40 Bags in 40 Days Check In!

Is anyone else participating in the 40 bags in 40 days this year?  I have to admit that I've gotten off to a less than stellar start this year, but it seems to be motivating me to "catch up" since I've only donated 4 bags so far, and they were already filled with stuff even before I started the challenge.  Plus it's spring break so I have more free time to work on the house instead of playing chauffeur all day!  Sooo, as long as I'm decluttering it doesn't matter that my kids are living off Lunchables in their jammies, right!?  Yeah... you can get back to me on that one!

I know I have enough crap to donate, and none of it is currently getting used anyway since I can't find anything, but I have to fight that constant feeling of "needing" that, even if it just wastes away.  I'm trying to break through that cycle and ditch anything that doesn't get used or loved.

As soon as I publish this I am heading down to my hoarder like laundry room to get rid of the "easy" stuff that's just in the way.  Hopefully I'll have some better totals next week!  Clearing out my life one garbage bag at a time sure worked for me last year, and I'm hoping it will again!

Total bags (Week One) 4
Remaining bags             36

How's your 40 bags in 40 days going??

Merit Gone Wrong

Okay, so I totally blew it with the Merit for Moms thing, but who is really surprised?  Life got in the way... I started working a few days a week, the after school activities started again and my family reminded me that they prefer clean dishes to dirty ones.  They're all snooty like that...

Mr.Wright and I have been redecorating the family room to change it from the unloved ex-game room to a room we can all enjoy.  We painted part of the room this fantastic shade of blue that is so buttery you just want to swim in it.  We're still finishing up the painting, and since we had to clear the room to paint all my crap ended up in the garage.  You never really realize how much stuff you have until you have to take it out load by load.  Then you realize that you have a LOT of crap, and since we never hang out down there it's pretty much wasted crap.  Keeping up so far!?

Tomorrow happens to be Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent ( I think, I'm kinda a Catholic drop out!).  Last year for Lent I did 40 Bags in 40 Days and got rid of a different ton of crap (yes, there was MORE crap).  So, starting tomorrow I'll be taking the challenge again.  Since I actually finished that challenge last year it should be more promising than the Merit challenge!

If your interested in joining the 40 bags in 40 days challenge with me link up your progress on Wednesdays (starting tomorrow!) and we can cheer each other on!  I'm excited (and a little disgusted) that after this challenge I will have dumped EIGHTY BAGS of stuff.  Don't tell my husband or he'll just tell you that I have at least 80 more hidden ALL over this house.  Shhh!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 5

I've had a week that just wouldn't stop 'giving' so I totally forgot to post my 40 bags in 40 days update!

I'm really regretting upping my personal challenge to 60 bags last week like a dummy. I'm sure I could do it crap-level wise, but I didn't really account for all these disasters taking up all my free time and energy. I did manage to get a few cabinets in my kitchen decluttered, but other than that the progress has been slow. With the challenge wrapping up next week I'm starting to panic a bit about making the original 40 bag finish line, much less the cocky 60 bag challenge I gave myself.

Here's my updated totals:
Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags
Week 5- 3 bags

Total so far: 38 bags

I still have a coat closet, 2 bathrooms, my bedroom and some stragglers from the big game room cleaning to go through, so my goal is still attainable if I put in the work, but that's a scary place to be when I'm kinda known for not putting work into anything. The good news is that I seem to have a pattern in my decluttering style that allows for one slacking week, then one panicking week. Hopefully the panicking will really kick in on a day when I actually have the time to devote to finishing up!

How is everyone else doing in their quest for less crap?

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 4

28 days in... how are you doing? I didn't get anything bagged up last week so I had a huge week with 2 week's worth of crap ready to get shipped out. Here's my progress:

Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags (10 bags of donations, 5 bags of garbage from the game room, 4 bags of kids clothes to the consignment store)
Day 28 total- 35 bags!!

I've decided to up my goal to 60 bags since I still have SO much stuff to go through. Plus it's a tiny bit more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter anyway. I am THRILLED with my newly cleaned and organized craft space and I can't believe that I robbed myself of that experience just to hold on to *crap* that I don't even miss. Yes, it was a lot of work to sort everything and get rid of it, but it's a lot of work to maintain a ton of crap too.

I'm looking forward to cleaning out my kitchen cabinets and washing them all out this week. Did that really just come out?? I can't wait to grab something out of a cupboard and not have to pull something off the top of it first. And I'm SUPER excited to be able to grab a utensil out of my huge mess of a utensil drawer without playing a minute-long version of Spot The Spatula. Depending on how much time I find for purging and organizing this week I'd also like to hit the bathroom cabinets and the scary pile of junk in my coat closet.

Are you participating in the 40 bags in 40 days challenge? How's it going? How are you feeling about your progress? Did you find anything cool that I may want!? JUST KIDDING... unless it's SUPER cool.

Random Sewing, Organizing, Moose Stuff

Ta-daaaaa!!


After weeks of cleaning, sorting, purging, organizing and stressing my game room is now spot.less. {See the before picture here} 10 more bags of donations were dropped off the other day, and 5 bags of garbage went to the dump this morning. I celebrating by slacking on cleaning anything else and SEWING instead. It's been months since I was able to sew on my sewing table- in fact, when I cleaned off the table I found HALLOWEEN projects on the bottom layer. Halloween, people. It's almost Easter.

Here's the laundry room already buried in 'to be folded' laundry. Notice my new ironing board "cover" that I hot glued on to match my folding table :P



Today I made this adorable ruffled camera strap but made it into a slipcover like I learned how to do here. I attempted my first slipcover way back when I didn't have a TON of fabric, so I used some Hello Kitty scraps just to try it. I ended up leaving it on for a really long time until I finally ditched it and had a naked strap again. And it's been naked. And cold. For a year. Until today.
Please don't look too closely as I don't really have my 'A-game' on...





I also wanted to share our little friend who is stalking us and preventing us from bringing the trash can in the ONE week I really want it. I've gone to get it THREE TIMES and had her there every time. Take note of the "Spring Break" weather we have going on... practically tropical.



I'm taking the weekend off and then starting bright and early Monday morning on kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Maybe.

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 3

I haven't made a whole lot of progress bag wise since last week, but I have made some headway in getting crap sorted into piles that will eventually get bagged up and shipped out. This week has more been focused on getting the laundry room finished so I can put away what I'm keeping, and have a clearer picture of what I realistically have room for. Check out this post for the messy before and the empty before. This is the framed stage:



and how it looked this morning:



As for the rest of the crap... there is SO much that it still looks really bad in there even though I've put tons of stuff away, and donated all that stuff from last week. Here is the 'before' from last week:



And how it looked this morning:



Hopefully I'll make more progress 'bag-wise' this week as I hope to have it all decluttered and finished by next Tuesday. Then I'll FINALLY be able to move on to the more everyday clutter in my kitchen, bathroom, etc. which is strangely more exciting. If you're participating in the 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge leave a comment with your progress!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In Week 2

Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Total- 16 bags



This week was much easier since I pulled out ALL the stuff that's been lurking underneath my stairs. Some of it was even already bagged up and labeled 'donate' and the old me just chucked it back to the depths. I went through a lot of old clothing that was under there 'just in case' and let go of tons of it. Some is going to be donated and some of the nicer kids' clothes are going to a consignment store. Mr. Wright has been very patient with the fact that I turned our game room into this Hoarders-like mess since I pulled everything out and then promptly got too sick to drop it all off at goodwill. Today seems like a good day to leave my house for the first time since Wednesday, so hopefully he'll see an improvement soon!



I'm excited to see all the 'stuff' go and even more excited to get my laundry room finished and painted this week! I'm going to keep working on my remaining 24 bags while working a little Spring cleaning into the mix. I am hopeful that by the time Easter rolls around I'll have a purged, clean and organized house! And Mr. Wright will be a lot happier too, I'm sure...

How are you doing with the 40 bags in 40 days challenge!? Leave a comment with your bag total and anything else you want to share!

40 Bags in 40 Days Check In

How is everyone participating doing with their 40 bags in 40 days decluttering? Leave a comment with how many bags (and of what) you've gotten rid of and how you feel about the process!

I have to admit that I put it off until the weekend, so on Saturday morning I had 4 bags to do already. Luckily I had so much crap in my laundry room that I could throw away that I filled two bags just with garbage, and another with garbage in the playroom.



I've already given a bag's worth of scrapbook stuff and a bag's worth of baby stuff to a friend.




I've been swamping out my Hoarders-like laundry room so the sheet rock can go up today and I couldn't be more excited! Here's the before and after of the clearing out. Most of it is moved somewhere else, but I did get rid of a lot of stuff too!





I can't wait to organize my newly purged scrapbook stash on my planned built-in shelves in my new laundry room. Once I can shuffle some of my stuff back into the laundry room I'll be able to start on the elephant in the house- under my stairs. I'd love to take a before picture of that, but I can't even get in there to do it. Scary! I'm excited to get rid of all this STUFF that's been weighing me down for SO long!

Let There Be Lent!!

I've been thinking for the past week or so about Lent, and what I should "give up". I'm not a super religious Catholic (and kinda a wannabe Mormon) but I've always liked the idea of Lent since I like testing my willpower. Plus I love a good challenge but I've never been into team sports, so Lent it is. I'm sure 'real' Catholics are thrilled with my stance on Lent, but I had to be honest.

Through another blog I stumbled upon the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. Basically you give up 'crap' for Lent! Mr. Wright will be THRILLED. No, seriously. I bet I hear once a week about how we have too much crap. It will be good for my sanity (after it's done of course!), good for my marriage, and good for me since I don't have to give up soda or fast food like I was originally going to. Whoo hoo for that!

Luckily Ash Wednesday isn't until tomorrow, so I get to spend one last day with all my crap. And then the bagging starts on Wednesday. Who wants to join me in the 40 bags in 40 days challenge!?