Clutter Junkie

My name is Brooks, and I am a hoarder.

I'm actually not kidding anymore.  I'm a hoarder.  I hoard.

A hoarder is defined as a person who accumulates things and hides them away for future use.

I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to clean out my closet...just since moving in with Brian.

I always come away with 1 or 2 things to get rid of, {which is a serious accomplishment for me,}  but those things are still in a pile on the floor in my closet...not having been got rid of.

I always think:

"I will definitely wear this again,"

or

"when I lose 10 lbs..."

or

"one day my daughter will love this, I always wish my mom had hung on to her old clothes...this will be vintage one day!"

Now, there are several flaws to my way of thinking.

One, will I really ever wear it again?

It's been in my closet for years.

I rarely touch most of the things hanging in my closet, and I frequently buy new clothes...and when I want to find something to wear I go to the pile of clean clothes in the laundry because that is where my favorite things are because there isn't room for them in my closet full of old clothes.  

Two, some of the clothes I'm holding on to for my future skinny self are from several pounds ago, which means that they are several years old.

Let's be honest, if I ever do reach my goal weight, I'm not going to be dying to wear that dress from Old Navy I got the summer before I went away to college.

Third, clothes have changed since our mothers were our age, y'all.  I have a feeling that my favorite blouse from Target isn't going to hold up as well as my mom's vintage Lilly Pulitzer dress did.  I'm just sayin'.

So, it's not just my closet {our closet} that suffers from my hoarding.  Our office is a MESS.  It's where all of the boxes of things that I'm just not sure what to do with have ended up since the move.

I just finished my vanity-to-desk makeover and it is so beautiful...but I can't really enjoy it, {or even show you pictures of it,} because there is zero organization happening in that room.

Well, on my side of that room.

Suddenly I am vividly aware of what it was like for my type-A sister to share a room with me while we were growing up because I see it on the face of my type-A fiancé.

Thus, there are several factors that lead me to this blog:

Laura Wittman is my new hero.

She's amazing, her blog is amazing, {and SO well organized} and her book, Clutter Rehab, which I immediately ordered from Amazon and received today, is amazing.

I've already almost finished it and it has already inspired me to make some changes and to hop onto my computer and tell you all about it!

I am officially instituting Organizational Wednesdays.  It's happening.

This means that each week I will tackle a mess in our home and tell you all about how I did it.

This also means that I am going to have to get really honest with myself and probably show you all some pretty embarrassing pictures.  But so be it.

I'm going to do it because it needs to be done.

I'm doing it because I don't want to be this overwhelmed in my own home anymore.

And I'm doing it because I made a promise to myself when Brian and I decided to move in together that I would make our home a beautiful and peaceful place to live, {and for him to study} and I haven't been living up to that promise.

So, for our inaugural Organizational Wednesday post, I decided to tackle something small that I felt represented just how ridiculous my current situation is.

The small cabinet in our bathroom.

Okay, so I'm sorry about the poor lighting, but this idea really did occur to me about an hour ago while I was reading Clutter Rehab and I started to wait until tomorrow for better light...but I decided that that would only lend to my procrastination problem and to forge ahead!

So, this is the small cabinet in our bathroom.  Pretty cute.  Could use a coat of paint.  I added those decorative pulls to it, {which you may recognize from my dresser makeover.}

I like it because it's so much extra space for our bathroom.

Are you kidding me?  Here's what I have in this cabinet:

Okay, so this is actually happening.

Let's take it one shelf at a time...

Up top: 

- We've got a couple of Brian's hats, which can be found squatting in a few different places around the apartment and which need to find a permanent place to live.  

- We've also got a jewelry box of mine that has mismatched earrings and some old watches in it.

- And a bottle of sunscreen that I got out on Saturday and never put back.

Okay, top shelf:

- There's that box of Emergen-C that I was looking for last week and couldn't find!

- A bottle of spray gel for my hair that I do sometimes use...why it's right there, though, I don't know.  I actually thought that I was out because I actually do have a basket under the sink for all of my hair products but this, for some reason, landed here.

- Wax strips.  Moving on.

- An old plastic soap dish with a suction cup for the shower.

- And a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide.

On the middle shelf:

- A box of saline solution packets for my Neti Pot, which I keep in another drawer.

- A chart for my weight loss that I made months ago and used maybe twice.  {Now I use the dry-erase calendar that we have on our refrigerator...just didn't want you to think I'd completely abandoned the idea, Dr. Oz.}

- And the As Seen on TV "Easy Feet: A Foot Bathing Revolution!" that was in my Christmas stocking from Brian last year.  

And down on the bottom:

- Curlers.  Which, again, I always think I will definitely use someday.  Seriously?  I honestly don't think I've ever actually used these.  I just can't see myself doing my hair with curlers...like, ever.

- And, finally, two ingredients to a bath soak recipe that I found on Pinterest but haven't gotten around to buying the remaining ingredients for.

This is how I'm using "all that extra space" for our bathroom.

Needless to say, I need Clutter Rehab.

So, get ready for next week's Organizational Wednesday, because this cabinet is going to be transformed into a useful space.

Until then, here's a peek at what I've been working on this week.

Hope you're ready.