Stuffocation Solutions

So, it seems my penchant for de-junking is more than just a pregnancy-induced mania to get rid of everything I own. Almost 2 months after baby girl was born, I carry the strong desire to discard excess. I see small piles of clutter all over my home. I'm not a slob, but I'm much more tidy when things have their own proper place. I dislike relocating sections of my pantry or cupboards to fit whatever space it seems to take up at any given moment. I always want to know that my canned goods belong one specific place, my boxes of cereal in their own place, etc. But if some item that appears on a rotating basis in my home (such as bills to be paid) doesn't have a regular and functional space to live in, my organizational world turns upside down. Said item floats from one surface to the next until it is dealt with and discarded--only to cause chaos once more when its replacement arrives.

I am not a hoarder, but I did once love collecting and holding on to sentimental things. In fact, I accumulated so many sentimental things that that was all I ever decorated with: knickknacks (if you forget my feelings about knickknacks and the like, read the asterisk beginning with "stuff"). One day in college I looked around my space and thought, "Wow. All this stuff is cool and funky, and I hate all of it." On a personal style level, anyway. All it really comes down to is that my living space did not/does not say what I want it to say. My space is beautiful, don't get me wrong. But right now it says, "warm and inviting," when what I want it to say is "calm and relaxing." A nuance, maybe, but those descriptions conjure up very different decor ideas in my mind. I'm not so much interested in creating a home that reflects who I am as I am interested in creating a home that makes its dwellers and its guests feel calm and at peace. I like a clean, contemporary look. "Stuff" just gets in the way of all that.

So, while perusing Merriam-Webster to make sure I was using the word "penchant" correctly, I came across an article of newly added words, including: Stuffocation. My home looks nothing like that picture. But I can certainly relate to the sentiment in the definition.

Luckily, we live in a digital age, and I'm hoping this will be my safety. Over the next year or so, it's my goal to get the Tingey house as paperless and digital as possible. I'm going to upload all my CDs onto iTunes and all my favorite books onto my (mom's) Kindle; then, I'm going to get rid of the physical copies. I don't even care if my computer crashes and I lose everything and have to start rebuilding a music library all over again. Our DVD collection is a little more tricky. The other day we discussed just storing the discs in binders and discarding all the jewel cases. I'm hoping that becomes a reality. Think of all the shelf space that will be able to store things that need to be kept around. Imagine a world with no clutter piles...

Sigh. I think I just reached Nirvana.

P.S. If anyone has a great solution for the "just walked through the door" clutter pile, I'd be MUCH obliged to hear what you came up with. See the "comments" section below? That's for you. :)