Take My Clutter Away

So it is Friday and it has been a long week of a lot of waiting. I am not a patient person and my family can verify that fact. 

This morning I got tired of looking at the mess our garage that I have made due to the minimalism journey I am on. 

This is the back of my van. These boxes are full of books that I am taking to 

Half Price books to sell.  I still have some more shelves I need to go through in the house but I have always loved books and so this is a big step for me to let go of these.

I went into my closet this morning and saw this box that has been under my clothes for a while. Obviously due to the embedded ring on the carpet to the left of it.

Anyway I was reading an article on a blog yesterday about getting rid of clothes that you are hanging on to for "SOMEDAY". You know that some day when you wear that size again, some day when that comes back in style again." Well I got rid of my someday things today 

 This is the bag of the "someday" things that I got rid of. 

Feels so good to empty out a container that you don't have to look at to remind you of that "fantasy you ". 

More talk about the "Fantasy You"

I had read a blog post (I wish I could remember what blog it was to give credit where credit is do) that was talking about letting go of the fantasy you. The post spoke to me so clearly that I thought the writer was talking to me directly. You know the you that you thought you would be! Still confused let me clarify. One Fantasy Me was the great chef. So I bought all these amazing cooking gadgets, pans and tools to cook with. Yes I have to admit I am a good cook but I don't use have the stuff I bought or have.

The Fantasy You fitness buff: the weights, the yoga mat, the gabillion DVD's, the treadmill that collects dust in the garage or you hang clothes from.

 Or the Fashion Diva Fantasy You: Great clothing that is form fitting, shoes & purses to match each outfit, along with the costume jewelry to got with each outfit. 

How do I know about these ones? Well guess what they were the Fantasy Me but NO MORE!!!

I am who I am and I am loving being simple and getting clutter free. Mentally, physically, and even Spiritually.

It is feel great and I still have so much to do.

 I then loaded things into the back seat of the car

 closer look of what was on the floor board

I had already packed up stuff in the trunk of the car. 

I should have taken a picture of all the stuff in the garage before I took it out but once I got started I didn't want to stop the flow of energy on putting it in. 

 Gabby and I then drove to Goodwill and dropped off the items for some other people to buy, use and hopefully love.

So much more I want to go through but I must get other things done in my life but there will be more. 

 If you are inspired or have something you want to share I would love to hear from you.

 Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Quote

Read this on the blog "Becoming Minimalist" and love it. I will be using this repeatedly as I go through every nook and cranny of our house inside and out!


Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. — William Morris


Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Food Declutter

Minimalism has been on my mind a lot lately. Not only because I talk with Coco about it , not because I read about it, but because I am seeing a difference in not having some of the clutter that I did 3 weeks ago. 

Now my garage looks like I am the biggest hoarder in the world. (I will post a picture before I start donating things just for you). 

I have so far 6 fruit boxes full of books that I am taking to Half Price Books to sell and many more on the way. 

I have been busy with work and life in general but this has been the main thing that is on my mind. 

Not only am I thinking of physical clutter but also mental clutter and my bodies physical clutter.

So after this thought what do you think it is time to do but DE-CLUTTER and minimize what I can do when I can do it !  

Boring food containers

Well there is a closet that is under our stairs that Kyle first claimed to be his room when he saw our house for the first time because it reminded him of Harry Potter.
Before we moved in Alan had shelves put in to each of the closets for me for extra storage. I love our house but never has had enough storage until this amazing minimizing. I truly think that sometime in the near future there will be more than enough storage space in our beautiful home.
Boring food containers NO MORE!
Avery company has labels in all shapes and sized you can print on your computer.
 I just love these. Sorry the picture is so dark. But you can see the labels have made it easy to spot what I want in the closet.

 A little pretty touch for the laundry room

 Pretty laundry soap container . Much prettier than that ugly bucket you see to the left of it.
Makes me smile when I see it.

When I started labeling things this past week my kiddos were getting a little concerned that I was going to start labeling them. 

 After a lot of discussions with Coco and reading on blogs of all the different additives in food to give it a longer shelf life. It has really started to gross me out. Plus with trying to clear out the physical body clutter I don't want all this garbage going into my body or my families.
I am steering towards a whole foods eating way.
After a couple days of working on clearing out the 4 closets that were used as pantries this is what I have so far.
Picture #1

Closer view of picture #1

Picture #3

All of this is stored in Dallas's old room for right now. 

I was going to donate this to our church but when I told Dallas and Sara about it they said they would take it all. Being newlyweds with tight finances I can understand this. So glad it will go to a home that needs it. 

Someday I will get them on the healthier band wagon too. But for now I need to work on those that live in the same house as me. 

This is the closet under the stairs. Still has some work to be done but this is a slow process at times.

As you will notice I do have a good bit of food storage. I have been the canning specialist in the past 4 words I have lived in so I try to practice what I preach. he he  

 Pantry in the kitchen. True not all the canned items are gone. As I said this is a very slow process I need to ease the family into.

 Hallway closet. 

 Another dark picture (sorry) this is the closet in Dallas's room The hanging area is in front of all these cans.

This is more of our food storage. I am done clearing this area I just need to dust up a little bit more. 

 This is the top part to the above mentioned closet. These are our sleeping bags and Dallas's emergency back pack. I haven't gone through these yet but it is certainly on my list.

I don't like the sleeping bags out with the rest of the camping items due to spider or bug factor. Personally it creeps me out! 

So this is where I am at so far. I will try to remember to take pictures are blog a little more frequently to keep you up to date.

 Feels good to get rid of stuff! 

 Hugs, Bobbi Jo 

Mormon Prom Invite

One day while E'lyse was at school her guy friend Geordan came over with his Mom and decorated (or should I say made a mess with Sweedish Fish and this sweet poster. 

There was fish EVERYWHERE! It was so fun. 

Geordan had called the night before asking permission from Alan and I to ask her to the LDS or Mormon Prom of course we said yes he is a very nice young man.

This is the poster that was on her bed

This is just a little chunk of the floor that was covered. They were all over her book shelves, in the closet and everywhere they landed. Too fun!! 

So then of course E'lyse had to give her answer. So Monday she went his house.

She made this poster & a giant fish bowl full of what else but gold fishes.

 So there on the yellow fish is her answer to him.

So E'lyse has been looking for a dress to wear and is so excited to go.
There will be pictures to follow of this special occasion.
Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Sara's Birthday

Our new daughter in love Sara had her 20Th Birthday on April 16Th. Due to the craziness of getting ready for her and Dallas's wedding we put off her Birthday dinner till this past Sunday night.

Dallas, Sara and E'lyse lighting the candles. 

 Sara patiently waiting........still lighting them

 She finally got to blow out the candles after a really bad rendition of Happy Birthday by our off key family. Then a picture of our newest family tradition of shoving all the candles in your mouth. 

CUTE! 

Great picture with the thumbs up. Ya done good there Sara!!

 Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Special Day

On May 20Th, 2012 our son Dallas married his sweetheart Sara Palmer. 

The wedding was planned in 5 short weeks and came together so well. 

It was beautiful. The bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome and we had fun.

Sara & Dallas's hands. 

You can't tell in this picture but Dallas's wedding band is camouflage. ( I borrowed these pictures from the photographer, Coco my oldest daughter). 

Mr. & Mrs. Dallas & Sara Nichols

 Dallas's grooms men from L to R: Chord, JoJo, Talmage (ringbearer), Dallas, Brandon, Dusty and Kyle

 Sara & Dallas right after the ceremony

The wedding colors were yellow and blue. The evening was beautiful weather, yummy food and a lot of great friends and family came to show their love and support to this wonderful couple. 

So happy for them and Dallas is truly happy and that makes him Mom very, very happy. 

 Hugs, Bobbi Jo 

( P.S. When I get pictures that are in color I will post them. )

Funny Minimalism Story

 On Sunday morning after my major clearing out of the scrap book/craft things I was feel good but, didn't know if Alan noticed how much was gone.
 I was down stairs and E'lyse asked me where Amarillo was? I said I think it is in Texas but Faith said it was in Tennessee. So of course I did what any red blooded American would do I came up stairs and Goggled it. I asked Alan as I was typing it where Amarillo was he also said Texas. We then started singing George Straits song "Amarillo By Morning", as we are singing it together we get to the part where he says "everything that I got is just what I got on", Alan says to me "Yea that is because you either got rid of or threw away the rest of it!"
YES he did notice. It was funny and we had a good laugh out of it.
  Now to think up a motto for my decluttering?????? Hugs, Bobbi  Jo

Big Step Now Little Steps Declutter

I have been doing a little hear and there. I have gotten rid of 6 large fruit boxes of books. I love books and thought this too would be a hard thing for me but NO it felt really good to clear out those shelves.

This is a TV stand in our bedroom the shelf is just below where the TV sits. It has doors on it so you can close it but just knowing what is in there was bothering me. So I got a CD/DVD case and got rid of all the yucky plastic cases 

BEFORE 

 AFTER

This is the bottom of the TV stand. I didn't take a picture before I cleared it but it was awful! It had all my massage books from school, reading books and some other things on it. It too will get cleared off again in the near future but now it  looks so much neater.

 Yesterday afternoon I decided to hit a fast easy spot to clear out 

My make up bag. No joke this is what I saw when I opened it up this was not staged. 

 I ruthlessly went through it. Decided what I wear, use and can't live without and this is what I ended up with.

 Make up I got rid of.

I then decided I needed to clear out under my side of the counter. 1St rule in decluttering is pull it all out. So that I did.

 This was some of the other items that found their way under there. 

 Wow invisaline from how many years ago. Did I think I was going to wear them again. 

 This is what I put back under. I want to get a cute storage container of some sort to 

store the items a little neater but for now this looks good to me. 

 Still feeling good about all that I have gotten rid of .

There is much more in the works so stay tuned. 

Hugs, Bobbi Jo

The Hard Stuff ~ Scrap booking and Crafts

My last post was the start of my minimalism journey. 

This next one is what I thought would be the hardest for me to EVER get rid of and that would be my scrap booking and craft things. This is the shelf that most of my things were parked collecting dust. As you can see I had already cleared out some of the thing that are on the table before I remembered that I needed to take a picture of the progress.  This was a LONG very long process. I kept thinking what if this and what if that then I thought you haven't been actively doing anything with these things since you went back to school in 2010 Let it go now!   

I didn't just want to take it to donation so I asked around and found out that my soon to be daughter in love would love to scrap book. YEA! So Dallas asked her and she said she would love to have the items I wanted to get rid of. I was so excited to give it to someone that could use it and would enjoy it.

 The little start before the picture

 This is how the shelf is for now. I am still tweaking things a bit but it looks much better and less is more!!

 This is all of the things in the back and second seat of Dallas' jeep. I should have got a side view but alas I didn't . The boxes were full of things clear to the top! 

I still have boxes in the garage that I need to clear out but in time this will happen. It is a slow process due to time. 

 I would love to hear from you about how you feel about your stuff or lack of stuff. Hugs, Bobbi Jo 

Minimalism

 I started this post a while ago. I would write it out then delete it. I just wasn't sure how much I wanted to share. Even though I have always tried to keep it real it is hard to show that you have let THINGS become what you think you are. Does that make since? Growing up with parents who kept a lot of STUFF (this is being nice) I followed in their footsteps and did the same thing. I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to feel free.
 I had been thinking about letting go of things. Things that I don't use often or at all, things that are just taking up space and making me feel almost claustrophobic. Things that cause more work to take care or clean up or take space that can be used for another use or nothing at all. I had thought about this a lot then one day Coco and I were talking and I don't remember how it came up but she had been reading on blogs about minimalism and wanting to do it too. So then after talking with her I got the courage up and started small but what a big difference it made. Not only in my closet but in my bodies space. A lift, a release of things that I didn't love or need to make me feel I am who I am.
 I started small with my shoes. I have a major shoe fetish I have always loved shoes and enjoy looking at them at the stores. So this is where I decided to start. I was watching a You Tube video and I am sorry I can't remember the name but they showed how they stored the shoes and I thought "Hey I could do that!". So I sorted through my shoes now a lot of my shoes were crowded like the first hanging space. I was ruthless with my shoes and ended up with 12 pairs including my 2 pairs of slippers.
So I went from this:                                         BEFORE

                                          To this:                  AFTER                    

 Alan came home from work and I showed him what I had done. He like the idea and said "You know I could do something like that with mine!"  No more needed to be said to me. I went down the next day and got boxes for his shoes.
 This is his shoes before the cleanup:
                                                                          BEFORE

And then                                                              AFTER

 Feeling what this had done for me I knew I wasn't going to stop at this. Hugs, Bobbi Jo