Links: Organizing vs. Decluttering, the Future of Protestantism, and more!

Weekend links - just a bit late. Enjoy!

"The powerful difference between organizing & decluttering":

And then there’s the beautiful aftermath that follows decluttering. You find yourself happy to own less, so if you consciously keep stuff from entering your door again, you start owning this habit. You genuinely don’t want to shop because then you’d have to do something with the new stuff.

"The Future of Protestantism": This video from Biola University is a great discussion - my husband and I watched the live stream earlier in the week, and really enjoyed it.

And this post contains a bunch of great follow-up links.  I'm just really heartened by listening to smart, thoughtful, educated people working through these important issues.

And now, here's a treat - a much shorter treat - that's relevant to our interests: two brilliant profs from my alma mater, discussing the liturgical year:

pretty, pretty, ugly, and pretty again!

I've made some more of the yarn-eating totes, and I'm still loving them!

First, this color-coordinated effort:

Then, this garish item, which the children nonetheless love:

They use it to carry their toys around the house - they tie ropes on the handles and haul their toy animals up and down the stairs.

And then, my very favorite, this lovely Easter-y one:

The only problem with this project? All the ends I have to weave in. Check it out:

But I'm close to getting all my old Red Heart skeins down to the place where they'll be merely a stripe or two on my scrap afghan.

Maybe once the one at the top is done, I'll be there.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

more yarneating baskets!

Okay, the joints in my hands are sore and the writing callus on my finger now has a blister to keep it company, but this triple-stranded crocheting is addicting! It just eats yarn (good for the decluttering effort) and it makes such useful stuff.

I mean, you'd hate to wear anything made with this technique, but for household items, it makes a wonderful, sturdy-but-flexible fabric. Here's a small basket to corral the remotes:

And here's a tote for the kids' toys:

I'm loving this. I wish I'd thought of it earlier!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

decluttering WIN (and crochet FO)

There was a pile of power cords sprawling under the end table in our living room, making that corner of the room look messy. (I was able to notice this only because the rest of that corner had recently been decluttered.)

I wanted to contain the mess by nesting all the cords together in a basket, only I didn't have a rightly-sized basket. I tried a smallish one, and it looked nice for a moment, but as soon as we plugged anything into the cables, they all spilled out of the basket. No good.

I thought about buying a basket, but then I had an idea: I could make one, and not only clean up the mess in the corner, but use up some old acrylic yarn I had no other plans for.

I got three coordinating colors of yarn and crocheted them, holding all three together:

The resulting basket is just the right size:

I like this technique. The fabric it makes is stiff enough to hold the shape of the basket, but you can still bend the basket, which is nice for fitting it into the odd corner. I want to try using this technique again to make a square-bottomed tote - I bet it'd be great for holding toys, or for gathering toys that have been scattered around the house (I'm picturing handles made by leaving two parallel slits near the top of the tote - that should be pretty sturdy).

Crocheting with a triple strand of worsted weight yarn is a little hard on the wrists. But worth it for the results. It's so satisfying to be able to solve a problem by making something.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

the decluttering proceeds apace

Albeit a very slow, slow pace.

It's good though. This time, I'm enjoying decluttering not fast but well.

So, for example, when I got to the part of our dining room bookshelf where I'd shelved CD's that needed filing (we keep all of our music CD's in one giant folder, sans jewel cases), I didn't just file them in the folder. Adam & I went through the folder, pulled out music we don't listen too, put it in the donate pile, and cleared the electronic copies off of our computers. Then I filed the CD's that needed filing.

I'm enjoying taking that level of care as I go through all our house and organize it. I think it means that I'm going to be done somewhere around Christmas rather than at the end of summer, but I love the feeling of putting things into order - real order.

One of the odd things I've noticed as I work is that I have to go through most spaces two times, not just once. The first time I sweep up all the obvious stuff and either put it where it belongs, trash it, or donate it. Then - usually a week or two later, after the purpose of the space has had time to marinate in my mind - I come back and do a more thoughtful reorganizing: This is what we use this space for, so this is what should be here and this is how it should be arranged.

Like I said: it's a slow process. If you came over to my house right now, you wouldn't be impressed (especially as it's in its normal state of Sunday afternoon mess - clean up won't happen till after dinner).

But I can feel the difference as I move through my day-to-day routines. Chores are easier. The atmosphere is more peaceful.

I'm very happy we're doing this.

Anyone else doing some tardy spring cleaning?

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Decluttering report

The kid's play-space under the stairs is done. Completely done. There are some empty Sterlite containers in there that will eventually go to holding other items in other places in the house, but they can live peacefully in the corner till I need them.

I decluttered my cookbook shelf, getting rid of a few that I never use - I think I only have four or five books there now. The Tupperware and dishcloths live there too, and I tossed a bunch of Tupperware - some of it grotty and old, and some of it just stuff that I never reach for because it's never the right shape or size. The dishcloths and dish towels are now separated into two containers instead of one, which will make them easier both to find and to put away.

That shelf now has real, live, actual empty space on it. It's pretty appealing, visually.

The kids' room is done, minus the top bunk of the smaller bunk bed. No one sleeps there now; instead, that's where all the toys-with-small-pieces are living - Legos, magnet dolls, Tinkertoys, etc. - so that they can be played with one at a time, as handed down by a parent. But I need to go through it all and make sure everything that's there ought to be there (probably most of it is - no one in this house is going to toss Legos), and is in a decent container. I'd like to actually get it cleared off and all of those toys put on a high shelf in the closet instead, because though no one's sleeping on that bunk now, someone will need to sleep there someday.

We have a corner cupboard in our living room, and it's not done yet, but the floor in front of it (which is hidden from easy sight, due to its position in between two perpendicularly-arranged couches) is cleared. This is a spot where various crafting items (my crochet stuff, my husband's rope-tying stuff) often accumulated. Now I just have to do the cupboard behind that nice, clear floor space.

It's weird . . . I am experiencing a lot of positive emotion from this decluttering, but I'm experiencing a bit of the negative too. It's the right thing to do - we are a lot of people in a small space, and we spend too much time picking up our stuff instead of using our stuff - but it's still hard to toss stuff.

Less hard to give it away. Though even that's a problem, because I find myself wondering what in the world I was doing with all this stuff in the first place. Who am I that I should have enough stuff that I can afford to get rid of so much of it?

The anxious part of me reminds me that I don't really know if I can afford to get rid of it. Can't tell the future - there might be a disaster lurking around the corner that will make me wish that I kept it. (Worrying is a sin, I remember. The Lord specifically exhorted us not to worry.)

But I try to be wise, and not wasteful, to pray through the process and to trust the Lord for the outcome. The praying part is what makes it okay, because if it's real prayer, and I really offer my actions to Him . . . well, I can trust Him. And so I do.

Also, I remember that neither it would be good stewardship to let the stuff pile to the ceiling.

And sometimes there's a good answer to the question of why we had it and yet don't need it anymore. Often the stuff is stuff that was useful - was sometimes even needed - was sometimes a gift - was sometimes things we never could have afforded on our own - sometimes all of those things together, and now we have passed that stage. Things have changed, the children have grown. When it's that, then passing it on to someone else is just sharing the blessing with which we have been blessed. Lots of good stuff lasts through several families that way, and I'm glad of it.

Life is already easier, just with those few spaces done. Clean-up takes less time and the mess isn't so bad, and if anything the children are even more creative in their play than they were before, now that they have more space to play in, and now that the toys they have are easier to see, easier to get to.

Weird though. I expected this to be an entirely happy process, and it isn't.

Mostly good though. I'm still excited about it. I'm especially looking forward to house-cleaning when it's all done. Cleaning is so much easier when there isn't so much to clean around and when you don't have to wonder where something goes. It's so much better when you know.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell