Day 5: 12/18/07

No decluttering happened yesterday. Well, I took a shirt that I don't wear out of a drawer. But I didn't actually do anything with it, just put it on the edge of my desk.

Today, though, I made up for it. I took that shirt and a whole pile of shirts to the give-away pile. Then I moved some other shirts from one drawer to another. Suddenly I had two empty drawers. Then I checked the drawers in another bureau and realized that since I gave away all that wool yarn I'm allergic to, I have a lot of extra space. So I've started transferring craft stuff from the shelves and desk where they'd been sitting as clutter, organizing them a bit more, and putting them into drawers. Yes, I did get rid of a few things, but it's hard, and it feels good to just know that they're away somewhere, and a bit better organized, so it's not clutter staring at me but I still know where to find everything.

Unfortunately, I didn't get as far as I would have liked--I had to stop because everything's covered in dust, and my eyes and hands were itching. Stupid allergies. I should probably go at it all with a damp rag tomorrow. But my intention is to get my big top middle shelf cleared off, except for the knitting/crafty books. Then I can put some books up there, and work my way towards clearing out the boxes on my floor.

I'm a little worried about Christmas. There will be a little bit of decluttering because the gifts that are sitting in my room will be under the tree and then gone, but I'm going to get presents too, and they'll be stuff, and I probably won't want all of them. I already have lots of random jewelry that I don't wear but were gifts. And figurines. Stuff like that. I honestly hope I get gift certificates to bookstores and yarn stores. That would make me happier than stuff. It would also make me happy if people got me stuff off my Amazon wishlist, but I don't know if that would happen!

On another note, here's a great blog post from No Impact Man: http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/happiness-versu.... I'm definitely in zone 3, though probably closer to zone 2 than he was as a "New York resource hog." Hopefully I can be in zone 2 pretty soon.

 Oh, and I've found my first thing due to decluttering! My glow-in-the-dark pixie horns! I'd wanted to wear them at Faire this season but had no idea where they were. Now I do. They're, um, hanging from one of the little round handles on my bureau. At least I know where they are.