Perfectionism is draining

Nothing ever turns out quite how I wanted it to.... Perfectionism.
The children don't behave quite how I expect them to... Perfectionism.
My husband doesn't think the way I think... Perfectionism.
The house is never quite tidy enough...  perfectionism.
There's no point just tidying a bit of the house, it needs to look like a show home!.. perfectionism.
If I can't lose at least 3-4lbs in a week then why do I even bother trying to diet??...  Perfectionism.

Being a perfectionist is draining. So draining. You're never quite happy enough. Nothing's good enough. Your best is NOT enough! So what do you do??

I spend all day every day nagging the family to clear up, put away, don't put it there in the first place! It falls on deaf ears. We've recently got these fabulous book shelves in the January sales for next to nothing and so I got excited about buying lots of posh boxes or baskets to put on it! Well, my excitement soon dwindled when I realised the ones I wanted that fitted perfectly and looked a little bit "grown up" didn't exist. Therefore I ended up with these...

There are ten boxes on five shelves (not sure what happened to the bottom of my photo!!)

These don't look elegant or grown up or anywhere near attractive unfortunately. But they're big containers and they fit a lot of "stuff". We have a second shelf to the left of this one which will be for books only. I intend on collecting all the books from everywhere in the house to put here. What a fabulous amount of storage space! Yes, it's great! If only everyone put things away after they've finished with them!!!!

I have to admit that two of the boxes are already filled with unorganised clutter that probably doesn't need to be in there. One had my stash  of magazines (The Green Parent, Rosemary Conley and Craftseller) and The other... Well, the other has school letters, bills, drawings, unopened junk mail(!!!!!???) And other such "stuff" that hasn't been looked at yet. *Sigh*. I'm kind of trying to pretend it's not there! At least it's now off my kitchen work top!

This morning I came in from dropping the children at school set to work on the lounge. Looking in the door you could barely see the floor for toys, children's clothes, a duvet and remnants of snacks! Truly awful! I cleared the floor first of toys and clothes, I cleared off the sofa, shook the throw to get the crumbs off and swept the floor including under the sofa. This is the result...

The cute little boy is meant to be here... The "stuff" is not! That stuff was under the sofa! But it doesn't end there. I could see there was more stuff under there which I couldn't get so I pulled out th thise sofa and this is what I found...

So after two hours of clearing, vacuuming, dusting, sorting... I managed to feel half "ok" about how the lounge now looks. There's a basket of things on the side for the others to sort through and The dvds need putting on the shelf that's not been put up yet. But other than that... It's OK....

.... but it will never be perfect... Nothing is ever perfect. xx

The de-clutter begins...

So, I decided that we HAVE to de-clutter in order to get our lives back on track.

N (daughter aged 10), has been struggling recently with quite bad anxiety. Started in August last year, turned severe by October and gradually improved over time. She's still struggling now but had greatly improved over the past couple of months.

I felt that our home life is not helping. We are a family of five living in a small three bedroomed house and we have far too many belongings for the space we have. So, 2013 is the year of change.

G (husband) was made redundant before Christmas, therefore we have more than household change to deal with. But right now we address all tripping over each other and it's driving us all mad.

So today...I began to blitz my utility/craft area. It's a tiny space that houses the washing machine. It has two shelves over head which have box upon box of craft supplies. These were all over the place with everything dumped on top of everything else. So I packed G off with the two big children (N - 10 and C - son aged 7) to the skate park down the road with their scooters, put F (Son aged 9 months) down for his nap and got to work. Photos to follow.

Each day I intend to do a small bit towards decluttering so we can finally live in a bit of peace and harmony rather than the chaotic environment we survive in at the moment.

Your welcome to join me in my quest for a less clutter. I would love to hear about anything you are doing to simplify. Join me in this journey to live a more simplistic life.