One of my goals for 2014  is to totally declutter my house.  So far I’ve done a little bit, but I’m not as far along as I’d like to be. (Actually I’ve been working on this since I quit working in May, but that ‘s another story).

Yesterday while browsing Facebook, I came upon a post about a challenge where you get rid of 40 bags of clutter in 40 days.  The bags can be any size and you can throw away, donate, sell or do whatever with your extra stuff, so I decided to take the challenge. And when you think about it, this is a really good project to do during lent;  out with the old junk and in with a clutter free space.

Currently my dining room is my office and it’s the first room you see when you walk in the house. That alone is a recipe for trouble.  I don’t have formal dining room furniture and it works as an office, but has become a dumping ground. And this is where I’ll begin. Prior to the challenge, I cleaned out 3 of the drawers to my desk and the items I want to keep are in a box on top of the desk.  My first order of business is to put that stuff away and to go from there.

I plan to get rid of one bag of stuff each day through Saturday and then I’m going out of town.

When I return on March 17th, I’ll continue in the kitchen.  I have lots of stuff I don’t use that I plan to donate including  extra” kitchen essentials” and food that we don’t eat. Do I really need all those plastic cups and old gravy packets?

So I’m saying goodbye to unwanted books, junk mail, and that pile of “to shred” documents and hello to a clean organized office.  I’ll post weekly updates to keep me accountable.

If you’d like to join me on the 40 Bags in Forty Days Challenge, go to http://www.whitehouseblackshutters.com/40-bags-in-40-days-2014.