De-cluttering

I have a strong urge to declutter, purge, and organize, no clue what brought it on but since I have had the urge for over two days, it is going to happen. After I cleaned up all the Christmas stuff, I thought I'd dive in, but after walking around the house, I am not quite sure where I am going to start. I'm guessing a game plan should be developed first and then we will get busy.

HGTV.com had some decision making decisions, their list was for de-cluttering the kitchen, I modified it slightly to fit every room and area of the house.

Decisions, Decisions!

With each item you encounter you’ll have to decide: Keep, sell or donate, store, put away or toss? Bust the decision-making dam by holding each one in your hand and asking yourself a single question: “When have I last used it?”
“Never!” Out it goes, to the trash or for donation or to a yard sale.
“Within the last year.” Out it goes, with one exception. Seasonal items used only once a year, such as specialty cookie presses, but all seasonal items should be removed from current storage areas (rooms) and placed in labeled boxes with like items. For example, Christmas cookie presses stored with other Holiday cooking tools OR other Christmas items.
“Within the last month.” Candidate for a keeper. Deciding where the item should live will come during the organizing phase.
“Yesterday!” Watch for these items; they’re the backbone of an organized kitchen. Keep. Clean them if necessary and put them away where you found them.

Laundry and Blogging

Our home in Washington is fairly large in size and during the school year it is my responsibility to keep up with all the household duties. Maybe you can call me lazy, but I don't like spending an entire day or days just doing housework, so I tend to divide up some of the household chores to certain days. Since I LOVE (sarcastic) laundry and cleaning bathrooms, those two chores MUST be done on separate days! Monday is my laundry day and Wednesday tends to be bathroom day. A benefit during the school year is that there are only 3 of us in the house, which on one hand is quite depressing, but on the other hand it means less housework for me!

Most would think that with only 3 people in a house our loads of laundry would be minimal , however on most Mondays I do an average of 6-8 loads of laundry: towels, sheets, whites/lights, pinks/purples (pretty sad I have a load of primarily just pink-but it is Breanna's FAVORITE color), blue, black/red, and misc dark colors. Weeks that we plan to go out of town, equals an additional laundry day - Yea ME. The only rule I have for laundry is that your dirty clothes MUST be in a dirty clothes basket (we have 6 throughout our house) in order for me to wash your clothes. Today, unfortunately, Eric may not get all of his clothes washed as he has several items scattered throughout the bedroom, BUT it isn't my responsibility to determine what items need washing! Lucky for him, if these items are needing washed, I have to do an extra laundry day this week to prepare for out Turkey day trip to Portland.