Episode 001: Meet Diana Rene

Diana     0:00
You're listening to The Decluttered Mom Podcast. A podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Renee. And in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay. Not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings, and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom's system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. 

I can't believe I'm finally saying this, but welcome to The Decluttered Mom Podcast. I have been waiting for this day for so long. And if you follow me on Instagram, you know, that I have been wanting to start this podcast for a really long time and things kept getting in the way, but, you know what, 2022, we are making it happen. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Diana Renee and I am a busy mom of two girls, I'm a wife to my husband, I live in sunny, Denver, Colorado, and I teach busy moms how to declutter their homes and simplify their lives so that they have more time to do what they really love, and spend less time picking up after everyone all the time. And I've really wanted to start this podcast because I am really big on doing things in 15 to 20 minute chunks in your home, whether that's when you're first starting to declutter, whether that's when you're wanting to organize a space or maybe you're trying to build in a habit or a routine into your home management. 

I think oftentimes, we get really, really overwhelmed with the prospect of having to do this really big thing, and so if we just set a timer for 15 minutes or for 20 minutes, and we just promise ourselves that when that timer goes off, we can stop what we're doing and we can binge Netflix or do whatever we want to do, it helps to push us over that you know, starting point helps to push us to get going. And 9 times out of 10, we want to keep going after the 15 minutes. Sometimes we don't and we, we just go do Netflix and that's okay because we promised ourselves that that was okay, but I want to provide a source for you to listen and gain inspiration and encouragement and tips and motivation, while you're doing these 15 to 20 minute chunks in your home. Again, whether it's decluttering or organizing or putting in a new system, or maybe just going for a drive because today has been a hard day and you need to just go do something out of the house, whatever that may look like.

My podcast episodes are going to be primarily 20 minutes or less each week. Every now and then I'm going to have a guest on, or I'm going to do kind of more of a deep dive into a topic or a subject. And so those might be longer but for the most part, weekly, you are going to be hearing from me 20 minutes or less for these podcast episodes.

And I really thought that this first episode would be a good time to share with you. Just kind of my story, how I got to where I am teaching busy moms all over the world about this topic where, you guys, I grew up as a total mess. Like I have always been the messy kid. Ask my college roommates. I was always the one with the messiest room in our house in college.

I just have always been a very disorganized, messy person and it always overwhelmed me and I always wanted to be organized. That's the thing is like, I was never okay being messy. I always had this desire to be like neat and tidy and organized and color coded. But it was so hard for me to do, and I could never figure out why. I read all the books, I watched all the YouTubes., I listened to podcasts, I read blogs. I did it all to try and figure out how to organize my life. And sometimes a couple of things would last for a week or two, but inevitably it would always all fall apart. And I would just fall right back into that # hotmessmom, where I just couldn't for the life of me, keep anything in order in my home.

And that was really hard. But like I said, this is like from my childhood, I have always, always, always struggled with this. So like I am not like a naturally organized person. I'm not someone who this comes naturally to. And honestly, you guys, I think that helps me, help you better because I have to really dig into the process. I have to really make sure that it's a process that's not going to overwhelm you. That's not going to take you forever. That's not going to take a ton of self-discipline or motivation to do. It's just stuff that works for busy moms. 

So let's rewind a little bit. It was the new year of 2017. My youngest was born on new year's day. She was actually the first baby of the new year at our hospital. She had some breathing difficulties right away and had to be whisked away to the NICU. Thank goodness. It was a very short NICU state. The nurses in there were godsends, but she was only in there for about 26 hours. And then after that, you guys, it was a whirlwind of really angry, red-faced screaming from this tiny little newborn.

She was colicky and I had always heard about colic. I had read about it. I had a couple of friends who dealt with it because my first baby wasn't colicky. I didn't really understand it. Like I just thought it was kind of like, oh, they cry a little bit more than regular babies. And that, that can be that difficult.

Just kidding. Like God was like, here you go. Here is a piece of humble pie for you in the form of this like raging newborn. Who just screamed nonstop day in, day out, for the first three months of her life, she would only sleep for 15 minute increments at a time. And the rest you guys, she was. Angry. And it was really, really hard as a mom.

And I remember when she was about three weeks old, she and I were in the bathroom at 3:00 AM. All the lights were off, except for like this tiny little nightlight. I had the shower running for background noise. I had two noise machines because the shower wasn't enough. I had her double swaddle, like faced in towards me belly to belly.

I had her right at the perfect angle I had to put in her paci in a very specific way. And I had to bounce her on a yoga ball. And that was literally the only way that she would not scream as if I was doing all of these things, all of the above. So it was 3:00 AM. We had not slept yet, or at least I had not slept yet that night.

I remember, and you guys, as I'm telling you this, I can see it, like, I can actually see it in my mind. I was sitting there bouncing her and I was looking around at the bathroom like I had for three weeks at that point. And it hit me how I felt like I couldn't breathe in my home. Like all of a sudden, I felt like I was suffocating in my home because of all of the stuff around me.

And I'm talking piles of laundry. Diaper in the corner, which, who knows if it was clean or dirty,  like a half empty Starbucks cup on my counter, cleaning products, and makeup, which we all know I wasn't using either one of those at the time, but you couldn't even tell me what color the countertops were in that bathroom, because they were just covered. And it was just stuff everywhere. Right. And I think that if we always have struggled with tidiness or organization, and then we become moms and we buy into like the whole like, oh, they need this and they need this and they need this. And like next thing, you know, they have 18 pages worth of stuff on their baby registry.

And so we just had, so much stuff. And like I said, we had a three-year-old who also had a ton of stuff and was also like at the point in her life where she was objecting to a new, tiny human coming in and taking her mom away from her and doing all of these behavioral things that were totally new. So here I was not a new mom, but a new mom of two, trying to figure out how to still parent and show love to my three-year-old, who was used to being the only child, trying to figure out how to take care of this colicky baby, who literally just screamed all the time and all of this while not sleeping. So no wonder, the stuff attacked me in that moment where I felt like I couldn't breathe, but I finally got her to sleep. I put her into the pack and play,  and I started walking back to my bed and I remember there was like a pathway through my bedroom to the bed. And I had to push over this pile of clean clothes that just hadn't been folded yet to the other side of the beds that I just had space to actually lay down and try to sleep.

And I laid down. And I just cried. And I remember feeling this despair of like, I don't know how to do this. I feel so in over my head. And I feel like my home is consuming me and it's not allowing me to have any space to breathe or think, or even try to be intentional in my parenting right now. And, I just cried and cried and cried.

And the next morning I called my mom and I said, "Mom I'm I have to, like, I have to get like a dumpster or something and get rid of all my stuff." She reminded me that I have a three-year-old who is deeply opposing to having a sibling in the house. And I have a colicky newborn, and I have not slept, and I need to give myself some grace. And in a few months when the colic has lifted, if I'm still feeling this way, then great, she'll help me order a dumpster and we'll figure it out. But for right now, just focus on your tiny newborn and your three-year-old and trying to get some sleep and we'll worry about everything else later. Thank God for moms. Right? Because she kind of snapped me out of it. And I was able to just make sure that I was giving myself grace and I was just really enjoying as much as possible that phase of my life.

Fast forward to about three months later, the colic finally lifted, praise God. I just know that that was such a big thing in my life. So the colic was gone. It just like magically disappeared overnight. She was sleeping for like two to three hours at a time overnight. Which as you know, like you feel like you can run a marathon once babies start sleeping in like even two hour chunks. My three-year-old was like starting to get used to this whole like big sister idea. We were starting to get into like some type of routines and I felt like I could actually leave the house with like, and survive, like with two kids. I felt like I was competent enough at that point to be able to do that. I was starting to feel really good. 

I was getting some rest and I remember we went to the playground with some friends that one day I came home, I got the girls inside and I remember setting the car seat down in the back of our house and standing up and looking into my kitchen. And again, that wave you guys that feeling that overwhelming feeling of not being able to breathe in my home hit me. And all of a sudden it was like highlighting everything for me again, there was still laundry everywhere, there were piles and piles of toys, the kitchen counters, you couldn't see the countertops now in the kitchen. There were so many dishes to be done and there were still groceries that hadn't been put away. And there were piles of paperwork that I didn't even know if there was anything in there that was urgent or not. I could have had a million dollars in there and I wouldn't have known because it was so overwhelming that I just put it in a pile and I made it disappear in my mind.

My home was not manageable and it was really starting to impact how I felt as a human, as a mom. I just, it was so overwhelming. And I don't know if that's something that you can relate to or not, but for me, I was so overwhelmed and I felt like I just couldn't breathe. So I remember I put on Doc McStuffins for my three-year-old. I started nursing my youngest for like the billionth time that day. And I got my phone out and I remembered a friend telling me about a documentary called The Minimalist. And if you've seen The Minimalist, I think it was on Netflix at the time, I don't know if it still is. It follows two guys who were in like there, I think early to mid thirties at the time that they shot this documentary and it was fascinating. You guys, it was really, really interesting to me. And it was like, holy cow, this, this is what I'm looking for. This is what I need in my life.

And it was kind of like an angel and devil on the shoulder moment where it, like, the angel was like, this is what you need. This is what you've been looking for. This is what you're supposed to be doing in your life. And then the devil was like, yeah, but these are like two guys single in their thirties, they don't have kids. Like, of course, they can be minimalist, right? Like they don't have to have all this extra stuff. So it was this back and forth. But finally, I was like, you know what, This isn't working. So I got to figure something else out organizing in the past, hasn't worked like just having a cleaning schedule hasn't worked. I have to get rid of this stuff. I have to be really ruthless and just start getting rid of it. 

So over the next 10 months, I got rid of almost 70% of our household belongings, which yes, that's an insane number. And I don't think that everyone needs to do that, but for me at that point in my life and where we were in how much stuff we had, that is what had to be done to get me to a place where I felt like everything changed in my home. Okay. So the thing is, is that this took 10 months isn't it shouldn't have taken 10 months. It also created a ton of fights with my husband. It caused tension with my three-year-old. It was like an emotional roller coaster. And it taught me so much about the decluttering process and how to do it in a really effective and efficient way.

And also here are like reasons A through Z that you shouldn't declutter in this specific way. So I had to learn all those hard lessons myself. And then as I started working with other moms, we learned some of those lessons as well. It was a really interesting process. It was a really long process, and I'm really excited to be able to share more about that process in these podcast episodes with you.

We're going to be talking all about it. We're going to be talking about all of the mistakes that I made, all of the ways that I found that we can be more efficient. And then most importantly, you guys, we're going to talk about all of the ways that decluttering, plus implementing habits systems and routines can dramatically and drastically change your life. And I know that that sounds like a really big over promise, but I promise you, it is life changing, not only for yourself but for your motherhood, for your parenting, for your marriage, for your overall wellbeing, for the amount of time that you have. It's incredible how much more time I have in my home even running a really busy business and having two kids. And I still have more time now than I did prior to decluttering because it just changes what you have to do in your day-to-day. To be able to not only survive but to be able to thrive and have time to be able to do all of the things that you wish you could be doing.

So that is where I'm going to cut off today, because like I said, I'm going to work on keeping these episodes 20 minutes or less. That way you can pop your AirPods in as you're doing dishes or as you're doing your PM pickup.  Or as you're doing anything like that, which we're going to be talking about all of these types of things on the podcast.

I'm so excited to finally be doing this. And I just thank you for spending any time with me. If this episode is something that you can relate to. Can you DM me on Instagram? I'm @the.decluttered.mom. I would love to hear it. It's always interesting to hear from you guys and if you do relate and if you can feel how I was feeling before this whole process began, I would love to hear from you, please say hi.

Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories and if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me @the.decluttered.Mom. And send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode.

I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.