Oh, man, y’all.

I knew we had houseguests coming this weekend, so I had to pause in the Great Declutter (briefly) to get the guest room partially ready for inhabitants.  What I didn’t know was that our houseguest was going to arrive a day early.

Now, this was not as big of a Panic Attack as it would have been, say, a month ago. (Thank you ChoreWars….), but I still hasn’t made up the guest bed or laid out fresh towels, or rearranged the shipping supplies that live in that room.  I CAN say that I wasn’t worried they’d find the room to be so covered in dust that they couldn’t FIND the bed, or have to lay out their stuff on a carpet of dog hair.  So, really, I’m pleased overall with the direction in which the house is going, even under duress.

I’m now down almost 1500 individual items in my studio.  More than that, overall, from all rooms.  It’s to the point that my Piles O’ Crap (of which there were many) are minimalized somewhat, and I’m even able to free up some of the copious “organizers” (read: crap receptacles) that I’ve bought over the years in order to keep the clutter corralled.

That’s the part that’s amazing me, I think.  I knew, in my head, that you can’t organize clutter.  That it’s just THERE, and you have to MAINTAIN it all or get RID of it.  One of the two.  All the organizers in the free world won’t help you if you have, oh, say, sixteen tubs of yarn.  (Not that I know anyone with that many…..uh….anymore. I cleared those out in November.)

Still, it didn’t sink in until I started getting ruthless with myself.  Being honest about how much time I have in a day, and what needs to be done to even just maintain a house of this size and this full of crap…er…valued personal items. My valuation had to change — a LOT — before anything was going to even think about getting done.

Before, it was so figuratively dark that I didn’t know I was in a tunnel of my own making.  (Probably a tunnel through all the crap, actually.)  Now, I’m starting to see the light at the end of it all.  I’m hoping that soon, I’ll find the actual end.  It means my chorewars points will dry up a bit (until I start painting and/or doing a *lot* more around here), but honestly?  Then I can dig in on the garage somewhat, and take a whole lot more points, even if the stuff isn’t all ours.  (I’m sure that’s where some of these mice are coming from, actually.)

Goodbye, SLOB…hello, light.

In some cases, literally.  This was the studio window this morning:

That is seriously a SHEET…pinned to the top of the windowframe.  This was for two reasons:

1.  I didn’t have any idea what I wanted for curtains, and

2.  Even if I did, they don’t make curtain rods that big.  Well, they do, but they’re a million dollars, and I’m cheap.

I’ve had the fabric to MAKE the curtains for about a zillion years now.  Or at least part of them.  I still want to make two more, for the middles of the window.  (That window’s, like, wider than my first apartment.  One curtain on each side won’t look like there’s anything there, much less keep out the light in the summer when it superheats that room to approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun.) I’m still not sure what I’ll do with the middle.

But today, I whipped up this:

Which is still pinned to the top of the windowframe.  It’s awaiting the tab-topper things to be put on.  But still, it’s a drastic improvement over the way things WERE, and that makes me very happy.  I’ll be amazed, however, if the two are the same length.  I’m not so good with the curtainy-goodness.  Or sewing in general.  Ahem.  (If we ever meet, ask to see the sewing scar on my left index finger, where an old machine tried to remove it.  Oh, but seriously.)

I got away from the alphabet there for a little bit during the first part of The Big Declutter ‘08, but we’re up to L, for Love.  What part of homekeeping do I absolutely love?

I like planning.  I get a lot of great ideas.  All the time, in fact.  And if I was only superwoman and had extra hours in every day, I might even do some of them.  But the decorating bits and the cooking bits, I can usually at least do passably.  And I really do love organizing…not that you could tell from my house.

I love that I’m making a *home*.  I love taking all these raw bits — all the detritus and accumulation of living, and making a place I want to come back to and that my husband likes to come home to.

Granted, we have very different ideas of what that IS, exactly, but he’s coming around.  (After growing up with a very warped idea of “clean”, he’s kind of getting a taste of the simplicity of the whole decluttered world, and finding out that it IS a little bit more peaceful.  I think if I keep it up, he’s going to eventually make that connection.)

I’m rambling, but you get my drift.

Need to finish that other curtain and press it before it gets too late and I fall asleep at the machine.  No sense in letting it take off the other index finger.