Lent: week 3

This week was more difficult than the first two weeks.  And it may seem sort of strange to say, but I was almost glad that I was finding it more difficult - after all, this is Lent!  I'm supposed to be making a sacrifice, right?  Giving something up?  It didn't feel like much of a sacrifice when it felt so good and was so easy.  ;)

So why was this week more difficult?  Well, for one, I've had a few bad nights of sleep (and not even due to the kids), so I've been tired, which doesn't lend itself well to productivity.  Those days I didn't feel like doing much, so I chose small, relatively simple projects, like organizing my guitar music binder or my recipe binder (the recipe binder is still a work in progress though - but I'll write more about that in another post).  Unfortunately, there were a few days when clean laundry was left sitting in the basket for a day (or 3), papers were left on the counter and my daily cleaning tasks didn't get accomplished.

One thing that I did do this week was start getting some of the boxes and bags of stuff that I had sorted through out of the house.  I brought 2 bags of stuff back to my mom and 1 bag of stuff to church (it was papers and stuff from when I helped out with the church receipting, so it really belonged back at the church).  I read somewhere that this step (actually getting rid of the stuff "to donate", or "to throw away", etc) was almost important as doing the sorting itself.  After all, you don't want a bunch of boxes and bags sitting around in the basement or by your back door for weeks and weeks.  I think it actually recommended getting the stuff out of your house within 24-48 hours of sorting through it.  I wasn't quite that good, and I still have a bunch of stuff that needs to go to the thrift shop and a bunch of stuff I'm saving to sell, but it sure was nice to get those 3 big bags out of our back closet.

So, it wasn't a great week, compared to my first two, but I think I'm still on the right track, and I'm not going to let a bad week derail or discourage me.  My goals for this next week are to go through the front closet and the downstairs bathroom, and to continue working on our closets upstairs (which I started doing this past week).

Here's how I'm doing on my decluttering list:

• Recipe binder
• Office
  • Kids' craft stuff
  • Drawers
  • Filing cabinet
  • Bookshelf
• Laundry room
• Email inbox
• Annika's closet
• Emmett's closet
• Our closet
• Our bathroom
• Kids' bathroom
• Main floor bathroom
• Front closet
• Back closet
• Upstairs storage closet
• Kitchen cabinets/drawers
• Pantry
• Fridge
• Freezer
• PVR
• Kids' toys
• Guitar music binder
• Sewing stuff