Clearing the Hurricane Season Clutter and Then Some

Brrrrr... it was a chilly morning when I went out to retrieve the newspaper today. Okay so it was in the low 40s, but down here in the south, that's pretty darned cold. But, next week it's likely to be warmer - ya just never know.

When I was working, I remember what a dread it seemed for everyone when Mondays would roll around. After a weekend of catching up with chores at home, chauffeuring children around here and there, hopefully sleeping in a little later, maybe even squeezing in some fun and heaven forbid, relaxing a bit, Monday always rolled around far too quick and then it was back to the Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 grind. Now though with being a full time homemaker these days, Mondays seem like a fresh start to do-over my homemaking failures that I missed the mark on the week before. So today I am working on a bit of decluttering and I started in my office.

Even though hurricane season is not “officially” over until November 30th, today all of the evacuation supplies that were cluttering up my office space are put away until next year. Yea! You see, when the first hurricane threat surfaces, we gather everything together that we want to take with us should we need to evacuate and put it all in one spot. This involves several storage boxes full of batteries, tarps, a radio, portable tv, flashlights, a few simple tools, kitchen supplies, paper products, a container for dog food, leashes, a container for cat food, and one for cat litter, photo albums, any precious mementos, the "important papers" file box, and well, the list goes on and on and on. If Katrina taught us anything it is that if you can't replace it and its important to you, bring it with you when you leave.

And while it is certainly much easier to keep everything in one place until the threats are gone, my house is small, and there really isn’t a good space to store all of this together in one spot without encroaching on another space. So there it has all been sitting out in front of the bookcases in the spare bedroom that I call my office, and of course, clutter multiplies, so that clutter was joined by other clutter, and then the desk goes to pot, and the whole darned room just starts closing in on me. Clutter, I am certain, does something to my brain because I have found it impossible to get any work done in there on my coursework, so it made sense that I should tackle that space first.

Now while I'm cleansing my soul I might as well confess this here. The only other spare bedroom in my house is nothing less than a total disaster. It has virtually become a giant junk drawer where everything having no home falls. Now, considering the fact that this house really doesn't have a good storage solution and no easy access to the attic, using that room as storage really isn't a big issue for me, though I would much rather put it to better use really. Part of the problem is that the shelving in the closet in that bedroom was not installed correctly by the builder way before I lived here and has since collapsed. Another problem is that there is a bunk bed futon in that room leftover from “that other relationship” that I no longer need, and which as you can imagine, takes up a large part of the space in that room. So get rid of it you say? Well, I can't just go in there, clean it off and disassemble it, because I discovered that when it was delivered and set it up years ago, the guys who brought it, welded it together! So it sits there now just collecting “stuff,” including my clothes which now hang on the rails of the bed. What a disaster, but that is for another time. Baby steps. The interesting thing is that this room in the feng shui way of thinking would represent my career I believe. Hmmmm.... something to think about there.

The good news is that long ago I learned that clutter in the bedroom is a big no-no, and can create major stress and insomnia problems. I can safely say in all honesty that my bedroom is clutter free!

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