can i get a high five

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I kept running across reminders recently that if your home is chaotic, it can make your inner emotional life feel chaotic too. I've been living with a house and garage full of my parents things since my dad passed away in 2011 and it makes me crazy. You would not believe the amount of things I have already let go of and given away. I'm still very much digging out from under. I also accumulated too much myself. I feel so defeated a lot of the time. But I am determined to find balance again. 

Five more boxes of books went to Good Will this week and eleven years of Martha Stewart magazines left the house and I shredded one storage box of paperwork. WOOHOO! High five!
 

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I don't know about you, but this is me - I kept buying storage boxes and organizers from The Container Store, thinking all I had to do was organize all this stuff and then I wouldn't have to think about it until I wanted to. I read on a blog recently, paraphrasing here, that it's impossible to organize stuff when you have too much stuff. Reading that was a light bulb Oprah AHA moment for me! So understandable, so simple, so clear, SO OBVIOUS. DUH. As they say in Twelve Step groups, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

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I dream of surfaces with (nearly) nothing on them. I am so tired of having to move boxes to get into my craft supplies or shift stuff around on my desk to be able to craft or have books two rows deep, etc. I also need to curb my buying tendencies --- I want less stuff and yet I bring home more books and crafts supplies when I already have too much of both. Old habits die a slow tortured death.