We're Taking Back the House

My big night out for my birthday was wonderful. Thank you for all the well wishes and for letting me know it was not terrible to use my children as bait to get chocolate cake for myself. You make me feel better, you really do.

So here's the book I chose from the bookstore after much searching:

I know some would say it does not make sense to buy something to ADD to your house when the point is to TAKE AWAY FROM, but this book is really good. It's not the throwing out of stuff that is my problem really. It's the classifying and organizing what's left that I am completely lost on. I'm not ashamed to say that even as a college grad with many years experience teaching under my belt that I had my big sister come and help me organize my files at school one year. I just don't have that gift and she really, really does. So this book is going to help me now because my sister's boss likes it when she goes to work instead of over here to organize my house.

Oh, and as I sat reading my new book, Sweetheart wandered in with her own inspiration:

She's been dreaming of organzing her room and how neat it's going to look when we're done...just like Brother and Sister Bear's room. She just pores over the page when they get all done cleaning. My girl.

But my inspiration are these pictures. I cannot get enough of looking at these pictures from Sara's old apartments. They make me want to get up and clean my house and get rid of things and if Sara checks her site meter, she probably thinks I'm a stalker. I apologize...but my house is going to be so cool when I'm through. And it's not like I can just go spend the night at Karen's house anymore.

Karen was a friend of mine growing up. Her room was beautiful and every time I got home from her house I started cleaning my room. My mom said she was going to let me stay over there every weekend if it make me want to clean! It's just that her room was so uncluttered. She had a yellow bedspread and canopy and white and yellow furniture. She had perfume and cosmetics on top of her dresser. I had toys, stuffed animals, and an older sister on the other side of the room. Oh well.

Karen's room used to inspire me, now I stalk around Sara's flicker page. Hey, whatever works. And there other influences right now: these tiny houses gave us a good laugh at first, and later a good conversation about "how much do we need?", and then S pointed out how nice and simple the Ingalls' house was on Little House on the Prairie, season 1. Then S walked into the living room last night, turned out all the lights, and set our camping lantern down. Oh, he is funny. I said simple, not rustic, honey.

So I guess this is kind of like my New Year's post that never was...we will be decluttering and simplifying here at the House Revised. I can feel the breath of fresh air right now...

I'll let you know how we're doing.

P.S. We already decluttered the garage today. We are off to a great start!