here’s my handy-dandy bookshelves next to my desk:

Well, let’s leave this awful place and go take a look at two of the real motivating factors for me to Unclutter – my kids. I am so worried about what living with all my clutter is teaching them. I tell them to clean up their rooms, but they don’t ever see me cleaning up mine! I worry that I am teaching them it’s okay to live like this. I don’t want them to live like this! I want them to be able to have friends over without being embarrassed by the house! *I* want to be able to have friends over without being embarrassed by the house. (Can  you just imagine how much crap gets shoved into the Dumping Grounds in order to get the house presentable enough for my in-laws to visit?)

This is my son’s room (not too bad, but he does have a tendency to keep everything and not throw anything away)

This is my daughter’s room (yep, she is definitely showing the signs of becoming a future clutterbug!)

Here is the Bonus Room(a.k.a. “Dumping Ground #3″) . We redecorated both kids’ rooms last year, and so all the stuff from both of their rooms ended up in here. We need to go through it all “someday” (that magical word you use to get out of doing it NOW!)

So that concludes our tour. Sorry if I have scarred you for life, but – hey – at least YOU don’t have to live here!  ; )