Friday, April 29, 2011

Clean Slate -- Part Deux

I did it!  I cleaned my slate (see my post yesterday "Clean Slate") this morning.  It took 50 minutes to pack it all up and move it to another room.

It was scary. What if there was a bill on my desk I haven't paid yet? What if I put the card reader in a box and couldn't find it? These are thoughts that were running through my mind the entire 50 minutes. I think these are self-imposed road blocks. The fact that I need to have these things is a good reason to clean out the junk so I have space for the stuff that's really important in my life.

I also observed that I when I got to the closet, my first thought was, "well, everything is up off the floor, I don't really need to clear the closet out."  I quickly realized this was part of my problem. Clean slate means clean slate.  Everything.  It all has to go somewhere else.  So, I brought boxes in and placed everything from the closet into boxes.

There were many things in my closet that need to be placed in the yard sale I'm planning to have. This is an excellent way to get them into the yard sale boxes. If I had left stuff on my closet shelves, it would defeat my purpose.

My next step will now be to spend 50 minutes every morning going through as many boxes as I can in that amount of time to separate what I want to keep, sell or throw away. It's doubtful there is much to throw away but I'm going to keep an open mind. It shouldn't take me very many mornings to get through them. I'll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, I've brought my iRoomba upstairs to let her do her work on my dusty floor. I swept it this morning but the Roomba picks up the grit that gets down into the cracks of the wood floor. Gene says he notices a difference when I don't run her often enough.

It feels really good to have wiped my slate clean with this room. I think it's going to be so much more pleasant for me to sit in here and use my light table for creating cards and such. I've found that I have gotten careless with my card making because everything was such a mess and I just felt cluttered and that doesn't help me feel creative.  I have several rooms that need to be clean slated but I'm going to just stay in today. One room at a time!

Thanks for reading! I feel like I've aired a little of my dirty laundry here but if it helps someone else create a clean slate, then it's worth it to me.

love, susan 

2 comments:

  1. Very inspirational, Susan. I need to do something similar with my studio/office. A do-over turned into Oops-I-need-more-bookcases-and-storage-drawers-but-I-have-no-more-space situation. So, I keep tripping over books, and boxes, paper trimmers, printers, and having to dig for things packed in boxes. Maybe I need to give away more books? :D

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  2. See my blog. Your mess was nothing compared to mine but our feelings were the same....and everyone is different. I love your space! It does feel so good and I say GOOD FOR YOU, my friend!!! Huggs for a great job done!

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