40 Bags in 40 Days Update

The purge is in full swing! I delivered a car load of treasures to a friend that is having a garage sale and now I have more room to get rid of more stuff!!

40 Bags in 40 Days 2015

Years ago I completed my first 40 bags in 40 days challenge. It was amazing.  I was SHOCKED at how many bags of junk and clutter that I filled and easily got rid of. 

This year, I'm starting late to do the 40 bags over the 40 days of Lent, but ANYTIME can be a great time to declutter our lives.  We don’t have to wait for Lent to be mindful.. or spring cleaning to sort.. or summer to slash.. or the looming holdiays to finally clean things out from the previous year.. 

We just need to START!

So here is my handy chart.  I've saved it as a JPEG so that you can save it and use it too.

Good LUCK! 

And did you notice that I didn't put dates on it?  Just Day 1 and so forth.. so NO PRESSURE and NO GUILT! So what if it takes you all year to get the 40 days of decluttering complete.. that's at least 40 bags more than you would have otherwise!!

Won't you join me? I'm starting today.. And I'm going to start with my craft stuff. OUCH!

40 Bags in 40 Days Recap

Easter has come and gone. As expected, life got (is) pretty busy and the 40 bag challenge took a back burner. However, I can honestly say that we busted the 40 bag goal and got rid of a few truck loads of junk!!

The best thing about the challenge was the freedom it brought to us as we got rid of the stuff that was holding us hostage. And yes, I mean holding us hostage. When you get rid of excess, you have room for living. With each bag that left our house, we celebrated.

So what are we going to do with the space created? Well.. we are going to get a dart board for the garage. Yep. we are just simple folk. When Doug and I first got married we had a dart board in the garage and had so much fun playing together. Now that junk isn't taking up the garage, we can play again. Yes, something simple but important.

And that's it. I recommend the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. I plan on doing this again next year!

15 days, 26 bags. storage wars. and a little reward.

40 Bags in 40 Days. 

Day 15 update.

(if you don't know what I'm referring too, click here)

We are going like gang-busters here!!

It is FUN!

Okay, maybe the rest of my family isn't having the same fun I am having, but I totally enjoy sorting and organizing things. So, for me, cleaning out closets, going through boxes and all that is required to do the 40 Bags in 40 days is rather enjoyable.

hmm... enjoyable. that truly might make me certifiable :)

In case you were wondering, I haven't been going in order on my list. I made the list to give me a point of reference, but since I knew we had a garage sale that was happening last weekend, I started with the good selling stuff. Like kids clothes!

As I sorted the kids clothes, the kids helped by trying on things and pleading their case for a few of the outgrown but favorites.With the age/size spread of my kids, it doesn't make sense to keep all the clothes that Maddie can't wear. It could be years before Lexi would wear something and a decade before Kylie would wear it!  So, I keep jeans and a few of the shirts/dresses that I like.

During these two weeks, I have cleaned out my clothes, dresser and closet and Doug cleaned out his closet yesterday! Yippee! We are on a roll!

Next up, STORAGE WARS!! Here is what I've decided. It doesn't matter how much or how little storage you have for memorabilia/school keepsakes/special items. You will never have enough! UGH! 3 kids make for a TON of school keepsakes. I have these wonderful school keepsake files that I made a few years ago, but since we've lived in uncertainty on housing over the years, the boxes have been put away and the papers from school have just been piling up! So..yesterday, I started this.So far, I have 2011 sorted and one bag of trash. That's pretty good. I've got a long way to go. But it's spring break and raining, so I have time!

 And finally, why do this? Besides of course the deeper meaning of the 40 bags in 40 days clean out. When you clean things out, you have room to DECORATE!! Doesn't my china cabinet look nice!

I've decided that I'm going to use my china. I have beautiful ivory china with a gold rim. This makes it not suitable for the dishwasher. BOO. However, after 13 years, I've decided that china in perfect condition that is never used is not the point. I'm gonna use the china and if the gold rim wears off, good! 

40 Bags in 40 Days Update

40 Bags in 40 Days for Lent.  In case you missed my initail post, click here for the background.

Otherwise, here is an update.

As you saw in a previous post, I got the laundry room finished. Yeah! It's so useable and clutter-free. I was even able to fold laundry on the counter! Amazing how wonderful it feels to have a clean and easy to navigate space.

From there, I cleaned out my closest and dresser. I'm not much on having excess clothing, so I just got rid of a bag from each.

Next up was the section of the kitchen that works as an office/china cabinet type area.  In the picture below, it looks almost clean. In reality it is a junk storage area!

From this area, I got rid of a couple of boxes of just random junk, old computer software and a lot of trash! 

The hardest part so far was going through my recipe boxes. I got rid of three of the four boxes. In the past, I was one that would cut out interesting recipes and glue them on notecards for future use.  I had hundreds of cards. But today, if I need a recipe, I just google it and go. So, no need to keep them, just to keep them. I did keep the recipe's that I use or that I have from my grandmother, but so long, never used recipe for some exotic concoction.

Today, I sorted clothes. I got rid of at least three boxes worth of kid clothes plus a large box of my own out of season clothing.

In addition to all this, we've gotten rid of TWO TRUCK LOADS of stuff from the garage!! This alone counts for probably 50 bags!

Doug mentioned that at somepoint I'll have to stop getting rid of stuff, but for now, we are both loving the 40 days of cleaning out the house!!

40 Bags in 40 Days: Day One, The Laundry Room

In case you are wondering... I started early. I know that I'll get behind quickly, but I had a relatively free evening and decided to get a head start!

When I made my 40 Bags list, I wasn't thinking about how much WORK it was going to be to clean up the laundry room. I just knew it needed to happen.

UGH!!

I started with things looking like this.

 I finished with this!! OH YEAH!! SWEET!!

But getting there took a while. I cleaned out a couple of bags worth of fabric scraps, craft junk and a pile of trash. 

Look at that monster Ikea bag full of goodies that are leaving my house!!

 And here it is. The clean and de-cluttered laundry room!!



Let's take one more look at the organized thread...

I repurposed a ribbon organizer that never seemed to really work. I love it in this use.

Yippee for organization, repurposing and decluttering!!

40 Bags in 40 Days

What are you giving up for Lent?  It's a common question this time of the year as Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday!  This year, I'm not giving anything up. Well, not any one thing.  Some years I've given up chocolate, some sugar, some caffeine and so forth.  But this year, with life and kids and stress, I decided that giving up one thing was just going to add to the stress level and I didn't need that.

So, instead, I'm doing 40 Bags in 40 Days.

Google it and you can read a dozen or more articles/blogs about it, so I'm not going to list just one for you.

The idea is that during Lent, you use the 40 days to refocus your life and declutter your home.  I like that. A LOT!

You would think that after moving twice this last year that we would be clutter free. We aren't. I look around the house and the amount of stuff that we don't use is staggering. So... 40 bags, oh yeah. Now, I'm not planning on emptying the house of our worthwhile keepsakes and things we use everyday, but I KNOW that we can come up with at least a grocery size bag of stuff from every corner of our house.

Here is my list:

And here is my challenge to me, that while I am cleaning out rooms/closets and drawers, that I declutter mindfully. That I ask myself to be honest about if we use something and that if we don't, we send it to a new home with grateful hearts.

Because Lent is a time of preparing our hearts for Easter. It's a time to focus on the gift/sacrifice that Jesus gave us. It's a time to declutter our bodies and to be mindful of the gifts God has given us. So this year, I'm not giving up sweet tea for Lent. I'm going to purposefully and prayerfully focus on our home.