Welcome to My Messy House

The board update has to wait until my semester is over (a little less than a month.) The board has thousands of posts, and I don’t want to lose any of them, so I need to make sure this goes smoothly.

I’m still decluttering. This week, I’m working on the linen closet, which has become a catch-all. I’m going to write an article about the linen closet once I’m done, and even post pictures!

I’ve gotten a lot of old paper, cardboard, magazines, and clothes out of the house. I have a long way to go, but I can see the progress when I look around. The house is currently “messy” (thanks to the linen closet project), but not suffocating. The emptier spaces around the mess help show that the mess is temporary.

Hi again! If you got an email from the My Messy House forums, but cannot log in, take heart! I’m still working on upgrading the boards (target is this weekend.) Once the new boards are up and the moderators are comfortable, we will open registration. If you have not been active in the past year, your account might not exist any more, but you are welcome to re-register! I’ll post a heads up when the new boards are up.

Today, I gained some organizing stuff (folders and folding storage boxes) and got rid of two boxes of magazines (recycling) and a bag of clothes (Goodwill.) I also worked more on my corner of the living room. I’m trying to spend less than an hour a day on decluttering (so I can make it a daily habit) and about half an hour on declutter/maintenance. I’ve started washing down the bathroom after I’m done getting ready in the morning. With the counters all clear (except for the clock, handsoap, and electric toothbrush), it’s really easy to clean up. I also cleared the edge of the tub so all that’s on there is my current shampoo (I can tend to be a product junkie, but that’s another habit I’m decluttering), DH’s shampoo, and my bodywash. That makes it really easy to clean. Sadly, the bathroom is not done… I still have to do under the sink, but that’s two days’ worth of work and right now I’m just skimming the surface and grabbing the easy stuff.

A really inspiring site I have found is Zen Habits. I spent a while this weekend reading a lot of the archives and I’ve added it to my daily reads for inspiration.

I’m still working on the new forum software. It’s taking forever to export the old board! If I’m not done by tomorrow (Monday), I’ll reopen the old board for current members and keep trying to get the new one up.

Today, I did not buy anything.

I decluttered the bathroom counter a bit more and cleaned out the medicine cabinet so DH’s supplies could fit in there. I have three tubs of moisturizer I need to use up! It’s crazy!

I also decluttered the magazines in the bathroom. Set aside most of them for recycling.

Tomorrow, I intend to bag up the leather shoes and purses that I can get to easily in my bedroom and take them to Goodwill (or at least get them into the Jeep!) along with the two bags of donation clothes I have waiting in the bedroom.

Hello! I’m so glad you’re still reading. I have to admit I had gotten into a bit of a messie rut in the past year. I haven’t had time to maintain this site (it seems like every time I log on, I have to update something!)

About a month ago, I started working on clearing certain spaces in my house. I’m usually pretty good at keeping a neat desk at work, so I decided to transfer that to my home. I started with the bathroom counter. I’ve been able to successfully keep it mostly clear for a few weeks now (except when I’m drying my hand-washed hand-knitted socks.) Now, I’m going to work on my area of the living room, which often becomes a mountain of books I’m reading for school. I’m going to completely clear it over the next week and work on keeping it completely clear whenever I am not actually working.

I’m also working on getting stuff out of my house. I have a lot of things to take to Goodwill and the library sale. I should document them in pictures while I am getting them out of the house.

If you have tried to post a comment here and have gotten an error, don’t worry– your comment has gone into the moderation queue. I just approved a bunch, so you should see your comment soon. I need to update the software, but I can only do so much at once. Thanks for your patience!

Have you heard of this book, “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder (How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place)”? It sounds wonderful. Apparently, the authors’ premise is that a little bit of messiness makes the world a better place. Slightly messy people are apparently more flexible and have more time (because they’re not spending every minute putting things away.) I think they have a point. I have a wonderful Cleanie friend I’ve mentioned before here. She often told me that she was envious of the cool things I did, like taking college classes, writing stories, crocheting… things like that. I think she felt trapped by her high expectations of cleanliness. Her house was beautiful and clean and organized, but sometimes, I think she felt like that was all she had.

I’m trying to be a better Messie. Now that I have created enough good, healthy cleaning habits, I’m trying to relax about the rest of the mess. I want my kids to bring their friends over without me having a heart attack. My house will never meet my imaginary standard of how a house is supposed to look, so I need to accept that sometimes, there will be mail on the table, a few dishes in the sink, some books by my chair. I think I need that book. It might help after a steady diet of Anti-Mess books.

What do you think? Is a little bit of messiness a good thing?