Anna Be.

Today my big decluttering discovery was the disappointment I feel about my dream library.  We are so lucky to have this house that's big enough for everything we want, including a room just for books.  Except it's not just for books, it's also for cat litter boxes.  I've accepted this is the best location for the boxes, not trying to come up with a different arrangement, I just need to work through how this arrangement makes my library something other than the cozy booklover's grotto I dreamed of. But I still believe it can be that dream place!  It will take a certain amount of work.  To spend any time in a room with litter boxes, there has to be daily scooping and sweeping.  Nick took over litter box duties 8 years ago when we started trying to have a baby. (According to science, pregnant ladies can't touch cat poop; I exploited this.) Let's face the straight poop here:  I can clean the litter boxes. Somewhere Nick is reading this and a joyful t...

Today I threw away my push present . It was a tough thing to throw away the 8-month-old flip flops because they were the first gift Nick bought me the week after Mamie was born. (Unless a bag of candy bars counts?) Fresh new flip flops were a dream in the early days when everything about life seemed out of order and harder than I was capable of handling. Still, today, I threw them away because 8 months of daily wear is all one can expect from even the best flip flops. It was a single step in my month-long decluttering program. I've learned that I can make a huge impact in just 10 minutes, but I can also get absolutely no where in a whole day.  I just have to keep working on it, and at this halfway point in the month, I still have hope and a little steam. I started this project by assigning each room or area of the house to a day of the week.  For example today, Monday, my areas are the living room and the front yard.  The first week I only planned to spend 10 minutes ...