Here we are, first week of January, clouds of holiday tissue finally swept from beneath our feet. A Christmas ornament, dropping from a dehydrated branch, plops on the rug, rolls hollowly onto the hearth. New Year’s resolutions tap us on the shoulder, reminding us of our newly-minted vows. Get organized. Drop those Christmas pounds. Bring the budget back into check.
A New Year, the closest we have to a reset button, beckons. So we hike up our elastic-waistbanded trousers and get to it.
But exactly where and how to start? Because let’s face it: such tasks cause vapor lock to so many brains.
Now, I believe de-cluttering the mind involves de-cluttering the home, and clutter in any form can be … well, frankly unpleasant.
Of course I have my share of skeptics around here.
“It’s ironic that you’re writing a column about getting organized,” observed my doubtful spouse when he noticed my recent acquisition: a book dedicated to organizing. True, my desk (and OK, a couple of other areas) are in shambles at the moment—but, hey! We just survived Christmas, people!
And weren’t we elated when we read that mass murderer Ted Bundy kept a spotlessly tidy desk? Well. Nobody’s going to accuse me of being either a mass murderer or spotlessly tidy. Just saying.
So if you, like me, are pondering a way out of the post-holiday jumble at your house, here are a couple of tips—and you don’t have to go far to get started.
In January, countless stores in our South Valley are bursting with storage options. Check out the sturdy boxes and bins for safely storing everything from tinsel to tissue. Or perhaps a “space bag” solution is more your thing. Fill these awesome, zippered containers with your “stuff,” then vacuum out the air. You can store an entire king-sized mattress in an area approximately the depth of a sheet of paper. But don’t quote me on that.
Still undecorating the Christmas tree? Here’s a nifty idea for turning used or no longer working Christmas lights into something good: Ace Hardware is collecting those strings of lights; they are stripped of their copper wire and the money generated is donated to the Make a Wish Foundation. Simply drop your lights in the bin at Ace Hardware. In Morgan Hill, it’s Johnson Lumber Ace Hardware, 600 Tennant Ave., and Hollister Ace Hardware is located at 1707 Airline Highway. That’s a win-win proposition for sure.
To tackle the hard stuff, I checked with Morgan Hill’s BookSmart for The New York Times best-selling how-to book entitled, “The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up; the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing.” Author and super-organizer Marie Kondo writes extensively about keeping ONLY the items that “spark joy” in your life.
“Ms. Kondo delivers her tidy manifesto like a kind of Zen nanny” reports The New York Times. Oh my, yes. That’s my kind of organization.
So let’s say you’ve gotten into the January-ness of re-organization at your house and you have a few leftover items that no longer “spark joy.” Give these items new life (and joy sparks!) to others by donating gently used items to the folks at Goodwill Industries. For a slick little map of donation sites in Silicon Valley, check out goodwillsv.org/donation-sites.
For heavier items like furniture, arrange a free pick-up at your home by the Salvation Army. Reach them at (800) 728-7825 or schedule online at satruck.org/schedule-pickup. You can bring smaller items to one of their drop-off locations.
But if you’ve determined no one is going to derive joy sparks from your broken flip-flops or 1981 editions of “House Beautiful” magazines or your scratched 45 rpm single of “My Boyfriend’s Back,” there is a viable solution that will have you tidied up in no time.
It’s the San Martin Transfer Station at 14070 Llagas Ave. in San Martin. Give them a call at (408) 842-3358 or visit recologysouthvalley.com/index.php/for-homes/san-martin-transfer-station for hours, drop-off info and to see samples of what they accept.
Starting 2015 with the assurance of re-organization should make this a very joyful year.
