Hotel Life vs. Real Life

I'm almost in a panic state of mind right now. Every time I walk through our house, my eyes have been focusing on clutter. Some areas are worse than others, but I've found myself really, really needing to free my life from clutter. My eyes catch on anything that isn't truly necessary. I spent almost three weeks in hotel rooms free from clutter of any kind. (The one I spent the most time in was full of poorly managed furniture and horrific pattern combinations, but that's a different story...) The closets had very little except for the few items I brought with me. The bathroom drawers and cabinets were only filled with essentials -- one only ~really~ needs what one can fill in that ziploc allowed on the plane -- toothbrush, floss, paste, lotion, deodorant, etc. Really very minor things.

So, in the scant few days I've been home, I've started ridding myself of crap that is cluttering our lives. I've got a pretty big pile of DI/Goodwill donations going. I'm sure it will be much larger by this weekend when I have time to go through more stuff. I've thrown some books on Ebay. When I get to my closets, I'll throw clothing on ebay, too. I've tossed a bunch of crud in the garbage. It's very freeing!

I've never really been a huge clutter-bug, but what I've found is that I really do have more than I need. More of just...stuff. And it's really not as organized as it could be. Most of it is stuff I never use, or used once. Or stuff I planned on using but never did. I'm sure ya'll can relate. The way that ~stuff~ is marketed to us to buy, buy, buy much more than you need, you'd think that everyone would be swamped. Well, some people are, I guess. The panic I mentioned earlier is directly related to the feeling that I could become one of those people...and have my stuff fall on me and kill me...either physically or metaphorically. Right now, it's just a thorn in my side which I'm digging at with a really big tweaser.