Pretty ashamed of my self right now. - Cleaning the house

PrairieMom wrote: I have spent this week completely deep cleaning my house and getting rid of stuff I don't want anymore. So far I have done My closet, bathroom, bedroom, Al's bedroom, and her bathroom, and am 1/2 way through the toy room.
I can not believe all the stuff I have! Its ridiculous. Thankfully I haven't had to throw to much away yet, (you know how I am about land fills) but I have nearly a pick up load of stuff to donate, and I am only 1/3 of the way through my house. The problem is that We don't take care of what we have, and we don't put things where they belong. so, I forget I have it then go out and buy more. Not so Green, and way not Dave Ramsey-ish.
Its just insane. Also, I couldn't believe how many happy meal toys we have. Every one we have is a symbol of an entire meal of junk that I have fed my children.

This is the time of year to turn over a new leaf... so here it goes. I can do better. and I will!

lisar replied: My dh is on this kick right now of eating healthier. So I am trying to cook better for them. Thats what I am doing this year.

Although I did get chicken wings for lunch today. YUMMY

MommyToAshley replied: Bowing my head in shame with you ... the only difference between us is that you are 1/3 the way further along of getting rid of the stuff than I am.

Kaitlin'smom replied: Well add me to that list, I have done a little bit. I am trying to do 15-30 minutes a day (more on weekends) of picking something to clean up and out. So its going to be slower for me as I have to work all day and some nights I just dont want to do it but I am trying. I just need to figure out where to pile all the stuff to get rid of.

PrairieMom replied: Its just sad. I have 14 pairs of shoes. they are all thrown all over the floor, 1/2 under stuff, I'm a SAHM, its not like I am working all the time, I have no excuse. the sad thing is that I was just shopping online for a new pair of shoes. There are people out there who would be so thankful to have ONE pair. and I don't take care of what I have been blessed enough to have.

PrairieMom replied:
thats why I started in the upstairs. I just keep moving things down as I go. stuff is getting piled in the laundry room which was my most disgraceful room to begin with. God help me when it is time to do THAT room. I'm gonna be in deep by then.

MommyToAshley replied:
I did that last year with our garage... I started putting things for donation and a garage sale in crates in our garage. Now, we can't get a car in our two car garage.

Calimama replied: We just did our winter spring cleaning (lol) and we ended up giving 22 trash bags of stuff to Goodwill.

My2Beauties replied: I just went through the whole house myself. Hanna's room took me 4 1/2 hours to clean and go through. I had a lawnscaping bag filled with toys and another garbage filled with old clothes that I gave away to my uncle's grandbabies who have nothing. The kid's room is still filled with stuff. It's ridiculous.

Maddie&EthansMom replied: I did this during the summer and put everything in the garage. I had a garage sale and what didn't sell was donated. I just wanted it o-u-t!! We really don't have a lot of room for storage in our home...which is good b/c it keeps me from buying things since I hate clutter, so now I only buy the things we need. I could stand to get rid of even more things, I'm sure. I try to deep clean twice a year (when I switch out the children's clothes for seasons)

I'm with you on the eating out, though. I don't go to McDonald's, nor do I buy "kids meals", but we eat plenty of junk and fast food.

DVFlyer replied: I'm in an extra psychological mood today.

What makes you feel bad about all of this?

PrairieMom replied:
Its just a shame to see how we treat our stuff. And how I am teaching my children to treat our stuff, and how we have so much with others have so little. yet, we want more. We have way more than we NEED, and remember, I try to live a greener life style, so it pretty much goes against the way I WANT to live.

jem0622 replied: You should use Freecycle so you don't have to haul anything anywhere! Just put it on your porch and they pick it up!

We were great with recycling, and then the girls were born. Got lazy. Now I recycle everything except food scraps and materials that I can't drop off to recycle.

I need to get rid of a number of things in my closet. Probably all of it (minus my wedding dress). The items I do wear are in a different place (i.e. not the closet! LOL).

You should feel great for taking the time and realizing these things! Most people would just pitch it and not care!

moped replied:
Here too Sista!

cameragirl21 replied: I am the same way. Well, not about the happy meals, lol, but I too have a ton of crap and I forget about it and buy more and then I come home and find I have more than what I need and then wonder why I always feel like I don't have enough closet space to store everything.
No Mickey D's for me, though.

DVFlyer replied:
Unfortunately, I don't know the story of you wanting to live a greener lifestyle... but there is certainly nothing wrong with working toward that goal.

There will always be someone less fortunate than yourself or your family situation so you could never live in such a way that you are beneath everyone else. I'm guessing you see that too.

Given that, I would conclude that you feel the way you do because you do not feel like you deserve what you have.

Do you feel that way at all?

As far as teaching your children to live a certain way- either you do or you don't. If you feel unhappy about how you are perceived by your children I would suggest taking one thing that bothers you and change it. Once that becomes habit, take something else.

But again, I don't think the issue is about your children's perception of you.... I think it's your perception of you or your situation. The fact that you aren't living the way you would like (and we can really never live exactly the way we want) causes you to feel a bit out of control of your life. It's this lack of control that causes your worries.

/sigmund fraud.

PrairieMom replied:
Holy Crap. Um... huh. Yeah. I just thought we were living like pigs when we know better... but, yeah, apparently. Huh. I'm gonna go hide from my inner self now.

Cece00 replied: I brought 4 bags the other day and it was just of stuff I cleaned out of like 2 closets and some clothes.

I could probably bring another 20 if I cleaned out the house