Shelves! Rubbermaid containers - clear ones so that you can see what's inside. Throw things away, and be brutal. I've had to learn. How many years can you keep old bills? How many years should you keep the cards you got for your wedding? I mean, really! :) (these are my own experience examples!).

I certainly didn't inherit my mother's clean genes. I was a neatnik at home and my messy sister drove me nuts. Now we're reversed - she's neat and tidy like mom and i'm messy. Life is too short to stuff a mushroom, as someone once said. I have a couple of favourite sayings myself - "Wash walls? I'd rather throw them out and get new ones!" and "My mother's floors you could eat off of. Mine look like somebody did!"

Yeah I would definitely recommend disposing of stuff you really don't need anymore.

I indulge myself with one Rubbermaid container of junk that has no use, but my DH is a total packrat and collects old videos (wrestling-don't ask), toys from his childhood, papers, mementos, you name it. We have different ideas of how high junk should be stacked up the walls. It doesn't help that I owned the house before we met... and he moved his junk in... but I'm happy to say we have learned to compromise.

We also live in a small three bedroom house with a half basement - and one bedroom practically is a closet. What a funny coincidence, I meant to tell you Verena, I grew up in an Eaton's house too! I can spot one a mile away. There are still several in rural western Manitoba.

Anyways, I'm not really messy or really clean. I get lazy sometimes if nobody's coming over. I like to think that's emotionally healthy. :0)

Oh yeah and Marcia, I didn't know walls were washable... by the time mine are dirty I am ready for a new colour of paint!

LOL I've got packrat fever - mom for all her neat-freakish ways never throws anything out, she has dozens of boxes of fabric in their basement (all neatly sorted by color and type and labled) in case she might need to use some of it some day...She says it's the Scottish in her...to her credit, she has started to make some really nice quilts out of it.

Wedding cards...yep still have 'em (they work for inexpensive scrapbooking...if there is such a thing)...wrapping paper...you can reuse it don't ya know...That box of little nic-naks from when I was a child, that has moved with me six times and never been opened...well, I might have a daughter next, and wouldn't it be neat to show her my childhood 'treasures' (nevermind the garbage bag full of stuffies that is now unpacked and lines the top of the craft cupboard in the kids room...)...get rid of books??...are you insane?? LOL I think I'm hopeless.

Then there's the inlaws...they know DH likes to collect treasures too...so if they're getting rid of anything it's "Hey ya want this?" and it somehow follows us home...(not all bad...I got an antique cook stove that way...) It's a good thing they're all in SK and were here in AB or we'd have a lot MORE stuff...

I really should get some shelves and rubbermaids for the basement. It would help a lot...that and learning to say "No." (That would help a lot of stuff from finding it's way into our basement!) Our one bedroom is also a closet...for hunting & fishing paraphanalia (sp?). Glad to hear DH isn't the only one who likes wrestling...LOL!!

My excuse...taught to me by my Chem 20 teacher..."All systems tend towards disorder." Who am I to fight the laws of nature?? lol

Obviously my DH would fit right in with your DH's with the whole wrestling thing! I can't stand it but to each their own I guess.

Did I mention before that DH & I are both packrats? LOL. Yup. Wedding cards? No way you can toss those! Never mind keeping all the kids' birth and birthday cards. Christmas cards can be kept and used for crafts, right?

I am learning though. With 4 kids the "stuff" just multiplies way too quickly so I've had to really force myself through this. I've been going through all my stuff 15-minutes at a time and keep asking myself "Do I need it?" "Do I love it?" helps to see things in a different light.

Your mom sounds like my mom. A total neat-freak and loads of fabric, etc. Now she makes baby quilts and teddy bears for the grand-kids. For her it was having lived through the WWII that makes her keep everything, even to this day she will defend her keeping things because "... you never lived through the War!"

My favourite TV show lately is Neat. I love the solutions they come up with!

Ang

If you have a shed, get some of the big rubbermaid roughneck totes, fill them up, label with a felt pen, and stack them. Baby clothe, winter gear, old paperwork, books - keeps them all clean, dry and mousefree. Before we moved into our house, there were 5 of us in a 14X68 trailer - I understand space issues. And get rid of anything you don't actually like, even if it was a wedding gift (just do it discreetly). Put away all but favorite ornaments, etc. - less dusting, and you'll need the high-up space to keep things out of the little guy's reach, anyway. If you rotate your housecleaning around and do one room at a time, at least you have one clean room; put a time limit on your tidying and call it clean enough (if DH will help you for 15 minutes after supper, it'll really make a big difference).And there's no such thing as killer dust bunnies, so don't get too worried about it. And I take my mom's advice to heart - if they don't like how you keep house, they don't have to come visit!

Connie

Thanks for the ideas. I'll give them a try. Now I guess I should get off here and get at it... ;-)

Verena
(AKA the Queen of Procrastination)