I am
not the tidy mother. I never was a tidy person.
Yet somehow - I was 95% organized! Birthday parties, therapy meetings, groceries, picking/dropping kids off etc - got that on lock down!
But my home is a constant state of
"I only invite my closest dearest friends over because I know they've accepted my mess and me as I am."
So that has limited me to two gals - my neighbour (who happens to be my birthday twin) and my "Bae" - as I refer to her in my
NSFW videos on Facebook.
Lately, I've been visiting the boyfriend ("J") who happens to live 4.5 hours away from me - because naturally any boyfriend I had locally simply didn't work out...and I noticed that despite me sitting on a bus for 4.5 hours (half of which consists of a nap) I realized that I love going there and hated coming back because my home is a mess.
It does not smell! But it's cluttered beyond belief!
The only one that enjoys the mess is probably Peppi - my cat. And that means
everything is an adventure and it's a natural jungle gym inside for her.
My children have accepted and gotten used to my mess and have even bluntly pointed it out to me:
"Your house is always messy. Daddy's home is only a little messy but Daddy always cleans."
And at first I was shocked my M-Girl said this to me so matter-of-factly. But it's true. And from a 4-year old - that's pathetic.
So I decided today that enough is enough. I am done with living in a home that resembles Martha Stewart's nightmares.
I don't know how many times I have folded my laundry in piles - with the mindset to put it away and then something happened with the kids and poof. My laundry ended up all over the floor again.
Or I would get a text from friends asking me to go meet them downtown for a coffee (aka McDonald's) or go for a walk and I jumped on the bus right away.
Not saying it's my friends faults - it's my decision obviously to not stay at home and save money too!
There's a saying that cleaning your home while children live there is like brushing your teeth and eating Oreos at the same time - pointless.
And it so very much is.
BUT! My home needs it. I really need to rent a table at the local second-hand store and just BIFF it all!
(No idea who else says "biff" but I mean toss it all!)
I have friends that are all about the magic of minimalism life style - and seeing as I live in a country that is all about minimal living for nearly 9 years - I
should be prone to doing this too!
So where do I start?
- I am renting a table at the second-hand store and I doubt I'll get a table right away - so I'll have time to sort through everything in the mean time.
- In Finland you rent a table from the store and pay a weekly fee and whatever prices you label your items is the amount of money deposited to your account (minus the fee). So it's a great way to get rid of clothes, kid-related stuff and so on while making some money.
- I am getting rid of it if I don't need that item. It's not about "does it spark joy?" for me...it's more about:
- "Can I live without it?"
- "Have I used this in the last 3 months?"
- "Will I use it again EVER?"
- "Does it have extreme sentimental value?" (most likely not)
- "Can I sell this and make some pocket change to go toward things I genuinely need?" (Example: A Canadian passport renewal is my first goal!)
I should be able to do this and because I want and need to do this - it's going to happen.
As it stands - I am taking my kids for crazy long walks to purposely avoid being at home in the clutterville we live in and also because it's good exercise and the V-Man doesn't poop in his diapers in public!
That and it's summer holidays and they're home with me for a whole week - so to reduce screen time and making more mess - we get out and walk, explore and hit up Pokémon Go to motivate them!
And I mean minimum 15km walks which may sound nutty but I want to get more fit, they need to get tired and I don't want to use the bus cards unless necessary (or the weather is absolutely terrible!).
So now that I know how I plan to do things - what's the next step?
When will I declutter?
- When the kids are asleep. It's not like I watch a lot of TV or movies when I am alone anyway.
- When the kids are awake - I can do some things too.
- When the kids are at their dad's - that's prime time!
What are the perks of decluttering my home?
I seriously had to think about this - as I look around from my little spot on the sofa...but here it goes!
- More space. This is obvious. I live in a single bedroom flat with 3 kids, a cat and a medium-sized dog (who is actually living with my boyfriend so I don't need to hound my friends to walk him and care for him while I'm out of town).
- Clear the air. No, my home doesn't stink. But when there's so much clutter - it can be hard to focus. Hard to think and hard to motivate myself to do anything honestly!
- I can work out at home. I don't have massive gym equipment folks. Just stretchy bands, a yoga mat, a pair of barbells and some other things that are buried somewhere... I could do a pretty intense workout if I had space. I could even quit going to the gym and just work out from home easily. I would save 20€/month in doing so.
- I can have people over. I mean proper knitting nights (I know I am so exciting), friends, host my kids' birthday parties without shame and maybe have the boyfriend and his kiddo over.
- Less stress. Less stress for me, the dog doesn't handle the mess well (he just loves me too much and I make sure he's too tired to care) and of course the kids aren't so stressed.
- It's easier to keep clean once it IS clean. This was a weird one for me to physically accept. Being at a clean and tidy home biweekly has made me want to clean up after myself. Partially because I am the guest (yep even as a girlfriend - I consider myself a guest) and I would think it's terribly rude to leave a mess for the host to clean up constantly!
- We got into a rhythm of cleaning together and doing things to make things flow better. For example, I would cook and he would load the dishwasher. In the morning after walking Loki - I would empty the dishwasher. Just little things that made a difference and continuously kept the household tidy.
- I am helping the environment by selling/donating items instead of tossing them in the trash right away.
- I'll be happier to come home - and not just crawl into bed and sleep away the day to hide from it all.
- I will no longer be embarrassed. Enough said.
So - the big question: Can I do it?
- Absolutely yes. I am very determined in this and am already eyeing my bookshelf to see what I can drop off to the second hand store.
- Yes I have tried selling stuff on Facebook in second-hand groups! It's a lot of work and I haven't sold much. I think it would make more sense to dump a few loads of stuff onto a table and have a larger audience see what I have to offer than to constantly try and plan meetings with different people while I have my kids with me.
- I also live in a university town - so many potential buyers in the group I primarily sell in are students on a tight budget.
You know what else sparked this whole purging idea for me?
I've been job hunting for months now and had even considered moving in with J to cut down on some expenses and work full-time there and travel back and forth to see my kids.
But it was the terrifying thought of "OMG. If we move in together - I'll need to get rid of A----Z!"
Then I realized something magnificent:
I have survived without using most of the things anyway. There may come a day that I'll have to move and if I had to move right now with all of this sh*t - I would be in so. Much. Trouble.
Why the F has it taken me this long to get to this point of frustration? Well, it's better late than never eh?
That's when I continued to scrub my feet, smiled at my idea, read my friend's motivating post on why she keeps decluttering (even after having moved to their new home finally) and figured: "It's a sign."
Not that I wouldn't want to move in with J but the distance is an issue for sure, especially where we both have kids!
So with that said - I am off to register for a table and get a boogie on with this!
XOXO,
BIMU