A-Z of Me: Junk Free

Not my junk.

I try so hard to keep a junk free home. I love purging things I no longer want or need and I strive for all our belongings to have a specific place to live in our home. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than being surrounded by crap that doesn't belong. And right now, that crap is in my craft room. I'd love to set up some sort of closet organization system in there as well as a wall of shelves just for my yarn. And until that happens, I have no idea where to even start and it drives me nuts. So I keep the door shut.

Besides my craft room, I'd also like to do better with organizing kitchen drawers and setting up a place for our mail. Junk so easily builds up around here, it's amazing. During the work week I don't like work hard at maintaining neatness, so the weekends are when I fix everything back up. And I think if I had a better way to organize, I wouldn't have to wait till the weekends, I could keep it up all throughout the week.

Only in my dreams though, right?

And finally, I've made it a point to no longer accept other people's junk, or rather, things they don't want to have clutter up their own home because then it just clutters my own. Someone will say, oh hey I have this piano bench that I no longer have use for, would you like it? And I think, sure why not! Only to find out it has no where to live in our house or is in a style that I actually hate. For example, we have this family member who shall remain unnamed, that has been giving us piles of Christmas decorations over the last 3 years or so. And every time I just cringe inside because 1) I don't like the decorations, they aren't my style but I don't want to be mean so I say thank you and take them. I already know I will never put them out because I have my own decorations that match and go together and have a specific place assigned to them already so there's literally no more room for more and 2) it makes me feel resentful that she has to dump this stuff on others instead of just throwing it out or donating it herself because now the burden falls on me and it makes me feel guilty for tossing them. Why can't she give this stuff to her own son? Of course if it's a family heirloom I'd feel differently, but they aren't.

Anyway, that's my stance on junk. Keep it away from me.