Minimizing My Life: Silly Clutter

Clutter. Oh how I loath clutter. Clutter in my home makes it hard for me to breath. You know when you're watching a movie and someone is drowning and you suddenly find yourself having trouble catching your own breath? Yeah, that's how clutter makes me feel.

I don't have a massive clutter problem in my house. Some of you who have been to my home know this. It's not because I hurry and clean up before you get there. It's because I make sure that it's not there to begin with. I'm like a Clutter Ninja. I take care of that shit before it ever has a chance to become a problem.

That does not mean that my house is clutter-free. There is still plenty of clutter lurking. It just happens to be nice looking, seems to have an important purpose, clutter. To some of you the particular clutter issues that I'm about to mention may seem silly, but clutter is clutter. We treat all clutter equally in this house: the tote bags (I'm a sucker for a cute tote bag), the notepads (the stationary store is a close second to the book store), the pens (when you find a kind you like you buy enough to last a lifetime and hang on to the others...just because), and don't even get me started on all of the social media clutter in my life (that's a whole other blog post.)

I think we are good at handling the big clutter issues but guilty of never confronting the little ones. This clutter might not be an issue for you, but I would bet there's something similar in your home driving you nuts too.


Frames:

And this is just one table in one room.

Ah, frames. I used to be a sucker for a cute frame. Frames are nice to decorate with, but I think that this is definitely a case of too much of a good thing can be bad. We have so many great pics it would be easy to add a new frame every week if we wanted to. But dusty frames are a pain in the ass because that means you actually have to dust them. And just because I have a shit ton of cute pictures of my boys that doesn't mean they all need to be displayed on every square inch of space in my home.


Cookbooks:

Cookbook Clutter, including a cookbook from my childhood and WAY too many cookbooks about southern cooking.

Cookbooks definitely fall into the clutter category. The pictures look so pretty and the recipes sound yummy so you buy it and use the same old recipes that you've always used. Friends, if you never have used it or have only used it for one recipe, write down that one recipe on an old fashioned recipe card and give that cookbook away. Side note: if you give someone a cookbook as a gift, please don't write a message on the inside. I know this seems like a sweet gesture, but it just makes it difficult to sell to a used book store or give away to a friend. If you want to write a note, do just that on an actual note card. I know you have plenty of them. If not I have a bunch I can give you.


Vitamins:

No one needs this many vitamins. No one.

This one might seem weird. How could vitamins be considered clutter? Well, when you have a cabinet full of them, taking up space that could be used for storing other things, then they are considered clutter. I hold onto these vitamins because vitamins are expensive and throwing them away seems wasteful. But vitamins don't do you any good if they only sit in the cabinet expiring. Throw them away and stop buying more. Or better yet, remember to take them. And while you're at it, start flossing.


Corks:

I guess it's a good problem to have.

Corks are a big problem in our house. A lot of wine equals a lot of corks. The empty bottles immediately go into the recycling bin, but the corks? They seem to take on a life of their own making us looking like we have a really big drinking problem. (We don't. We just have a cork problem.) My husband NEVER wants me to throw them away. He claims that he's going to do something with them, but I know this man. He will never, EVER do anything with them and they will continue to clutter up my life. I try my best to display them in a cute way, but what you don't see in this picture is the gigantic jar filled to the brim with corks under the cabinet. I threw a bunch of them away one time and Derek acted as if I had committed some kind of wine drinking treason.

Truth is, he will never miss them just like we will never miss the frames or the cookbooks or the expired vitamins. Now to tackle the tote bag, note pads and pens.