Five a Day

I'm going to come right out and say the five little words I never thought would leave my lips (fingers?):  my clutter is annoying me. 

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to suddenly turn into a neat freak overnight, but I do feel the need to do SOMETHING.  Lately my kid can't even lay on the couch with her head in my lap because there's only room for one butt on the couch (mine).  I need to make her Halloween costume but there's no room on the kitchen table to lay out fabric.  We did clean a bit before we went on vacation, so it's not as bad as it used to be, but still...

This isn't the first time this has happened, and from time to time I step up my efforts.  But now we're kicking around the idea of moving to a better school district before our daughter starts kindergarten next year, so I'm thinking I should get myself in the moving mindset, even if that doesn't happen.  So I'm coming up with a plan to clear things out little by little, one thing at a time.  Yesterday I cleaned off most of the kitchen table (and will finish today because I HAVE to start on that sparkly purple superhero costume!) and my hubby cleaned the kitchen.  I also somehow found room in the pantry for the 40 pints of applesauce I canned last month. 

I also went through my bookshelf and picked out seven books to donate to the library.  Let's face it.  If it's not on my Kindle , I'm not going to read it.  Lately, I read a paper book once a year, when we're camping.  Otherwise I rarely have time to just sit and read a book.  I read in bed at night in the dark, and the Kindle with the light just makes things so much easier. 

So here's my plan.  Every day I'm going to get rid of five things, either to donate or pass on to a friend or just throw in the garbage or recycle.  If it's paper, it'll be five inches (wow, that's a lot of paper - so maybe one inch of paper and four things?).  And I'm going to stay on top of the mail (that seems to be how my table gets cluttered up so fast!).

I'll be reporting back here from time to time so check back to see my progress!