Decluttering with Training Wheels

Do you remember what it felt like as a child to sit on your tricycle and watch the older kids fly by on their two wheelers?  Were you like me and sat there yearning to taste that freedom but with no idea how to get it?

And then came the miracle answer - training wheels. That wonderful thing that bridged the seemingly insurmountable gap between three wheels and two. 

Well for many of us, decluttering is like learning to ride a bike. Going from cluttered to organized is too big of a jump. We need training wheels. Don't be ashamed. Raise your hands up and say I use training wheels and I am proud of it!

And now let me introduce you to the declutterer's version of training wheels:  small sorting bins. 

Go out and get yourself two SMALL bins to use for sorting.  Don't let this photo fool you. This is not a laundry basket. It is small. The dimension are about 10" x 13" x 5". It needs to be small so you do not get overwhelmed. 

So how do you use these baskets?  Easy. Pick an area, any area. I do not reccommend starting with the area that completely overwhelms you to even think about. Instead chose a random area of clutter. We chose our kitchen table. 

Now fill up one of the bin with clutter that needs to be sorted or anything that does not have a home. Once the bin is full, stop!  Resist the urge to cram the bin untill it is over full.  It does not matter if there is still clutter in the area you picked. Ignore it. All you care about is what is in the bin. 

Now it is time to sort. 

Quickly go through the bin using the following steps:

1. Throw out anything that is obvious trash

2. If you know at first sight it is a donation, put it in a bag for donations

3.  If you want to keep it put it in the second bin. 

These should be quick instinctive decisions, don't labor over them. Your first instinct is usually correct. 

Once you do the initial sort, it is time to deal with what you decided to keep. These items will fall into just a few categories. 

1. Items that have a home but were left out - put them away - now. 

2.  Items you like but that you have no real use for - consider letting them go and put them in the donate bag - now. 

3. Sentimental stuff - put it aside to be sorted later after you get the rest of the clutter under control. 

4.  Items you want to keep but that do not have a "home". 

This is where decluttering usually gets derailed. "I want this but I don't know where to put it."  This leads to people putting the stuff right back where it was and giving up. 

But with training wheels you are not going to allow yourself to get sidetrack by these items.  Instead place them in a box which will now be known as the " needs a home" box.  All you are doing right now is deciding what is staying or leaving your home. 

Why does this step trip so many people up?  Because deciding what to keep is decluttering. Figuring out where something should live is organizing. They are not the same thing. And if you try to organize an area before you completely declutter it, you will fail. Trust me, I know. 

So use your training wheels. Keep the bins small to avoid getting overwhelmed and stick to decluttering. Organizing will come later. 

I am proud of using the training wheels my sister gave us to declutter our entire kitchen table over the course of a week. Won't you try it out?

If you do, post a photo of your progress. I would love to see them. 

The First Step is . . . Overwhelming

So you have looked around your house and decided it is over cluttered. You are wasting too much energy on living with clutter. Great. So now what?

The obvious answer is deal with the clutter. Get rid of what you don't need and organize the rest. Easy right?  Oh how I wish it was that simple. 

If you are anything like me and my family, wanting to get rid of clutter is not a new idea. We have tried - and failed - to declutter many many times. We were destined to continue to fail until we finally saw the huge wall that was between us and actual progress. 

That wall is called Overwhelm. I was overwhelmed by the clutter I needed to deal with in order to have an organized space. That being said, we have too much clutter but we don't live in fear of the Hoarders team knocking on our door. The clutter is not that bad. It is just the thought of it that is overwhelming. 

Overwhelm is an emotional response to a situation or activity. It activates your fight or flight response and basically shuts down your logical mind. Because it is an instinctual reaction, it does not take into account the realities of the situation. It just wants you to run away from it. 

Even the thought of trying again (and failing) to declutter exhausted me before I even started. It was not going to work, so why even bother. The task was just too huge. Any of this sound familiar?

Luckily, I am blessed with an amazing sister who understands the limitations of people with chronic illness and anxiety. She also understands how easily clutter can take over if you get overwhelmed and give up because she has been there. 

My sister was able to talk us down off the proverbial ledge and give us a way to see that we can do this one little piece at a time. 

Below is a photo that I am very embarrased to share. I have decided to share it because I feel that the nature of chronic illness makes it likely we all have places in our homes we can't deal with or that embarrass us. And I am hoping my being willing to share our before and after will motivate others to stop being ashamed of these trouble spots and actually deal with them even if it means letting someone else see your mess. 

This is a wall in one room of our house. It is a catch all for craft supplies, bags, basically any crap we don't know what to do with gets tossed there. It started out when a piece of unused kitchen cabinet got tossed in a corner to be disposed of later. 

Only problem was, the trash will not take it and even if they would it was too heavy for any of us to lift. So it became an eyesore that just got worse over the 6 years we have lived in the house. It looks horrible and makes us feel even worse. It is also one of the first things you see when you come in the house. 

When my sister asked what bothered us most this was it. But we have tried so many times to "fix it" and failed over and over. That is because I was overwhelmed by the idea of bringing order to this area. Organizing with your freaked out emotional side leading is destined to fail. You have to push past the Overwhelm and let your brain take back over. 

Here is what happened when I was finally able to let my locigal brain deal with this same space. 

Is it perfect?  No. Are we still stuck with the cabinet we can't move?  Yes. Is it better than it has been since we moved in. You betcha. But the most important thing is that it is now a functional space that we can use rather than a dumping ground. 

In future posts, I will share the system my sister taught us to break this overwhelming task down into small enough parts that I could deal with it without sending myself back into a state of Overwhelm. 

The moral of this post is, you can do it - but you might need help. Find a patient, nonjudgemental person who understands what limitations you have and have them help you break through the overwhelm. It might be a friend, a family member or for some of you, it might even be a professional organizer. 

Push any embarassment aside. Living with chronic illness forces you to become incredibly strong. But part of that strength is being able to admit when you need help. 

Use what ever tool, get whatever help you need to beat back Overwhelm. Once you do, you can start decluttering with your logical mind. You will be amazed at the difference it makes. Trust me. 

Energy Leeches

Most of us know that clutter is rarely a good thing and admit we have too much stuff. And yet we keep it. We like it, so why should we let it go?

Well if you are living with chronic illness, here is why you should think about letting the clutter go. Clutter is an energy leech. 

You know what energy leeches are. They are the people, places and situations that just seem to drain your energy away without you actually doing anything at all.

Most of us try to avoid energy leeches like the plague. We have so little energy to begin with, we can't afford to give any to an energy leech. But clutter is a hidden energy leech lying in wait in your home just sucking energy away from you day and night. 

Here are a few ways that clutter could be sucking away your energy without you even realizing it:

1.  Visual clutter. Your brain has to process everything it sees. So when your home is full of stuff, just sitting still looking around can be mentally tiring. 

2.  Finding stuff. When a space is cluttered it is much easier to lose stuff and so much harder to find it. And not finding what you need leads to frustration and stress. Both of which trigger flare ups in many chronic illnesses. 

3.  Cleaning in harder. House cleaning is very difficult when you have limited strength and limited energy. It is even harder to clean something if you can't see it because it's covered in clutter. You use up all your cleaning energy moving the clutter to clean underneath it. 

4.  Dust is a bad thing. This goes right along with cleaning. When you fall behind in house cleaning due to clutter, dusting is usually the first thing to go. But a build up of dust (and dust mites) can be very dangerous to a person with allergies or respiratory problems. And it is really not good for anyone to be inhaling tons of dust.  And clutter just loves to collect dust. 

5.  Memory. Clutter happens because the stuff in your house does not have a home. When the stuff does not have a home, you have to always remeber the last place you left it. Which is a total waste of mental energy. 

I am sure there are many other ways clutter could be stealing your energy without you even realizing it. 

We all have clutter. Even if you don't have a chronic illness you probably still need all the energy you can get. So take a look around your house at your very own clutter and decide if keeping it is worth the energy loss. 

I have decided to dump the clutter and take back the energy it has been stealing.  I know it won't be easy or fast. But reclaiming that extra energy and being able to use it how I choose is worth the effort. 

If you feel the same as I do, stay tuned for more post on getting organized and banishing the clutter energy leech for good. 

Coming soon...really. I promise.

My last post was in September. It is now February. I truly did mean to post more often. I want to have a record of the changes and challenges that happen as I work toward a happier, healthier me. 

But healthy has been a big challenge in the last few months. I had a severe respiratory infection that landed me in the ER twice and on bed rest for weeks. I had barely recovered from that when I was diagnosed with pnuemonia. Then I was hit with influenza which can be life threatening for someone with asthma. 

During all this, I was also adjusting to a new diagnosis. A connective tissue disorder called Ehler Danlos Syndrome. Just what I needed, another syndrome. 

This diagnosis meant an extreme shift in my way of thinking. With Fibromyalgia, I paced myself but basically ignored the pain. Fibro pain is neurologically based so the while the pain is absolutely real, it is not related to an injury or physical problem in the area that hurts. While you need to pace yourself to not get too tired, movement actually helps the pain more than being inactive unless you are in a severe flare up. 

With Ehler Danlos, the tendons that connect my joints are basically too loose. Think of how useless a stretched out elastic is. That is my tendons trying to hold the joints in place. 

The pain is caused by an actual physical problem in the area that hurts. And that area needs rest and support to feel better. Like my wrists and thumbs after shoveling snow. My thumbs kept partially dislocating and causing me pain. So my doctor gave me these nifty things. Oh joy. 

As you can imagine, this is a huge change for someone used to living with and ignoring Fibro pain. But it does explain why so much of my pain did not fit into the typical Fibro diagnosis. 

I am adjusting. Staying mostly at home and allowing both my respiratory system and my tendons time to recover a bit. 

The upside is that with all this enforced time at home, I finally got fed up with our overcluttered, disorganized house and had the time and motivation to deal with it. But we had tried and failed at this task so many times before that we decided to bring in the big guns to help:  my sister. 

In my next post, I will share how she helped us get past the feeling of complete overwhelm at even the thought of trying to start organizing. And I will show you the progress we have made so far. 

Like everything when you are living with chronic illness, the change is small and slow but each little thing accomplished is an achievement and a step in the right direction. 

Be back soon. Really. :)

Lunch boxes are not just for kids

As back to school time approached this year, we set out to find the perfect "cool" lunch box for my niece Paige.   Since what she wanted was a Disney's Frozen lunch box and Disney has decided to make everyone miserable by not making enough Frozen  merchandise to meet the demand, our search ended up online.

Paige did get her lunch box thanks to Aunt Stephanie so all is good. But during the fruitless online searching, I came across a product called LunchBlox by Rubbermaid. I was immediately intrigued and had to head out to Target to check them out. Why, you might ask?

Well, let me tell you about a little known fact that comes along with chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. You can not only be too tired to prepare food for yourself, you can actually not have enough energy to eat it. Yup...too tired to eat.

This actually happens to me a lot. My energy is actually at its lowest during the day. My natural body clock is off. The technical term for this is sleep phase disorder. Or as my family will say, I am part vampire. I struggle to go to sleep before 3am because my energy is high at night. I also often get hungry and want to eat when everyone else is sleeping.   This can lead to bad food choices during the day when my energy is at its lowest. It is not unusual for me to either not eat at all or snack on unhealthy food. I just don't have the energy to make a healthy lunch.

But wait...I do have energy at midnight. Hmm. Maybe I need to pack myself a lunch for the next day?  So what if I am not actually leaving the house. But what to pack and how to pack it?  I don't like sandwiches. I prefer to snack on small amounts of a variety of food.

Enter LunchBlox. These Rubbermaid containers are various shapes and sizes allowing you to the freedom to pack a variety of different foods. There are snack size, entree size, sandwich and salad size etc.   That's great right?  But how are they any different that the millions of disposable food storage containers sold in most grocery stores?

First off, these containers are sturdy, wash well and can be microwaved. But the novelty and cool factor of LunchBlox is that they are designed to fit together like puzzle pieces so all you containers of various shapes and sizes don't end up a jumble in your bag. And most come with a reuseable ice blox to keep your food cool.

So how do I use them and why do I love them?  Tonight I was hungry and since it was the middle of the night my energy was high. So I decided to make myself a salad. I thought to myself, it would be nice to have one of these for lunch tomorrow but I will never have the energy to make it. So out came the LunchBlox. I made two salads. One to eat now and another seperated into the different LunchBlox containers. So when I want to eat lunch tomorrow, all I have to do us open the containers, dump everything together and eat. 

These are the four containers I used for tomorrow's lunch. They are they salad set, a snack size, and two small containers. I like a bunch of stuff in my salad so the salad set alone was not enough for me

In the three smaller containers I packed cucumbers, black olives and (if I had been leaving the house) dressing. 

This is a side view of the salad set. It has a space for lettuce and then a tray for accessories. 

In the tray I have croutons, carrots and a small container that is meant for dressing. Since I like a larger container for dressing, I actually put bacon bits in it.

 

This is the cover of the salad set. The grooves in it are what allow the other pieces to snap in place. 

Here it is all assembled. 

The last piece that you would use if you were taking this on the go is the specially designed ice pack. 

The entire set snaps right onto the ice pack to keep it cool. 

Pretty neat huh?  And it does all "snap" together. They are made to fit together like puzzle pieces. Some people say they snap together so well you do not even need a bag. I don't know about that. With my limited hand strength, I don't always get them clicked into place so I would like a bag if I were going anywhere. Although, just for this blog post I did managed to click everything together tight. 

Yes, I am in fact holding the entire system upside down in this photo. Like I said, this feature does not always work for me, but really, how often do you need to hold your lunch upside down?  

So far the only two drawbacks I have found to the system is one, finding a place to store the containers. I will likely just go buy a bigger Rubbermaid bin and toss them in it rather than try and jam them into our already full cabinets. Right now they are in a reuseable shopping bag. 

The second drawback is that since the containers are of various shapes and sizes, it can be hard to fit them in standard lunch bags.  Rubbermaid has thought of this and sells bags specifically designed for the LunchBlox system. They come in two sizes. If you want to be able to pack the salad set shown above or any of the larger containers, you will need the bigger bag.   

I can not tell you how the bags are because, as of right now, I primarily use the LunchBlox at home. Living on a very limited income, I have not been able to justify the expense of buying the bag.    But who knows, maybe Rubbermaid will see this post and decide to send me a free large bag to review.  Ah, it is nice to dream.

Being able to prepare a healthy lunch when my energy is high and eat it when it is low is a big step toward eating better and improving my overall health. And the LunchBlox is a great tool for that. 

The moral of this post is to think outside the box and you will find new ways (and sometimes new products) that help you take advantage of the times your energy is higher to make life easier for the times when the energy is gone.

What worked for me

This post is an update to my previous posts from so long ago. Since it is over a year later, I wanted to share what worked for me and what didn't.

1.  Email clean up to songs. This worked wonderfully for me. My email box now rarely gets over 100 emails. Once I got it under control and unsubscribe from emails I did not want, I no longer had to clean it daily. But if I see it inching toward 100, on goes a song and down goes the email count.

2. Mail sorting boxes. OK so this failed horribly. We are still buried in paper. The boxes filled up in a week and broke. But the thing is, the idea was not a bad one. We did sort what came in and get rid of what we did not need. But we had no good place to put what we needed to keep or deal with at a later date so it just accumulated in the boxes. So we are still struggling with this. I have a feeling this will be the last part of our house that we get under control. But we are making progress and I am hopeful that once we find a place that works to store the paper we need, then the mail trays will actually be useful. So this is still a work in progress.

3.  Litter genie. Yup I still love it. In fact, we have added an elderly hamster named Abner to our household. He was surrendered to our shelter already 3/4 of the way through his expected life span and my heart broke at the thought of him living out his few remaining months in the shelter. Thankfully my amazing niece felt the same and decided he should be her first ever small animal pet regardless of how long (or short) the rest of his life would be. So now not only do we use the litter genie for the cats, we use it for the debris from the daily spot cleaning of Abner's cage.

4.  Sunrise lamp. It does still help. I am currently going through a horrible sleep phase, one of the worst in a long time. It is a result of the multiple courses of steroids I was on in the year my asthma was out of control. And my new asthma med makes breathing easier but sleeping harder. But I still notice that it is easier to wake up on the days I use the sunrise lamp. My sleep needs to improve if I am going to continue to make progress but I will take it one night at a time.

5.  The black hole that is my closet. Is still clean!  This is a HUGE accomplishment for me. I could not keep my closet clean even when I was "healthy". It is not totally uncluttered but I can find what I need when I need it.

So that's about it for updates. Coming soon in what works for me, I will tell you about a cleaning product and house cleaning system that has made it possible for me to contribute to the house cleaning in a small way for the first time in almost 10 years.

And in the months to come, I hope to share my attempt to regain some of my strength and balance while I work to find an exercise program that works for me regardless of my multiple chronic illnesses.   Right now I am way to close to being bedridden. I can only tolerate being up for a few hours at a time without needing to rest. So there is no question this will be challenging but I am determined to try.   Wish me luck!

Down but not out

So to say have I not posted in a while is an understatement. It has been almost two years.  And it has been a very rough almost two years. One thing after another combined to knock me down again and again.

I won't bore you with all the details. Just that I was hit with major blows in all areas of my well being. Financial, mental, medical, family, etc. There were good times of course, but they seemed few and far between. My health took a turn for the worse and I ended up with frequent emergency room visits for severe asthma flare ups. I had to pretty much withdraw from life as I knew it to try and stabilize my breathing. And the final blow was when my mom, my rock, passed away a few months ago.

It is like being down a dark dirt hole and having the dirt bury you deeper each time you try and climb out.

I am still feeling like that some days but the major turning point is that I am slowly regaining my determination to not let my health get the better of me.   After many many doctor visits, my asthma is starting to respond to my new treatment plan. I am back on pain medication for my chronic pain, which I hate but it is a necessary evil while I can not exercise.

Any unlike so many others, I have the support of a loving family who, while they may not truly understand what it is like to be me, they believe in me and are there for me no matter how hard it is.

So in the words of Thomas Jefferson, I plan to : "Do what you can with what you have, where you are. "

I may be down but I am not out. I will work my way back into the life I want. One day at a time.