Transform Your Home, Transform Your Life Challenge–Week 27–Odds and Ends

TODAY’S FREEBIE

This is the last challenge in the series! Wahoo! You made it! Well, almost.

If you are like me, there are still a few things in your home that need to be addressed. As I look around, I see a messy pantry, a booby-trapped game closet, and a refrigerator that needs to be liberated of salad dressings and curry paste that never get used.

I am also ashamed to admit that the top shelf in my bedroom closet never got touched, and I still have unruly clothes on a little bookshelf in my closet. (These are clothes that have been worn once and are not stinky, but that I don’t want to fold up and put back in my drawers with all the truly clean clothes. Is that gross?)

The first thing I will tackle is the games closet. There is not much joy in there. I will throw out all the old, nostalgic games that have yellowing boxes that have lost structural integrity and can barely be called boxes any more. I will also throw out all the fairy and princess puzzles that my girls have outgrown and that are probably missing pieces anyway. Gone will be games we never play and those we never liked in the first place. Forget about the “exercise” cards with different stretches and activities like jumping jacks and squats.

In my pantry, I will throw away all the mixes I will never use, all the bags that have two tablespoons of nondescript powder in them, and all the bags of stale cookies that have been in there for months. (Let me be clear. The bags of stale cookies I am talking about are those that we have bought for my daughter who is allergic to everything. They are, shall we say, not so tasty. Any other bags of cookies are consumed immediately). I will put all the cans together, all the pasta together, and all the baking goods together.

Leftovers like to play games of hide-and-seek in my refrigerator. After a time, I don’t even want to know what is lurking at the back. My fear gets the better of me, and I don’t look until I am running out of plastic containers to put in–you guessed it–more leftovers. What about all the things in the door of the refrigerator that we hardly even notice? Seriously, who eats Catalina dressing when you can have Ranch? Just throw out all those old bottles of salad dressing and little packets of ketchup you’ve been collecting from restaurants that fall off the butter shelf. It’s o.k. You will never miss them. I promise.

Here is a picture of my games closet after I threw out about 20 games and donated five more. (You will notice that there are some duplicate games. That is because we love these games so much that if we were to lose pieces, we would be happy we had another copy).

Your assignments for this week are:

1. Identify any areas in your home that have not previously been decluttered and organized. Write these down so that you don’t forget what they are.
2. Discard all items that do not bring you joy, or that are not in use, or that are defective.
3. Organize everything that is left. Be sure to decide exactly where each thing will go so that you will return them to their proper location. This is key for keeping your spaces clean!

This challenge is based on the KonMari method found in the book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. If you are just joining us, be sure to start at the beginning! It’s very important to go in order! You can also visit my Transform Your Home, Transform Your Life page for all the previous posts in this series. Don’t feel like you have to catch up if you are just finding this challenge now! Just make sure to start doing the weekly challenges from the beginning, and you will be fine!

TODAY’S FREEBIE