I watched Hoarders on A&E and it scared me! I have mentioned before that I have hoarding tendencies. I am not sure if I ever posted a photo of my laundry/mud/storage room. It is a mess! And after watching two episodes of "Hoarders" OnDemand I decided that something MUST be done before my whole house gets condemned (ok, big jump perhaps but it ~could~ happen!).

I spent two hours going through things in the storage room and throwing out empty shoe boxes (I had four just in case the kids ever needed them for a craft project at school), old paperwork (I had planned to shred it but never got around to it so just dumped it as is and hope that no one goes through it to steal my identity), sorting craft stuff (still could not throw any of it out but I was able to pull out some acrylic yarn to donate to my friend who is making knitted/crocheted stuffed creatures), and all of the extra school supplies that I bought. OMG - if I had all of the extra school supplies in one place, I would not have had to buy crayons, markers, pens or sharpies for the boys this year! Anyway, do you see how I rationalize things, just like a hoarder?!

So, two hours in that room and it looks a ~little~ neater but I hardly put a dent in it. I have two bags of clothes for Goodwill that have been sitting on the table for nearly two weeks and a big box of sandals and flipflops that need to be stored in the garage.

After two hours, I was ready to continue but started running into paperwork that needed to be filed and photos that needed to be stored and then I started to feel overwhelmed so I quit. And I felt that I was acting just like those hoarders! It was painful to make a decision about what to do with these things.

Maybe I need the help of a professional organizer?

Or maybe I just need to go back to Crazy Doctor?

edited to add photos that I took last winter (this is very embarrassing!):