Trouble Spots

Paul talked about people who fell away from the important things in life (namely God) and had this to say about them: 

"Their end is destruction, 

their god is their belly, 

and they glory in their shame, 

with minds set on earthly things." 

Philippians 3:19 

I don't want my mind to be set on earthly things or to think my glory comes from things.

So why is it so important for me to attack small spots of clutter and mess in my house?

Mainly, I've found that when my space is clean of clutter, or visually pleasing I feel more at ease and less distracted. When there is clutter, I always feel like I have something else to do, some project that needs attending to and it is frustrating and distracting from my time with family and peace of mind. My temptation is to BUY new things to stow stuff away or hide things. I continue to believe the lies that just this, or that will make it all better. I want to stop believing that. My challenge is to use what I have and purge my life of excess.

With that in mind I've decided to tackle one 'trouble spot' at a time.  Today it was the spot on a counter that some how ended up being a kind of junk drawer.

Here is the before:

In tackling small spots there is the temptation to just move the clutter from one trouble spot to another. I admit, I probably did that a little bit. But I took stock of what I had and dealt with as many problems as I could.

Here is my toddler 'helping' the situation. 

And this is what was in the box: 

-Teas, some of which I will never drink (sorry ginseng, but you just aren't my flavor!)

-Games

-Streamers

-Hand sanitizer wipe

-Korean box of coasters

-Coffee filters

-Money/money rolls

-Bag of candy I'll never eat

-One hot cocoa packet

and yes, that white square is a pad (to make matters weirder it's from Korea! Hello, four years ago...*insert embarrassed emoji*)

As a retiring pack-rat throwing things away is always hard and it take practice and it gets easier and even enjoyable. I'll post more on specifics another time. 

Today, I threw a few things away, placed others to give away, put things with other like items in the house and repackaged my filters and tea box to hold a bit more and take up less space. I then dealt with bills and threw away trash, then stood them vertically rather than horizontally. The majority of this clean was putting things where they should be or getting rid of them. 

This is the result:

Yay! So fresh! So clean! And it may even be sustainable...we shall see.