They called me the CLUTTERBUG

As my husband and I near our 80th birthdays we decided we want to downsize.  We live in a big house with 14 stairs from the garage to the upstairs and carrying bags from the grocery store is still doable, but cumbersome.  We want a house on a single level.  So it's time to de-clutter or as Rick Wilkes from Thriving now says, "Right sizing."  What feels good to keep? What do I want to release?   

Each time we moved I packed 50 boxes of books and magazines.  I have 7 full bookcases.  Why?  Because I loved my books and had a hard time getting rid of them. I thought I was okay with this until I was on a call about clearing clutter.  As I listened to the call a lot of emotions came up.  Tears were streaming down my face.  I didn't realize how emotional I was about my cluttered bookcases.  Why was I having so much trouble releasing books?  They felt like my friends. Or maybe I thought I'd need them sometime.  How many angel books does a person need?  How many Astrology and Tarot books did I need to keep?

As Rick suggested, "hold a book in your hand and see on a scale of zero to ten how you feel about it.  If it's less than a 7 can you let it go? " He suggested tapping on any emotions that came up.  I started doing this and easily filled up 2 boxes that I took to a spiritual book store and actually made some money! I have two more boxes filled to take to the same store and two boxes filled to donate to our library for the Friends of the Library book sale.  I could send books to be sold on Amazon.com for an Amazon gift card.  

This is what right sizing looks like! This feels good, more peaceful.

We also cut the cable on our tv too because the prices kept rising and it just didn't feel right to pay that much anymore. We bought an outside antenna for local stations and a Roku.  Then we subscribed to sling tv and saved over $80 a month.  I feel more peaceful about releasing the TV clutter too and my TV watching habits have changed for the better. 

So if you want to experience right sizing for yourself you might want to take a look at this clearing clutter program that helped me so much.  You'll get to listen to the tapping call I was on and there will be another call this month that you can participate in.  

Too many magazines and books

500 Words a Day Day 24 April 1, 2015 Today I’m attempting to continue sorting out boxes in my office. My office is too small for all that I collect. I have too many books plus I have a guilty secret. I love magazines. Not all of them but Writer’s Magazine, Writer’s Digest, Dell Horoscope, The Mountain Astrologer, and oh yes, cooking magazines! It looks like I’m going to keep too many. How does one get rid of magazines they like? I think I’m going to sort through old Writer’s Magazines and be ruthless, hopefully.

Yes you see an adult coloring book here. I have another to color, they are angel pictures.


I came across a Woman’s Day from June 1958. It has a lot of short stories in it. Why stop publishing fiction? I remember trading these magazines with friends and neighbors. We would each subscribe to one and then when we finished reading them we’d trade with each other. I need to read the stories, look at the ads and articles before I recycle this one.

Back in the 1980’s I wrote stories from the Confession Magazines. They bought quite a few of mine and of course I kept all of them too. When we moved I packed 50 boxes of books and magazines and I don’t want to have to do that again. Maybe I’ll only have 45. Ha ha, I hope less. One of my CB “handles” was the clutter bug. I live up to the name.

Have you ever seen Reminisce magazine? It’s all about the “good old days” with pictures of old ads, memories, recipes and more. I try not to collect these but I found a pile in a box. I’ll try to glean the gems from them and hopefully toss them into the donate to the library box. Yes, our library has a table in the foyer filled with donated magazines. I donate as many as we can carry there but I go through them and take home more.

Another of my guilty secrets is People magazine. I don’t often buy them but I find them at the library or in waiting rooms. I brought a bag of them home last week and they’re still sitting by my chair in the living room. I’m looking forward to reading through them and yes, donating them right back to the library.

Thank goodness for the Zinio app on my Ipad. I can log into the county library and download them to the app and read them for free. The trouble is, the Zinio app is telling me I have used up my space and it’s going to close so I can delete some magazines. I don’t have any magazines downloaded. I need to look into this. I subscribed to the digital version of Dell Horoscope, True Story and True Confessions (yes I want to try selling some more stories there). I have the kindle app on my ipad too and I have so many books there that I’ll never run out of reading material. But I need to keep my hard copies of my astrology books, my Emotional Freedom Technique books, Tarot books and, sigh, too many more.

Back to work!

Opening up

Today I'm going to buy the book, Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner. I am following her blog and I realize that I need to get in touch with some emotions that I've been sucking in, instead of releasing. When I do that my body kicks me in the back or the gut and says, "hey you're doing it again." I'm tired of hurting so I've decided to take the next step and hope I feel better.

I think Susan Boyle the woman who dared sing in front of everyone in England has inspired me. As I watched the video and saw the snickers and the rolling eyes of people who thought, "someone as ugly as her is going to sound terrible" it brought back many memories of my life when people stared at my cleft lip. Some kids in school told me that I had a quiverlip and teased me. Another said she would be friends with me when no one was around. I should've beat her up but I didn't fight. Instead I sucked it up. So watching the audience before Susan sang felt like I was getting kicked in the gut. It felt too familiar. Then when she sang and everyone took another look it was wonderful and I sobbed. I took singing lessons too but I'll never sing like her. I also don't need to worry so much about how I sound either because, like Susan, I can be who I am and be proud of it.

There, I opened up! It wasn't too bad.

Ok let's see what tomorrow brings and what I will open up about.

Hugs, Me