Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Give your home a HUG today! | Clutterbug Podcast # 10

Episode Date: November 10, 2016

I try and remind myself to give my home a "hug" each and everyday by taking a few minutes to clean and tidy it.  An amazing thing happens when you hug your home, it always hugs you back! Having a clean home is about your own happiness, not a chore to be despised.  You deserve it to have a beautiful space that brings you joy and remember, Clean is Beautiful.   It isn't about spending money or redecorating, it is about loving and respecting what you have and reminding yourself that you have enough and that you are enough today.  For more tips, visit my wesbite at: http://clutterbug.me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. You could probably hear my bird in the background. We got a budgie for my daughter. And because I don't want the budgie to be lonely, I play like budgie singing music for it on my iPad for most of the day. And the budgie has only mimicked the screeching part. So it's screeching in the background. Sorry about that. Hopefully you can't hear it. Today I wanted to share something pretty amazed balls with you guys. I, a few. just got done the first draft of my book. So if you are a follower of my YouTube channel, clutterbug.me, you know that I was approached by a publisher and given a book deal. They said, you know, we'll help you write a book and we'll publish it. They actually picked the launch day and everything before I even written a word. So I got this book deal and it's exciting, but I've never really written before. And so it was really an overwhelming undertaking. And the deadlines were brutal. I mean, every week I was supposed to be submitting another chapter. I usually did one every two weeks, so I'm a little bit behind. But as of today, I've finished my

chapter. And I wanted to share with you today what the final chapter was about. And I know I've actually talked about this on my podcast before, but I wanted to talk about it again because it's so important. It's such an important thing that we all need to remember. And I don't know if you're all guilty of this, but I know I'm guilty of forgetting to, you know, remember to appreciate the home that I have. And so the final chapter is called bloom where you're planted. And basically what that means is, you know, they always show pictures of a flower coming out of a crack of the concrete in blooming or no matter what how ugly the pot is I guess no matter how ugly the pot you're planted in bloom bloom inside bloom where you're planted um and I really take that to believe basically

to appreciate what you have and make the best out of it and for me when I hear bloom where you're planted I really think of my home and I don't know if it's because I'm a stay-at-home mom so I'm home all day and I'm looking at this house all day but I think it's more than that ever since I was even a child I had a desire to make my space beautiful I would you know I would sneak in the closet and I would take all my mom's tablecloths out and I would hang them to try to make curtains in my in my bedroom and you know I was just it was important to me and I used to watch HDTV all the time and all of those shows were my favorite you're sort of getting the idea I can't passed by a checkout without like scanning through the house and home magazine. I love looking at

beautiful spaces. I just love being surrounded by beautiful spaces. I love Pinterest. I love all of that stuff. Unfortunately, the space that I really am like, oh, I wish I had that, they're really expensive. So expensive that it's just not a reality at this time. But what I used to be guilty of is then, you know, waiting until we had the money to do that. So not really taking care of, you know, the kitchen because I thought it was hideous and I'd renovate it one day anyways. So not making the best of what I had with what I have. So that's really what I try to do in this house now and I forget from time to time. But the process, the thing that happened as I started trying to make, I call it giving my home a hug, you know, when I take the time to declutter it or I, you know, put something pretty out on a mantle

or, you know, I organize a little area or I give it a good clean. I feel like I'm giving my home a hug. And the thing that I discovered is it sort of, it hugs you back. You know, when you, when you give love to your home, it's not about spending money. When you, when you love and respect your home, you feel that love back tenfold. You feel pride in your space, no matter what it looks like. You feel good in that space. And that's something I discovered years ago that when I took the time to clean and organize, it's not about the appearance. It's about the feelings that come with that.

It's about the fact that when I walk through the front door, my home feels like happiness. It feels like joy. It fills me up. And of course it's not perfect. I live in a 1979 house. Everything's original, the kitchen, just everything, the tile, and the bathroom. It's a dated house. And we have unfinished rooms in the basement without drywall or ceilings. It's definitely not, you know, some Pinterest worthy space, but I try my best to work with what we have. And my husband is not okay with material things. He's quite opposite. me in that way and I have had a lot of people say, you know, oh, you know, be a strong woman and stand up for what you want. And the truth is, though, I'm not great with money. That's, that's the truth. I would spend every last dime we had trying to have a beautiful space, but that's crazy.

Then we couldn't afford the house that we would live in no matter how beautiful it was. So we balance each other out. And he's right. Material possessions are not important. When I look back, of the last 15 years together, the best moments that we've had, my best memories, aren't like, you know, how pretty the kitchen looked or anything like that. It's the experiences we had. It's traveling. It's the things we did, you know, together as a family. It's not really what the house looked like. So I'm so happy that we didn't spend $20,000 to renovate the kitchen. I spent 200 to stain it, I still love it. And we were able to take that money and do other things that really bring me long-lasting joy. So in no way am I saying that you need to spend money on your

house, but I'm also saying that you should do little things to love it. And the little things that you can do to love your home are keeping it clean and clutter-free. That is really free. It doesn't cost anything. And a clean home really is a beautiful home. I learned how to make no-so throw pillows and curtains. And yeah, when you look really close, they're not fantastic. But adding, you know, my favorite color to a space giving it that pop of color brings me joy when I walk into that room. And keeping things clutter-free makes me calm, too. And not only me but my family, I noticed my kids when when the house is chaotic maybe it's because I feel chaotic when the house is chaotic but when the house is chaotic the whole family is sort of chaotic you know and we're yelling more

mostly me i'll be honest mostly me is yelling more but we're all just sort of stressed out whereas when things are really you know put away and neat and tidy we all get along better we're calmer and we can focus on spending time together, not, you know, cleaning up the mess or tidying or vacuuming. We can spend time together as a family. So that's what I wanted to talk to you about today was blooming where you're planted and remember to give your house a hug every single day. Now, you may be feeling like it's overwhelming. Like you've got so much everywhere that you could never really love the space. But just remember how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. It's the same way transforming your home into a home that you love. It takes a little bit every day. And I also wanted to

talk about remembering to complete the cycle. This is really important when you're tackling a space and you're trying to make it the best that it can be. Remember to give it a hundred We almost always stop at 90 when we're cleaning a space. And I'll give you an example. So we're cleaning the kitchen and, you know, we're finishing up the dishes and we're unloading things. But for some reason, we'll like leave some pans that are drip drying. I'm using quotations with my fingers right now because most of the time, by the time we go to bed, they're actually dry, but we're still just leaving them out. Or, you know, we'll clean the kitchen, but we'll still leave that pile of paper on there to deal with later. Like, it's like we've got.

the 90%, but we haven't gone the full 100%. We haven't, when we clean and tidy of space, we don't push ourselves to make it the very best it actually can be every time. And the problem with doing this is clutter attracts clutter. So when we leave out that pile of papers on the counter, it's so much easier, not just for us, but also the family members to then just drop other random stuff on the counter, you know, later in the day or the next day, because there's already stuff laying out. And it's like a magnet. It just attracts clutter. But when we take the time to go the full, complete the cycle, go the full 100%, it's like a little, it must be some sort of subconscious thing. But we're going to be, and our whole family is going to be more likely to try

to keep it at that 100%. I promise you. You guys have to give it a try. It really well. works. And so whenever, whatever space I'm doing, I try to remind myself, give it all the 100%. I step back when I'm done, you know, tidying a room and I give it another glance and I look, is there something out of place? Is there something I can quickly do to make this room even better? Not about spending money. It means taking some extra clutter out or, you know, refloughing the pillows, or nicely folding the blanket or straightening things, you know, on the table. Is there something I can do to take this room to 100% with what I have today? Making the most of what I have in the space I have with what I have available right now.

And it's that small little conscious effort, I guess, that can make a huge difference. It can be like a turning point to start a catalyst of clean. Let's just call it that. I just pulled that right out of my mind. but you guys. So anyways, I want you to give your home a hug today, remind yourself to bloom where you're planted, and let go of that, you know, the envy, the envy we feel of other people's homes. I would love a bigger house. That's the truth. But I really believe that if I moved into a bigger house tomorrow, I'd probably want another bigger house in a couple of years. I think if I

renovated a space, I would just want to do the bathrooms. And then I would want to do the laundry room. And then, you know what I mean? It's like this snowball effect of when is enough enough? When will I finally be happy? And I always say when I get this, I'll be happy. But then I always want more. So I need to learn to be happy with what I have right now. I, you know, I'm never going to have the best of the best. There's always going to be more out there and better and bigger out there. I need to remind myself to be happy with what I have today right now and it's way easier said than done. I get that. But with daily reminders, it gets a little bit easier. Let me just say, it gets a little bit easier and make the most of what we have. So that's it, my friends,

today, Blue More You're Planted. I'm going to get off this podcast and I'm going to go clean the kitchen 100%. I'm going to take it all the way to 100%. I'm going to clean that kitchen today. And yeah, thank you guys so much for listening. And as I haven't podcasted in a while, I apologize for that. If you're looking for more organizing tips, check out my YouTube channel. It's Clutterbug. You can just, I mean, Google Clutterbug. You'll find me. And thanks. Again, I'll talk to you guys later. Bye.