Decluttering: My Journey to Simplicity

I think God made women with built-in house cleaning sensors! When warm weather arrives, I just want to roll up my sleeves and tackle all those neglected areas of my house. Believe me, I have PLENTY. When your cupboard gets so full that you need to slam the doors shut to keep things from falling out, that may be your cue to begin!
For some reason, when the mess is behind doors, it's easy for me to forget about it and pretend it doesn't exist. [Anyone else out there procrastinate like me?? I really need a support group!] By the time I get around to doing something about it, it's TOTALLY out of control. Arghh. Sharing these pictures doesn't do anything for my pride, I can assure you!

For the sake of "keeping it real", here's the BEFORE:

And several hours later, the AFTER:

There's more I can do in the lines of organizing this area, but I'm so happy that I can actually FIND what I'm looking for without four other things hitting me on the head! And this is the kick-in-the-pants that I needed to get me de-cluttering some other equally embarrassing places in my house!!

I have a simple process that I go through to achieve order: the 4 S's.

1. Sort through all the clutter and determine which items you can actually use and what you need to get rid of.

2. Save anything that you will use. I tend to be a pack rat, so it's easy to hang onto things for their sentimental value. Just make sure you're not restocking more clutter that you'll need to eliminate in a year from now.

3. Send away good items that you have no use for to places like Goodwill or Salvation Army. I'm also starting a yard sale pile, since I'm hoping to have one in the spring.

4. Scrap the junk! I had a huge bag full, and it was quite fun to get rid of it!

And that, my friends, is my start on a journey to simplicity! Join me in getting rid of clutter (=