Week 3, Day 2: Games (and apparently storage boxes)

Donna Joy

Over the years I have purchased all kinds of bins and boxes. What I’ve learned is buying the bins or organizations system first is almost always a recipe for waste and frustration. You need to assess what you’re actually keeping and what storage system you actually need before purchasing any kind of organizational boxes. 

Almost always.

Several weeks ago I had picked a few things up from a craft store for a friend and there must have been a special running because after that trip I got a notice saying I had accrued $30 in rewards points. A couple days ago I received an email screaming in big red letters, my points were about to expire. So, I took a trip to the craft store, because it would be wasteful to just let that non-transferable $30 go unspent, right? I walked around, checking out the aisles that used to call my name and mostly just seeing shelves filled with the same types of items that now lay in donation piles and bags in my son’s room. At that point, I was feeling pretty good about my ability to resist temptation…(while standing in the middle of the craft store).

Then, I saw a wall of storage bins. I knew I was adressing games this week and had already decided that I’d like a few boxes to group smaller card games, as well as a bin or two to house some games that could take up much less space without their original box. So, I picked out a couple simple white metal and cardboard lidded containers, purchased them with my points and put them aside until game day today. Reward dollars well spent, right?

This afternoon I pulled out all my games, consolidating the keepers into those pretty white boxes. Now to find a space for the pretty white boxes. I tried them in three different places before sitting down in frustration.  As I looked around, I noticed a vintage train case on my shelf. We use it to hold fidgets, scented putties, and other sensory input toys. I pulled it out and started to weed out the fidgets we never use, the putties that have been loved for too long and now smell like feet, etc. (Today’s decluttering started feeling a little like a sequel to “If You Give a Mouse a Muffin.) Once the train case was emptied, it was the perfect size for the card games and all the unboxed games. I thought, no problem, I’ll just use those boxes to separate some things in the craft dresser I cleaned out yesterday. Except they didn’t work in there either. They are currently in a large tote filled with all the other storage bins that have been rendered homeless during this process. Maybe I’ll find a use for them, maybe I’ll see if the store will take them back, maybe I’ll learn my lesson about buying storage bins before really evaluating my storage needs. Maybe. 

Week 3, Day 1: Crafts

Donna Joy

There’s a common rule in decluttering: If you haven’t used it in [3mths, 6mths, 1 year, etc] get rid of it. It’s basically decluttering via time limits.

Of course, you could just dust the house in your prom dress every 3 months to avoid getting rid of that lovely pile of turquoise tulle.

(ok, my prom dress was a thin champagne pink polyester, but my sister’s prom dress was asymmetrical layers of amazing turquoise tulle, and her date wore white tails and my elementary school eyes decided late ’80s fashion was the most beautifully romantic thing in the world and I still haven’t recovered.)

Anyway, back to time limit decluttering.

Rules like this are nice and safe becuase they’re so clean cut and neat.  You rely on the rules to make the decisions, removing the complications and emotions. The rules can be helpful to see what you use, see what you prioritize and help you make quick decisions when you need to.

But there’s something I’ve been realizing as I evaluate what I really need, as I work to uncover real. 

Real isn’t usually about when I last used it.

My decisions are often more complicated than that. 

I recently used mini clothespins to hang up slips of paper we were using in a game. As I cleaned out my craft dresser today, (this week will be all about what we do for fun: entertainment, hobbies, activities, etc.) I came across those clothespins. They’re cute, they’re in perfect shape and I used them within the last couple weeks. Slam dunk keeper. The rule of last use time limits just gave me an excuse to keep something I don’t really need. Except as I stopped to think about when I last used them, I realized I used them because they were there. If they weren’t there, I would have used something else.

Over and over I’ve been looking at items and saying some version of, “Oh, I need to keep this because I use it for….”  When in reality, I could use any number of things.

Maybe I need to ask questions like, “Is this the only thing I can use for that purpose?” “If I didn’t have this, what would I use?”

I’m pretty sure donating my little bag full of mini wooden clothespins is not going to leave me high and dry or keep me from living my best life. buh-bye.

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On Wednesdays We Reflect: Week 2 Reflections

Donna Joy

We’re two weeks into Lent – a time of fasting, abstaining from something in order to refocus, reflect, and rededicate yourself.

Lent is based on the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert wilderness, fasting from food, fasting from interactions with others, fasting from almost all elements of his daily life prior to this isolated season.

His fast was not about the visible elements of the fast.
It was a season of preparation for him.

He had spent time building into his disciples, healing people, challenging traditions and assumptions and teaching and caring for people. Now he faced a period of temptation.

In his desert time, he was challenged to break his fast.
Tempted to abandon what he started.
Tempted to redefine what he knew to be true.
Tempted to self-protect and self-promote.
He was tempted to make it about the visible elements. 

I have tried fasting in different ways in the past. Those times can easily become about the elements of the fast. I can become proud of my accomplishments or distracted by the practicalities. The very thing I am using to refocus myself, can become the focus. The abstention becomes the idol. 

But when I use fasting as a tool, a season of evaluation and preparation, it can show me where my priorities have shifted. 

I began listening to The Minimalist Podcast this week and in episode 276, Ryan Nicodemus talks about picking up an object and experiencing a flush of nervousness about decluttering it. The anxiety can indicate attachment. I find the same thing in my life. If some thing or someone questions my beliefs and I bristle, it often reveals what I have become attached to.

I then get the opportunity to evaluate if I am gripping that belief because it is central to me and my faith or if I am gripping on to a layer because at one point it made me feel safe, comfortable, accepted, important, or self-righteous.

There are things that I have and will declutter from my home that were important and valuable in a season. I recently came across a box of math manipulatives that helped my kids through elementary math. They were important and helpful through their transition in growing up. Now, holding onto them takes up space and detracts. Likewise, there are elements of my faith journey that may have been important for a season but may need to be decluttered. 

As children in Sunday School or around the dinner table, many of us were often taught that in order to pray we must fold our hands and close our eyes. This is not biblically directed theology, it’s a helpful way to encourage children to focus. But if I hold onto that practice as central to my faith, I can’t pray while washing dishes. I can’t talk to God as I drive. Holding onto that rule can limit my faith.  Refusing to let go can stunt my growth.

Alternatively, I could decide that a life-sustaining medicine on my nightstand does not fit the vibe I’m going for in my bedroom and discard it. Just like I could decide peace and joy and hope and love don’t fit my life and cast them aside. Both would be deadly.

And this is the hard work of reflection.
This is the hard work of the season of Lent.

As I have discovered over the last several weeks, there are many layers to my physical possessions. There are also many layers in my beliefs about God and this world. Layers that I have put on myself, layers other people have applied, layers I sometimes don’t even know exist until something prompts me to question and reflect on them. 

May this Lent season be a season of shedding some of those layers that were never meant to be there, shedding the layers that were only meant to be there for a season, and a solidification of the parts that belong.

Week 2, Day 6: Food Shopping

Donna Joy

It’s kind of amazing to count up all the big and little things that go into making a meal at home.

So far this week I’ve evaluated the tools I cook with, the actual food stored in my house, and the visual spaces where I prep and serve meals. 

For today, I took some time to think through my process of planning and purchasing food, from list making and shopping to prepping and using the ingredients.

My favorite food shopping excursions are usually Target, but this blog is about getting real, and food shopping at Target is really about 75% food shopping and 25% the thrill of the clearance end caps and Spot’s Playground at the front of the store with merchandise that seems to be updated every.single.time I shop there. They have made “I’ll just pick this up while I’m here” an art form. 

A cool side effect of purging my house of so many of those irresistible little treats is that when I went to Target this week, those little seasonal treasures that greeted me as I walked in the door no longer resembled what’s missing from my home, they resembled what is stuffed into a dozen garbage bags downstairs. Pass.

I’d hoped to get to meal planning today, but haven’t done much with it, yet. I did take some steps to make the actual process of grocery shopping a little easier though, starting with my reusable shopping bags. Before today, I must have kept every reusable bag I’ve collected over the past decade or so of using them.  It would be wasteful not to, right? Except that when I go to the grocery store, if I remember my bags, it’s an overflowing tangle of insulated, simple cotton, foldable, produce-specific and a few ripped and barely usable bags and who wants to mess with that in middle of a check-out line? I packed up my favorites, put them in my trunk, ready to be used and repurposed the rest to bag up some of the kitchen and household donations piling up downstairs. 

If you have a meal prep and/or meal planning system you love or tips that work for you, I’d love to hear about it – post a comment here or send me a message on Facebook or Instagram!

Week 2, Day 5: Visual Clutter

Donna Joy

I’m almost done evaluating my “how I eat” spaces. I’ve cleaned out the dishes and pots and pans, food cabinet and fridge, and extra storage.  Tomorrow I plan to spend some time reacquainting myself with meal planning.

Today I spent time in my kitchen, recognizing that when clutter fills the space physically, it also fills my senses. It fills my time. It fills my stress capacities. I am a creative person, and I love the creative aspects of cooking and baking. I don’t have space for that creativity when I don’t have space. Decluttering allows me to access the tools I need and gives me an awareness and connection to what I have. Because of this process, I now know better the ingredients I have on hand – if someone else hasn’t eaten them yet. 🙂 I now know where everything is, and I now know nothing will fall on my head when I reach for the item at the top of the cabinet. But in looking around at my space, I realized the visual clutter was loud as well. I LOVE home décor. I love bold colors and personal touches and quirky pieces and sentimental mementos. And my home is full of all of it. I want my space to reflect me and feel like home and I’ve tried to do so by filling my home with all of those things. In abundance. 

As I looked around today, I began by pulling everything off the top of my fridge to clean it. Once the plants and lanterns and an old-fashioned flour sifter and a vintage thermos and a speaker and another plant IN a lantern and a couple battery operated lights were down, I wiped down the top of the fridge and replaced the wax paper I use to catch greasy dust. 

I began moving around the room, removing excess as I went. Those little magnetic poetry words on the side of the fridge are so fun…and they also register as mess whenever they catch my eye. Buh-bye. That wall of cookie cutters is filled with some of my favorites – the leg lamp from a family favorite movie, the hammer and house for my favorite non-profit, the snowflakes from my niece’s baby shower – and every time I turn on the mixer, I knock at least one off and they always look slightly messy. Buh-bye, off to baking storage for all of them. I eventually worked my way all around the room. In some spots I edited out just a few things, in some places I removed everything. Some surfaces I left blank, some I put back a few curated favorites, and on some I placed a simple mason jar of plant cuttings or fresh flowers to keep the clutter from thinking it’s a good place to land. 
In the long term, I don’t know what else will stay and what won’t, but I know it was a lot easier to dust, wipe down surfaces and vacuum today and it all feels overall lighter and more peace filled.

Week 2, Day 4: Food

Donna Joy

I wish I had decided to do some kind of “total pounds decluttered” challenge because after today I’m pretty sure I’m getting rid of my basement fridge. It’s an old fridge. Like, almost as old as me, old. It came with this house, and I used it as a second fridge for years. The seals are dying on it and it sucks electricity, so I unplugged it a couple years ago, but I’ve still been using it as storage for non-perishable foods. It’s just out of the way enough that I often forget to check it before shopping, which apparently led to me unintentionally stockpiling 3 ½ bags of brown sugar, a dozen cans of beans and way more packs of dried seaweed than anyone should probably consume (thank you to my middle school and beyond friend for teaching me 3 Korean words and a love of dried seaweed.)

After seeing those (and many other foods) all piled up on my kitchen table, I decided to stop trying to keep track of my stores of food between the basement and the kitchen and only keep food in the kitchen. 

Maybe it’s just because I went through my clothes last week, but as I went through my cabinets, fridge and basement storage, a comparison came to mind. When I cleaned out my closet, there were some clothes that I really liked, but they weren’t part of a complete outfit. That great flowered skirt without a top to match became just another piece of clutter. Likewise, that super interesting ingredient, without a recipe, other ingredients, or a plan to use it, just becomes clutter. No matter how cool juniper berries looked on the “free with purchase” rack at the spice store. 

As I think about getting real about my food, it needs to be not just being more thoughtful about consuming “real” ingredients but also having a real plan for them. Because otherwise, that little jar of red-orange beads that remind you of the beads on top of your favorite sushi are just clutter in your cabinet, not actually an ingredient worth storing. (Was that a little too specific to be relatable?)

Today’s results –

I realized I don’t use pasta sauce enough to warrant keeping all the jars I have. Most of them are heading to my local food pantry.

The ancient fridge will be leaving with the next bulk garbage pick-up

The juniper berries are being added to the menu for this week. I’m planning to try a potato recipe I found online, but if you have any tips or recipes, let me know!

Week 2, Day 3: Table Linens

Donna Joy

I started with my table linens today. Following my now habitual routine, I brought everything out from various hiding places and stacked it all on the dining room table. (Except for the couple outdoor tablecloths I keep stored on the patio. I’m all for making this a complete assessment…but not enough to shovel out a couple feet of snow to bring those ones in.)

What at first glance looked like a pile of tablecloths, runners, napkins, etc., were also memories of special dinners, family moments and parties. I held up a pair of green tablecloths I had purchased for a graduation party because they matched the school colors and thought, “St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, I should keep these out to use for dinner that day.” As I started to set aside the tablecloths, my brain flashed back to a conversation with my family a year or two ago. 

We were at a party and my step-sisters and sister-in-law were joking about how they were going to show up to the next event wearing on-theme, over-the-top costumes. I glanced around  and recognized that my sister and I, as well as a few other family members, had dressed to match the colors of the party. Technically, we hadn’t coordinated, or even discussed, our matching outfits. We hadn’t texted, emailed, or talked about coordinating, but we knew the colors and theme of the party and had spent so many years coordinating events with every detail on theme, we habitually coordinated our clothing as well. If I gave it any thought, I likely considered this a fun little tradition. As my sister’s family says, “we love a good theme.”

In that moment however, I realized that our clothing choices were not serving to support a fun party environment, they were uniforms signaling membership in an exclusive club. ‘On Wednesdays we wear pink’ and at parties we dress on theme. My choices were making the people I wanted to build relationships with feel excluded.

Sorting through my stack of linens today brought flashbacks of other unintended exclusions.

The dinner party I hosted a number of years ago, where I set out china and shiny cloth napkins, fresh flowers and candles. When it came time to eat, my normally boisterous guests sat down stiffly, gingerly touching only what they needed to touch and eating in uncharacteristic quietness. My extravagance created a barrier. I was not honoring and including my guests. I was showing off, and they were uncomfortable. 

I love exploring creativity through event planning and gatherings of all sizes and purposes. I love crafting all the big extravagances and little touches that can spark delight. I still want events like that to be a part of my life but in a way that is welcoming and inclusive of my guests, not shining a spotlight on my talents, skills, and possessions. 

I’ve decided I don’t need to hold onto green tablecloths for St. Patrick’s Day. Not just because I don’t need to dedicate storage space for them, but because I don’t need an arsenal of color coordinated linens, clothes or anything else to host a welcoming gathering. I don’t need 12 shiny yellow cloth napkins and a collection of fancy table runners to show guests I care. The reality is, instead of fostering an environment of interactions, they more often fostered environments of self-conscious fears about fatal run-ins between satin and tomato sauce. I’ll still use cloth napkins, a habit I began a few years ago in an effort to reduce waste, but I’m sticking mostly to my collection of inexpensive bandanas, instead of fussy napkins.

Week 2, Day 2: Appliances and Baking Supplies

Donna Joy

Oof. Today blindsided me. 

Like, I knew I had a lot of appliances and baking supplies. I knew I probably didn’t need it all.  (probably??? I think it’s safe to say, definitely.)

I started by pulling out my appliances. Not the ones built into my kitchen, but the waffle makers, crock pots, blenders, and spiralizers. The vacuum sealer from the year everyone in my family bought everyone else a vacuum sealer. The salad spinner, apple-peeler-corer-slicer and food mill. They were stashed in the kitchen, the hall closet, and the basement.  I thought I might write about the instant pot I bought on a black Friday sale two years ago and have never used as anything but a crock pot.

And then I moved to my baking supplies, which are stored in the basement near a cabinet full of party supplies. Ooh, Party Supplies! I have often joked that my sister and I can throw together an event in a moment’s notice at any time with the stock of supplies we keep on hand. We could…and we have…numerous times. It’s fabulous. Until it’s not. 

I realized in looking at my storehouses of supplies how I have moved from a posture of preparedness, to a posture of planning for failure. I’m no longer just planning ahead I’m preparing for a failure to plan ahead.

I know the stress of running through the scrapbook aisle of the craft store the day before a child’s English class scrapbook project is due, so for years I kept stocks of stickers and fancy papers in our desk.

I remember the stress of leaving for a party and realizing I never bought a card, so I keep a box full of assorted cards.

I’ve experienced the stress of finding a note in the bottom of a bookbag announcing the teacher appreciation breakfast Wednesday morning – on Tuesday night, so I keep stocks of muffin liners and party goods in school colors.

What should be living spaces have been co-opted for storage. Not due to reasonable cycles of planning ahead (like a second tube of toothpaste) but because I am literally planning for failure. Worse, I’m modeling this and enabling my kids not to plan.

Through my stockpiling I’m basically saying, it’s ok not to plan for these occasions, it’s ok not to give me notice of what’s coming up, there’s a safety net of random crap taking up space all over the house that will get us through. And the irony is, all that extra stuff around my house seeps in to take up room in my brain, to take up time stockpiling and organizing, making it harder to plan ahead appropriately.

It even seeped in and distracted this post. Ugh.

The waffle irons and instant pot stayed. I love Norwegian waffles and sausage kale soup (not together.)

A lot of the cupcake wrappers and other supplies which supported last-minute rescues joined the ever growing donate pile.

The self-reflection and resulting knowledge that came through today’s process, I hope it stays. Especially when I get to the party supplies. 

Challenge Week 2, Day 1: Dishes

Donna Joy

This week I’m focusing on “How I Eat” – everything from my dishes, to the space I cook in, to what I buy and how I prepare to eat.

My process has developed a rhythm:

         Pull everything out of its home and make a pile in the middle of the room
         Begin to evaluate
         Suddenly remember where I have stored more items in this category
         Retrieve those items and add them to the pile
         Begin evaluating again
         Bag/box up culled pieces 
         Return surviving items to their homes and try to figure out how on earth they all fit before

Today is dishes – plates, cups, serving pieces, etc. and my process was the same. Empty everything from my cabinets onto the kitchen table. Remember that I have dishes stored in the basement. (I may have progressed to keeping all seasons of clothes in my room, but my dishes still swap out of basement storage from the Friday after Thanksgiving till sometime after New Year’s.)  Retrieve basement dishes. Begin process again. Send children to round up the stacks of dishes stashed in their bedrooms and other places. Wait for them to wash and dry those dishes. Begin process again. 

Most of the actual evaluation process centered on recognizing where I really am in this season of life. I keep 20 dinner plates in my cabinet. I had also been storing a set of inexpensive china, my Christmas dishes and assorted other pieces like the melamine plates I pull out for summer parties. I bought those 20 dinner plates because there was a time in my life when it was not uncommon to have at least that many people over for dinners and parties. Now is not that time. I think it’s been at least two years (well before Covid) since I’ve hosted more than 10 people. The only thing 20 dinner plates in my cabinet accomplishes now is helping my kids get away with stashing plates in their room for way longer than I want to think about. Especially now that we don’t have a dishwasher, I want to limit my dishes so we get in the habit of washing, drying and putting away our own dishes immediately. Well, that’s the goal, anyway. #dreamBIG. 

I recently donated the china. It wasn’t something I felt like I needed to keep dedicating space to. As for the Christmas dishes, I realized over the last few years, I’ve been bringing up my dinner plates and a small sampling of other pieces – not the whole collection – to mix in with my everyday white dishes. It gives the festive touch I like without me spending a day swapping and washing an entire cabinet full of dishes.  So I’m donating everything but those pieces I’ve already been prioritizing. 

I’m not ready to say I’m done with larger gatherings at my house, so I kept a handful of plates and bowls in my cabinet and moved the rest to the now emptier cabinet in the basement housing my Christmas dishes. 

Nothing today was earth shattering or drastic, but when I went to serve dinner tonight, I grabbed a serving bowl from the cabinet. I didn’t grab a serving bowl and remove all the bowls stacked inside it. I didn’t move something out of the way to grab the serving bowl. I just reached up and grabbed a serving bowl. That moment (and all the times it will be repeated) was worth the day’s work. 

On Wednesdays We Reflect: Week 1 Reflections

Donna Joy

Over the past week, I’ve begun filling my son’s room with all the items I’ve boxed and bagged for donations. He’s away at college, and so his room seemed the best place to store them. The common wisdom in decluttering is to get donations out of your house immediately, so they don’t become just differently-located clutter and so you’re not tempted to pull things back out of the bag. I’ve followed this advice before, but for this season I want to see the pile.

I had a friend many years ago who stuck a pound of butter in the freezer for every pound of weight she lost. This would totally backfire for me, as I would see the pile of butter and immediately begin planning out recipes to use it…but the visual was motivating for her. Any time she was frustrated at having “only” lost a pound between weigh-ins, she would hold a box of butter and think, “last week I was walking around with this on my body. Now I’m not. That’s significant.”

There’s an element of wanting to see that significance in why I’m keeping the donates for now. When I bring a bag to the donation center, it’s gone. I don’t have to think about it anymore. That quick release can be freeing. But it can also be an escape. Once I drop a bag off, I’m released from the stuff, and also from facing how much I accumulate and why I accumulated it. Immediately getting rid of donate bags can be getting rid of the evidence instead of getting rid of the problem.

Because the “stuff” is likely not the problem. Stuff is more often a symptom of a problem, so getting rid of stuff alone is often just managing symptoms.

Uncovering real can’t become symptom management, it needs to look past the symptoms, uncovering the underlying conditions of my heart.  
In order to understand the magnitude of the problem, I want to sit with the magnitude of the tangible stuff. I want to celebrate the pound of victory butter in my fridge, and also acknowledge all the extra pounds I’ve been storing up, and the realities which allowed it all entry into my space.

This week I’m sitting with seven bags – the ashes which remain of purses I thought would make my life easier, shoes on too good a sale to resist, and clothes I hoped would make me beautiful and accepted, along with items which were once appropriate and even necessary, but for a life I no longer have. 

I’m letting go of what I don’t need in this season, letting it turn to ash so I can sit in humility, mortality, and intimacy, preparing to receive what’s next.