Spring Cleaning

So.......I am a winner. I won a 10 week makeover. A transformation of choice. I wrote an essay when Anahata was 10 weeks old to win a makeover offered by women entrepreneurs in Boulder County. Ten women would win 10 weeks of services based on their goals, what they wanted to transform in their life. At the time I wrote the essay I was so overwhelmed with the change that the first baby brings to a family. Being sleep deprived a massage and spa treatments sounded heavenly.

Well, I won and the makeover started about 5 weeks ago. One of the areas I wanted to transform was "my stacks". Being a visual person, I like to have things out to remind me to do them, or in my case now, to have them accessible when I have time. So I have stacks. Four or five of them. There was a Professional Organizer with the makeover, so I decided to get some help.

In yoga philosophy there is the 8 limbs of yoga. The first limb is the yamas or observances the second limb is the niyamas or disciplines. The first niyama is sauca or cleanliness. I knew if my space had some order my mind might be able to follow along. Simplify. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

The professional organizer, Liz, came over last week. I was nervous. To show her my stacks and my closet seemed exciting and overwhelming! She came to the door and we spoke a while then she asked for a tour of our home. We went to one end of my home and we started.

"What do you like about this room? What works? What is in there?(pointing to a closet). What are all those boxes, that stack of papers, the stack of books.............?????" After one room I wanted to curl up and stop! But we continued on. Next some hall closets, a small bathroom, Anahata's room and her closet, the living room, kitchen (including the cabinets), the laundry room, the master bedroom and my closet and the master bath. Opening up cabinet after cabinet and closet after closet the same thing kept coming up, DISORDER! It was laugh or cry. I laughed.

We sat down and started to go through one of my stacks. Piece by piece of paper. We came up with a plan that made sense and I agreed to get what I needed to start on that project and we used the remainder of our time clearing out the first room of all the clutter to make room for my sister visiting this next week. We schlepped out items to the shed, took things to the curb (that were all taken to be reused by others) and threw out or recycled the trash items. In 2 hours time I felt like a spring cleaning plan had started to unfold. I don't feel overwhelmed by my stacks or junk, but inspired to simplify and apply yoga to my closets!

I have started a plan for my stacks and only have one stack yet to go through. I have started my closet after walking in there multiple times, looking around, feeling overwhelmed and walking out and I am ready to start on one project at a time and get through it!

Stay tuned for more on this. She is coming again in April!