Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

This month’s Ask The Organizer column at 5MinutesForMom by my decluttering inspiration angel Jessica Duquette is fantastic, I suggest you all go read it.  As you might know, I’ve been on a mission to declutter my entire house for two months now (and still counting), and that’s what her column -and this post-is about.

It’s been a long, hard road and it’s nowhere near being done.  To be honest, at times you can’t even tell that anything *has* been done.  It’s going to be months before it’s finished, because I’m doing it myself.  I would love to be able to afford having Jessica and her team come help, but at the same time I’d be mortified to let her into the house, lol.

Anyhow, as I’ve been going along, I’ve learned a lot. I want to share some of these things with you, just in case it might help.

Create a sanctuary.
The first thing you should do when tackling an entire house is pick a room to be your “sanctuary”. It should be something you can declutter, clean, and organize quickly to get yourself revved up, but also so that you can go in there whenever the reality of the whole-house tackle is getting you down.  This might be your bedroom (which really *should* be your sanctuary by the time you’re finished), or even the smallest room in the house. For me, it was the bathroom.  Our bedroom was a major project that I wasn’t ready for yet, but the bathroom and the closets in the hall I could do quickly. In just a day I had those done, and then whenever the rest of the project started weighing on me, I could go into the bathroom, close the door, and just relax and appreciate all of its uncluttered-ness.  Doing that would boost me up and remind me of how great it’s going to feel when everything is done.

Focus on “creating space”, not “decluttering things”.
Here’s where I get a bit Law Of Attraction oriented on you.  I started my project with the aim of decluttering my house.  For the first two weeks I went like gangbusters. But the more I worked, the more I found to declutter! It was strange.  When I got to the point where you could really see that I’d made an incredible amount of progress, I suddenly got the urge to pull out all of the stuff we’d been storing in the upper level of my parents’ (huge) workshop and go through it, even though the house was nowhere near being finished! I spent a weekend at their house going through the stuff there, and ended up filling up a motorcycle trailer with stuff that we were either going to keep or just needed to go through more thoroughly. We brought the trailer home, unloaded it, and BAM - my house was a total wreck again.  Boxes everywhere, hard to find a place to sit, and a visually insurmountable, overwhelming task facing me every time I woke up.  I started to slide back into my “it’s all too much, why am I even bothering” mode; and that’s when it hit me: I was sliding back into my comfort zone and had attracted more stuff to declutter to myself to get there.

Because I was focusing on decluttering, rather than creating space, I naturally and unconciously found more things to declutter. Folks who’ve watched The Secret will know what I mean when I say that the Universe found a way to put more clutter into my path - because that’s what I was focusing on and that’s what I wanted to do - declutter!  It was also more comfortable for me to stay in my misery, surrounded by my stuff (and as Jessica will tell you, it’s not about your stuff, your “stuff” is actually a visual representation of deeper issues), than it was to step into a different world where I was in control, rather than my stuff being in control of me.

Once I realized that (and it took about two weeks of having all of this extra stuff piled around for me to have this realization), I was able to face those extra piles with determination and change my focus to CREATING SPACE.  The extra boxes from storage still aren’t completely done, but they’re getting there.

Also, once you change your focus to “creating space”, you’ll start to recognize and appreciate more the space you’ve already made. It won’t be “god, I’ve still got SO much to do,” but instead will be “man, look at how far I’ve come!”

So be careful about what you focus on - trust me, you don’t want more clutter coming your way!  (If you get a sudden urge to bring everything down from the attic, up from the basement, in from the shed, or bring home all the stuff from the storage unit to go through -and it’s a true, overwhelming URGE to do it NOW, rather than waiting for the time you planned to tackle that part of the project- then ask yourself if you’re really focusing on clutter or space. My bet is, you’re focusing on clutter and finding a way to re-clutter the space you’ve already cleaned out so that you can get back into your own comfort zone.

Try to do one room, or one “group” of rooms at a time.
Trying to do the entire house at once made me feel like a chicken with its head cut off. I’d clear some space in my office, start working on the library, and the stuff coming out of the library would fill up my office again. Working in the library filled up the utility room more, too. Moving into the utility room made me push things back into the library so I could have room to sort… and it was a vicious circle.
Work on one room at a time (you’ll probably want to pick the room you’re in the most, like your kitchen, dining, or living room to start with after you’ve created your sanctuary), and once that room is completely done, move on.  If you’re like me and have stuff scattered all over the house that goes in other rooms, you might find this to be near-impossible. In that case, create groupings of rooms - like all of the bedrooms are one group, the living/dining/kitchen is another group, etc.  Make a space in each group for things that are inbound from other rooms. Warning: this space might get emptied out and re-filled many times before you’re done! But that’s okay - that’s what it’s there for. It’s a temporary holding station, so that inbound stuff doesn’t get just thrown willy-nilly wherever it will fit and you’ll find yourself starting all over again in that room/group.

Remember that you didn’t do this alone, it took a village.
(Okay, so this might not hold true if you’re single, but I figure I’m mostly talking to other Moms here, lol.)
Once a room is clean, make a promise to yourself -and keep it!- that nothing else will come into the room unless there is already a place for it.  You’ll need to make this clear to your family too, as they’ll be in the habit of saying “oh, this is Mom’s, I’ll just toss it onto the <whatever> in her office/bedroom”. 

It took a village -your family- for the house to get this way.  The whole family will need to be re-trained, not just you.  As you clear some space, be sure to show it off to everyone. When you do, look everyone squarely in the eye and let them know, bar-none, that this is not an open spot to pile anything that anyone doesn’t have the time or inclination to put away properly.  Explain the system that you’ve worked out for the space/room, and run everyone through it at least once.

What’s even better is if you can garner some help from your “village”, so that they get in on the excitement and pride of making it look better. When they actually put some effort into it themselves, they’re less willing to mess it up again.

I’m sure I’ll learn more as I go along. It’s been a long, LONG process so far but it’s working. The boys were fighting me tooth and nail, but now they’re finally starting to come around. (I said starting, not are happily and willingly joining in, lol.)  Tonight I knew I was even rubbing off on the hubby when I frowned at his pile of stuff on the table (lunch bag, laptop, medicine pouch, papers, and his jacket hanging over the kitchen chair) and said “This isn’t working. You need some sort of a landing strip to put all of this stuff”… and he actually agreed with me!  Okay, after he agreed he started to defend himself and argue that he *had* been putting the stuff away before his office got so stuffed full of his tools (which I firmly refute he had NOT been doing, and the boys will attest to that since they often were the ones who ended up having to clean his junk off of the table before dinner), but at least for a moment there, he agreed with me. It was a sliver of victory, and you bet I’ll take it!

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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• that my boys have taken up their interest in Runescape again, which means they don’t want to go to other, questionable, game sites as much
• that we have a gas stove. I love our gas stove.
• that I found a great grocery-planning program for my Palm thanks to a WFMW entry
• my husband “gets” me, most of the time
• that my boys don’t go to public school, so I can sit here at 4am writing this post and not have to worry about being up in 2 hours to get them ready

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!

Every day I visit a few blogs that I would find it hard to live without, and numerous times during the week I venture out and try to give encouragement to other bloggers I’m not so familiar with but who’ve joined in on one of the blogging carnivals I participate in.

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the fact that the majority of the bloggers in all of my carnivals are devoutly christian women.  Not “casual” christians, but very VERY devout women. There’s a full range of them; from the sweet graceful women who thank God for little things and turn to Him in times of need, to the ones who have biblical quotes about how filthy and sinful we are in their blog’s headers and even ticking, counting tolls of how many souls have gone to Hell just in the time I’ve had their blog page loaded.  Their commenters are mostly christian also, ranging from a simple “I’m praying for you” to saying that this week’s shooting at Virginia Tech happened because God is persecuting us all for being so sinful; that the shooter’s hand was actually God’s hand striking down the children at Virginia Tech, rather than the concious choice of one man to carry out something so heinous.

Sometimes it’s intimidating, because there are some things I’d like to join in on but I really feel like I’m not Christian enough.  Like tonight, I found two memes about being thankful: Thankful Thursdays and One Thousand Gifts. I’ve been wanting to start putting things that I’m thankful for every day onto my blog and have been looking for a way to do it that wouldn’t bore my readers to death. (I don’t have many, but would like to keep the ones I have!)  Looking around those two beautiful blogs and seeing all of the quoted Scripture, the general feel of the blog… I just get the feeling that they wouldn’t want me around. Because I’m not Christian enough.

I had a friend once who believed that all people were Christians; it’s just that some were what she called “Pre-Christian”. Christian in their hearts but not yet saved. It was a sweet sentiment. Whenever I see someone online blaming pagans for all of the world’s ills and just generally going down that “pagan/Wiccan=evil satanist” path (which is a misnomer; Wiccans don’t believe in Hell or the Devil so they cannot therefore be satanists), I think back to my old friend and her attitude of loving everyone and just seeing all people as God’s children. It makes me feel a little better.

You see, I do consider myself to be a pagan. I completely embrace the Wiccan crede, “an if it harm noone, do as thou wilt”.  I have a Wiccan name (Raven), and my husband and I were married in a Wiccan ceremony by a High Priestess. However, I also consider myself to be Christian. My husband and I call it “Chriccan”, this multi-religious place that we find ourselves in.  If hard-pressed or challenged though, I just say I’m Wiccan and deal with the recoil and judgement. It’s a lot quicker than trying to explain that I believe in God, I believe in the Ten Commandments, I believe God is all around us and in us and through us and every living thing, and that if you were to sum up the Ten Commandments into one sentence it would be the Wiccan crede… and then at the end have the person recoil and judge me because I mentioned the word Wiccan. I’ve had people literally step off of my front porch and make the sign of the cross, looking at me as if they expected me to turn green and instantly grow warts, just because I said “I’m Wiccan”.

I’ve delved into many different religions, even going so far as to take a Buddhism & Hinduism class in college, and what I’ve come to find is that at the base of all religions, one basic truth stands out: as long as you are causing no one harm, live your life to the fullest, thankful that God (Allah, Buddha, whatever name you choose to call God) has given you this gift of life. Taken at first glance that seems superficial, but if you think about all of the ways that one could cause “harm” to another, there are a myriad of them. Physical, emotional, mental, financial, relational, spiritual - the list goes on.  Don’t take it at first glance; think deeply about it. The simple sentence of “an if it harm noone, do as thou wilt” goes as deep as you’re willing to take it; if you can knock down the walls within yourself and confront the dark places lurking in your heart.  All of the Ten Commandments spelled out, each of them, say basically that: don’t do harm to another.

For me, spirituality and a relationship with God can’t be found in a book. It can’t be found by listening to one man’s interpretation, no matter how fancy or simple the podium is that he’s standing at. All of the different interpretations of the Bible by the different branches of Christianity, by the different “leaders” of Christianity, even by the writers of the Bible themselves - they just confuse the issue, muddy it up. There are contradictions within the Bible itself, between the different authors of the different “books”. Look at Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans - get them together and they’d literally argue about hundreds of “meanings” of what other Men wrote in the Bible. Pope John Paul said that homosexuality was a sin, yet Pope Benedict is considering saying it’s okay.  It used to be that women couldn’t be Priests or ministers “because God said so” (where in the Ten Commandments is that?), yet now you’ll find female ministers, reverends, preachers and priests everywhere. (I know a lifelong lesbian in Florida who is in a long-term relationship with another woman and who is also a nun. Yes, a real-life, title-given-by-the-church [knowing she is lesbian] nun.  Twenty, even ten years ago she was shunned by her Catholic church, now they give her the title of Nun. How is that?  If something is Truth, then it cannot simply change because a different Man has taken up the robes of the faith and declared it to be different. What God meant is what God meant.  The Catholics used to excommunicate women who were divorced, even if they did it out of the safety of themselves and their family due to abuse; yet now they embrace divorcees. Why is it that a prior “Truth” is suddenly okay? The only answer I can find is that somewhere along the line, a Man made up these rules, and somewhere further along the line, another Man revoked them. God himself, I believe, would have nothing to say on the subject. A mother’s job is to raise up and protect her children. If that means leaving an abusive husband, so be it. She is protecting God’s children (which includes herself!) from the free will of a Man who chooses to do Harm.

By this time I’ve probably chased away half of my readers; I hope that’s not the case.

It’s just that when I see these devoutly -and sometimes radically- Christian blogs, I feel like an outsider. I delight in seeing these women expressing their faith, I love watching them glow with it. It is beautiful. But I constantly find myself over on that line of “fringe”, for many different things (such as homeschooling, or homebirthing, or even breastfeeding), and my spirituality is one of them.  It’s a lonely place to be, sometimes.

I guess for now I’ll just do a sideblog whenever the urge to be thankful for something hits me, and know in my heart that God *knows* me. All of my quirks, my faults, my weaknesses, and even my multi-religious belief that we’re all praying to the same God no matter what name we give him, and at the core of it all He just wants us to be the best people that we can be. I might be unable to express my spirituality properly in words, but I feel it in my heart; and if it’s there, then He feels it, too. I know he understands me; and after all, that’s all that matters.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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