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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, 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 system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. All right, you guys. So we have Jess here and I got really. It was really funny because when she came on, I saw that she had the first and last name of one of my best friends since high school, and so I wanted to talk to you just today because you are a member of Minimalist Starts here. Right, I am Awesome. Can you share with us just a little bit about yourself, your family, kind of where you're located and all those fun things?

Jess: 1:21

Sure, so I was born and raised in Waco and that's where I am raising my children. That's Waco, texas, texas, um, and I am a mama of three children. I've got five-year-old twins and an almost two-year-old. We have kind of always, even before kids, had what I would call sort of a messy house. Yeah, my parents are very attached to things. I think there are probably a variety of psychological reasons behind that. I know I've certainly got my own, but really, like I grew up in very full, cluttered houses, so did my husband, and so it really wasn't until after our twins were born that I started feeling really overwhelmed by the stuff I was having to manage.

Diana Rene: 2:11

Yeah, and I think that's really common, because I think if, especially if we grow up in homes that are particularly cluttered, that's just like what we know, right, like we grow up in it, and so we kind of just like, like that's just kind of like what we expect, like that's how you live and maybe you know that like it's messy or whatever, but it's not as big of a deal until you bring other tiny humans into the mix and all the stuff that they bring, and then it starts to be like okay, this is too much to handle.

Jess: 2:44

Absolutely, and I think, like one of the things is, it was sort of pre-kids. It was spread out vertically around the house and when I started moving all of the I don't want to call it junk, but it was probably mostly junk out of baby reach, out of toddler reach Then I was like it was suddenly all at eye level and I was really faced, very literally faced. All of the things that we owned but didn't use.

Diana Rene: 3:10

Yeah, that makes sense. And you said did you say that your twins are older or younger?

Jess: 3:17

They're older, they are. It turned five in February, and then we've got a baby.

Diana Rene: 3:21

Very cool. Um so when did you join the program?

Jess: 3:28

Not until January of this year. So January 20, what is it? 22.

Diana Rene: 3:33

Yeah, I know, I feel like this year more than even others. I'm like what year is?

Jess: 3:39

1. We accidentally celebrated my husband's birthday twice, like seven, twice, um, because COVID has done such a number on years. So like, oh my God, it'll never be more embarrassing than that.

Diana Rene: 3:51

That is hilarious. Okay, so did you like? Did he know that it wasn't his birthday and you just thought it was, or did you all think it was his birthday? I?

Jess: 4:00

mean it's like his birthday's in October. We we like it was in October, but the problem is like the year that he was supposed to turn 37, he turned 37. And then the next year we also put 37 candles on his cake and it was like several months later that he'd said something to his mom about being 37. And she was like no, you're not. And then we argued it was well bad. We pulled out a calculator.

Diana Rene: 4:26

Okay, I am actually really glad you said that, because I have to do the calculator all the time to figure out how old I am, because I always forget. I feel like once you hit a certain age, you're like am I 37? It's harder than it looks, yeah, and I had to do that a couple of weeks ago because my youngest was like mommy, your birthday's coming up. And I was like yeah, I know. And she's like how old are you going to be? And I like looked at her and I was like I think I think 38. I was like hold on. And I had to pull out the calculator and be like 2020. And I'm like wait, what year is it? It's like it was just a whole thing.

Jess: 5:07

So hard. Nobody warned you about that right oh and as a kid I knew down to like the week, like I'm six years old and 10 weeks, but like no longer.

Diana Rene: 5:20

Yep, exactly, and my five-year-old was like oh well, that's good that you're going to be 38, because you're not old until you turn 48. Good to know that Got 10 good years left, awesome, okay. So you joined in January and let's talk a little bit prior to joining. So you said that it was when your twins were born that you started to feel kind of overwhelmed by it. But that means that you had a good, what solid four to five years of feeling overwhelmed.

Jess: 5:58

Yes, and I tried a lot. So I'm a I'm a solution oriented person. Okay, I have my PhD. I like answers, I love a good answer, and so they were born. I was really overwhelmed. We were living in a three bedroom, 1400 square foot house, which is a perfectly reasonable sized house for four people, yeah, but I was so overwhelmed I decided that probably the solution was just more space. Yeah, and so we sold our house and bought a bigger house, and that did not work, to the surprise of nobody who has actually figured this out, but I was done.

Diana Rene: 6:39

Right, You're like wait, that was a lot of work and stress for that to that work. You're like wait, that was a lot of work, and stress for that to that work.

Jess: 6:44

Like so much more money. Like it, just it. Yeah, mindsight. Oh my goodness, like clearly that was not the solution, but I thought maybe yeah, how many?

Diana Rene: 6:54

sorry to interject, but how many square feet did you move into?

Jess: 7:00

2,700. So basically quite a big yeah, uh-huh. And so that's anyway, we're, we're still here and it's working for us, but such an interesting decision. Then I started trying to. I decided the problem is just that way. I wasn't organized enough. But you can't organize junk you say it better than that. You can't organize clutter. Yeah, okay, basically Right. And so I bought a bunch of dressers and I bought a bunch of bookcases and I bought a bunch of baskets. I mean like seriously, probably a hundred baskets. Yeah, um, cause I just thought I could do it that way. But I could do it that way.

Jess: 7:47

And it probably wasn't until the twins were three that a girlfriend came over who lives out of town and she was like oh, this is just very stressful. And I was like, well, cause it's loud. And she was like there's just, there's so much to look at. Um, like what if you reset your mantle? And we took everything off of my mantle. I was like some of that's decorative and it's supposed to stay there. And she was like let your eyes reset, just take everything off your mantle. Yeah, and so I did that and it was really astonishing how, how much calmer I felt in the living room. And so at that point I started trying to minimize, but without much direction, and I was like reading books and I was watching Netflix shows and I was kind of spinning my wheels in a productive sense, like I do think it was better than when I was trying to organize my clutter. Um, but I still would like look at 15 things and get rid of like one of them. Yeah.

Diana Rene: 8:53

It wasn't ruthless.

Jess: 8:54

No, it was certainly not ruthless.

Diana Rene: 8:57

Yeah Well, and you probably at that point had a lot of those emotional obstacles right, like things that were holding you back from letting go. So when you at that time, when you would look at 15 things and get rid of one of them, what was coming up for you?

Jess: 9:15

Oh goodness. Lots of fear and scarcity, Like what if I need this later? Yeah, but it was not like oh my goodness, this one of a kind tea kettle handed down from my great grandmother. What if I need this later? It was like a half pack of Bic pens that I'd bought six years ago. What if I need this later? Right.

Diana Rene: 9:37

I could totally relate. That's why I'm laughing. I don't remember if I've talked about this on Instagram or if it's inside the course, but I had like a bag of like 500 rubber bands, um, that I had the hardest time getting rid of when I was first decluttering and I it was like just sitting in my junk drawer. I had never opened it, like I had never used these 500 rubber bands, but like I was like struck with, like it was like I was paralyzed to be able to let go, because what if I had a use for a rubber band?

Diana Rene: 10:14

not only just one rubber band, but 500 of them, even though I never in my life had used them, you know.

Jess: 10:22

Right, well, and like especially. You know it's not like we are on the frontier, like if you woke up tomorrow and needed 500 rubber bands, you could get them within an hour Right and not even have to leave your house.

Diana Rene: 10:35

I ordered my husband a new toothbrush yesterday and I ordered it at like 9am and it was like, oh, it'll be there tomorrow. And I was like, oh, that's, that's cool. And then was like, oh, that's, that's cool. And then, like two hours later, the Amazon guys on my front porch and I'm like how in the world did they get that here? So fast.

Jess: 10:52

We live in the future it is so weird.

Diana Rene: 10:55

Yes, and that's so true. It's not like if we do get rid of something, we are going to have to like make a journey or like have a really difficult time to recoup it, and oftentimes the things that we have the hardest time letting go because of what? If we need it later, it is typically like a lower cost item for some reason.

Jess: 11:17

Yes, I noticed that as well. And then my other obstacle, which I feel like is very related, is um, my mom is a huge hippie. We do our best to kind of live simply and not make a lot of waste, and so I had a lot of guilt about, um, like throwing away things that were broken, that I could fix or I could turn into something else which I'm literally never going to do. Yeah, um, or that like very. I feel like this kind of a standard, terrible excuse to not get rid of something, but like, oh, but it's still good. Yeah, and the thing that was really powerful that you said is like okay, well, it's good right now, so you could give it away, so someone else could use it while it's still good, or you could keep it in a closet till it's not good anymore.

Diana Rene: 12:02

Yeah, Okay, yeah, and it's hard to think that, though, right, it's hard, especially when we feel like we're doing like a noble thing by keeping it. And I think that that can come from a lot of different sources. It can come from being raised in an environment like you said, with your mom being a hippie and like reusing and recycling I'm assuming, yeah, and so it can come from that. Or it can be if you grew up in poverty or really low income and there can be, like actual, really valid reasons for holding on to things because you may not have the money to replace if needed. Or like being raised by a grandparent who lived through the Great Depression and, just, you know, hoarded everything because they were so used to that in their life. So there can be so many different reasons for having that mentality in their life. So there can be so many different reasons for having that mentality. But when you were able to let that mentality kind of switch, what happened for you?

Jess: 13:13

Oh, my goodness, okay. So my husband and I were talking about this yesterday. Yeah, we'd gone out for a walk and when we came back in through the front door, I did like a teenager sigh, just like very dramatic, huge sigh, and said, oh, it is so messy in this house right now. And he laughed at me, which is probably not good marriage advice. Yeah, but he said if you walked into our house a year ago, you would cry. Yeah, just like our threshold has really changed, like when I went through and was really ruthless. Um, and I'm not quite done with the program yet.

Diana Rene: 13:53

I am.

Jess: 13:54

I'm kind of dealing with some emotional things plus some time things in a craft room. It's like kind of our last stop. Oh yes, Like to the, I'm avoiding it to the point that I've jumped to a section that's technically like after.

Diana Rene: 14:09

Okay, and that's okay to do PS, by the way, because I know in the program we talk a lot about like doing it in order and how important it is to an order, but every now and then there are going to be things like a craft room or oftentimes, a guest room will kind of become a second garage or basement full of like it's where, like, all this stuff that you don't know what to do with goes to die, you know, and so it's okay to move those to the end. But I would encourage you, if you are stuck on it to, if you're in the Facebook group, to post in there so we can help you through it too.

Jess: 14:43

Perfect and I just part of it is. I'm in academia and it's kind of a crunch time at work and so it's you know. I know you talk a lot about like 20 minutes, 20 minutes. Lately I feel like I go in there and I spend like four minutes or seven minutes, but I know that the progress is happening and so I'm not as hung up with like at the beginning I felt like if I didn't finish what I was doing, it was going to like snowball and become way worse. Yeah, and I've just I've built up my decluttering muscles working through the program so that now I'm like it's okay if I walk in there and do part of a drawer Right, like that's fine.

Diana Rene: 15:23

Right, because you've built that momentum and you know that you will be able to finish the drawer Right, like that's fine. Right, because you've built that momentum and you know that you will be able to finish the drawer another day.

Jess: 15:30

Exactly and it's something that, like I know, like I'm not I'm not defeated by it Like I feel like at the beginning, if I had tried at the beginning of this journey, even in January, to start in that room, I never would have gotten anywhere else. Yeah, right, right, it's about your program.

Diana Rene: 15:51

Yeah, and I think that that is a really common thing. Okay, so you mentioned at the beginning of our chat that you, you know we're reading all the books and watching Netflix shows and things like that, and there are several popular like decluttering shows on Netflix and on YouTube and they have helped millions of people. So I'm not going to discredit them, but I know that oftentimes they show like the really hard rooms or like the really intensely cluttered closets and things like that, and so oftentimes when somebody watches that, they are like, oh okay, I'm going to go do my closet. And then they get frustrated because they try and they're like this is hard and I don't want to let go of these clothes because of like a multitude of reasons. Right, like I loved this dress before I had babies and now my body doesn't really fit it right now, but maybe it will one day.

Diana Rene: 16:55

Or like I was wearing this when I met my husband, or there's like I mean there's a million and one reasons we hold on to clothes. It's so emotional. There's like I mean, there's a million and one reasons we hold on to clothes. It's so emotional. But I think that oftentimes, when we are starting to declutter, we just go for the spaces that really bother us, and that tends to be the areas that are really hard to do and that I never recommend.

Jess: 17:20

Starting with, when I first looked at the order, there was a part of me like my like hands on the hips four-year-old self that was like no, I'm not listening to this, I'm going to do it my way. And I'm really glad that, for whatever reason, I didn't, because I really do think that the starting in a place that was completely devoid of emotions for me, like it did not it was not difficult for me to go into that first space and be ruthless and get rid of things that we didn't use and we're never going to use, that I had maybe bought and didn't like and things of that nature, so that I could just kind of figure out how and get the practice and build that muscle memory and, just like, get ruthless.

Diana Rene: 18:09

Yeah, and and it builds momentum right, like when you are able to be really ruthless in a, in a space that doesn't really mean much to you or you don't really care about, or you don't think it's stressing you out. Once you're done, you realize. Okay, maybe that was stressing me out a little bit, but I also feel really good that I was able to do that and so you're able to, like progressively move into those harder spaces.

Jess: 18:37

Well, and there was such a like a domino effect of it, like once I had done my first space which kind of my my first space. My house was built in 1930. Okay, so my second space is actually like a part of my first space.

Diana Rene: 18:53

Yeah.

Jess: 18:54

Yeah, um, but it wasn't able to function that way because we had so much junk and products and things that just had no business still existing in our house yeah, things that mostly existed because I felt weird donating them. I didn't feel like I could donate a lot of that stuff because it was open, okay, but keeping something just because it's not nice enough to donate doesn't make any sense at all, like it's not good enough for goodwill, but it's probably not good enough for your house either, right? Um, but once I had done that and really made space, then suddenly we weren't keeping things on top of my husband's dresser or on the downstairs couch off of the laundry room, like there was just there were places that were serving as storage that had no business storing the things that they were storing.

Diana Rene: 19:50

Yeah, I totally get that and I love that you said that, because I think that I think we just especially in America, I think we have it so backwards where we just feel like I think we have it so backwards where we just feel like and maybe we don't do this intentionally, right, but we just treat our homes like storage facilities, and we do that because we live here, of course, and so we have.

Diana Rene: 20:18

Maybe we have the extra space, or maybe we don't have the extra space, but we still like stuff it in there, but the thing is is that we are like turning our the very space that's supposed to like rejuvenate us and provide like a haven of rest and relaxation and a place to like form memories with your family into like a storefront of all the stuff that you maybe possibly could need one day, or you feel bad donating, or just like you said. So I think it's really interesting that a lot of the times, the things we choose to hold on to are not logical by any sense, but they're emotional, and that's why decluttering can be so hard is because if it was logical, everybody could nobody would have clutter.

Jess: 21:10

Oh, absolutely. And I think it's so funny that you call it a storefront because, like, carrying that analogy a little bit further, like I would not shop at that store. Yeah, I don't want to shop at the store of half full shampoo bottles and heats with a blood stain because my kid stained, skinned his knee and then crawled in the bed Like gross.

Diana Rene: 21:35

Yeah, it's like the gross store that nobody wants anything from.

Jess: 21:39

Yeah, it's like the gross store that nobody wants anything from, and yet I'm living in it. I'm living in the gross store I have freed myself.

Diana Rene: 21:54

Right. And then we wonder why we're so stressed out and obviously there are way more factors to that. There's a lot that goes into stress, especially in modern motherhood and parenting and like the expectations placed on us and all of that, but we are not helping ourselves. We are like setting ourselves even further back where we wake up for the day and we're like already feeling behind simply because of our environment, versus waking up for the day and feeling like, okay, I have a lot of like crappy things today that I might have to deal with, but at least I'm waking up with like a clean blank slate.

Jess: 22:35

Yes, well, and like one of your um, one of your systems that we have started implementing lately is pm pickup. Yeah, and it's just, it's really nice to wake up to a reset home. And last night this is, this is luxurious, actually last night I accidentally fell asleep at 7 55. Oh, like, I got all the kids down and I sat down on that. Well, I got my youngest down, my husband was still reading to the twins, and so I, I sat down on the couch to wait for him and then, like, woke up at midnight and just like, went and crawled into my own bed. Yeah, um, and so this morning, when I woke up, the house was not ready for the day. Yeah, like he had made the lunches, but like there were water bottles and like a pair of.

Jess: 23:24

This morning, when I woke up, the house was not ready for the day. Yeah, like he had made the lunches, but like there were water bottles and like a pair of rain. There was just stuff on the living room floor. Yeah, so before I'm working from home today, so before I started my day, I just spent 10 minutes while the Keurig was making my coffee and cleaned the living room. Yeah, and that would have been completely impossible before the program. Like it would have taken me an hour and I probably would have ended up stacking a lot of that stuff on a flat surface in a different room.

Diana Rene: 23:49

Yeah, you would have just hidden it.

Jess: 23:52

Yeah, I would have hidden, and not even particularly well.

Diana Rene: 23:55

Yeah, it's just been behind me, right? Just not in your like blatant vision.

Jess: 24:03

Yes, like that's about the future, jess, yeah, yeah, you want to be kind to her. I love her. I should treat her well.

Diana Rene: 24:10

Yes, I know that that was like a big thing for me too, was I used to like that was like a big thing for me too? Was I used to like where I used to live? Okay, so now we kind of live out in the boonies, but where we used to live like I had a lot of friends that lived nearby and like family, that lived like walking distance, um, and I would get like a text and it's like hey, I'm down the street, I'm going to stop over and I would like panic. It was like the worst feeling because I was like they cannot see my house the way it is, even though they were also moms of young kids and like totally understood.

Diana Rene: 24:51

But so I would like go outside and like just talk to them in the front yard, or like I would like do a mad dash and just like throw everything into closets and kitchen cabinets, like nothing made sense.

Diana Rene: 25:02

I just didn't want it to look the way it did. And then that would bring on like a sense of feeling like I was failing, like I'm sure no one else has to do this. I'm probably the only one who has to do this. But now, like when I have fully decluttered, like somebody can text me and say, hey, I'm down the street, I'm going to come over, and that doesn't mean that my house is like pristine, but it does mean that, like, if I have 10 minutes, then I can get my house to a place where it used to take me a couple of hours to get it to. And that is like a really freeing feeling. And it may sound silly or little, but just the ability to know that you don't have this like one to three hour burden hanging over your head at all times, that you can just like quickly put on a podcast and pick up for 10 or 20 minutes and your like house is completely reset.

Jess: 25:58

Yes, and this is going to maybe sound like I don't have very much integrity, but I used to hide stuff, cram it into cabinets and closets and just like throw it upstairs because our stairs close with the door. Yeah, and then people would come over and I'd be like, oh, I'm so sorry, it's so messy. I was lying, lying lying Right, and so it's so funny now that, like the actual mess is what I used to lie and say that the mess was, yeah, like our story used to be the finish line, and it feels fake sometimes, Like I'm still I'm not quite sure how it took me this long to figure it out. And that's when I first started working through the program. My husband was like I don't get it. Why does someone else have to tell you how to do this? Yeah, I hear that a lot. You know how to do this. Yeah, like, feel free, bud, you can do it. Yeah, but it just the, the patterns that you set up, the systems, the routines, the order, um, and then the support, like honest to goodness, that Facebook group, yeah, is the coaches are pressure. Yes, the coaches are brilliant.

Jess: 27:12

But even just like when I maybe should have been decluttering but was instead like laying around, going through Facebook, I would see, like someone's craft room or someone's like all of the shoes that they had been keeping, like their kids outgrown shoes, yeah. And seeing someone else's big old box of outgrown shoes, it's like, oh, you have that too. Right, get rid of those real quick. You are not going to use those. Give those away. You can buy your baby new shoes. Right, get rid of those real quick. You are not going to use those. Give those away.

Diana Rene: 27:40

You can buy your baby new shoes, right, okay, so I have to just talk about the Facebook group for a minute, because I have been. My oldest is eight and prior to her being born, I was a part of the bump. Do you remember the?

Jess: 27:53

bump, yes, oh my goodness.

Diana Rene: 27:55

And the nest, and the yes, and so they had like the um the board. So like it wasn't even on like any social media. It was like on their website and they had boards and like you would have your own. Like she was born in January of 2014. So it was like the January 2014 board and you could only join it if you were pregnant and due that month. So like even then there was so much drama and snark and like there was a lot of really good right, but there was also like this element of like always feeling like you're going to say the wrong thing or like people are jumping down others throats and like then, moving on to Facebook and like local moms groups, it's like, man, they're so intense and not like supportive of what you would hope to join a group for right yes so I really hesitated starting this Facebook group for the members because that was like my, that was always.

Diana Rene: 28:58

My experience was like this drama and I was like, oh, I don't know, I don't want to deal with that, I don't want to like moderate that, I don't. You know, I don't want that to be what it turns into, but we decided to go for it a couple of years ago and it is the most drama, free, supportive space I think I've ever been in on social media and you could tell me if you think the same or not.

Jess: 29:25

But Absolutely it is. Yeah, it's astonishing Like I am taking and posting pictures of the stuff that I was hiding from my grandmother. You know, strangers, that's really embarrassing stuff. And instead of you know, there's not even like the, the like passive, aggressive stuff. I feel like in a lot of groups where they're like, oh, you're so brave for posting that.

Diana Rene: 29:52

Right.

Jess: 29:54

That's not a compliment, you're a mean person. It's just people saying like you've got this, or oh my gosh, my playroom looks just like that, yeah.

Diana Rene: 30:04

I call it a sisterhood, because that's what it feels like to me. Where there is so much support, there just really is no judgment. We've had that group now for gosh. Okay, what year is it again? 2022. Yeah, so that started in August of 2018.

Diana Rene: 30:23

So, holy moly, four years right? Is my math right? Yes, I'm like I had to break out a calculator now for even for that. So it's a four, it's four years old, and we have only had to remove one person in four years from that group, which I think is just insane.

Diana Rene: 30:44

And then we have the coaches in there, which I also think is a really, really big thing, because a lot of times when someone joins like an online course, you're just kind of on your own and it's like DIY, and sometimes that works. But for this specific subject matter, I just think that there is like a huge bonus to having like the support of people who are doing it with you, but also who have been there, done that and can like walk you through the harder emotional sides. Or maybe you're done with a space and you want to organize and you need help with it so you can post pictures, and I could talk about that all day. I just love the Facebook group and I think there's like 2000 members in there now, so to only have had them remove one person in four years is crazy.

Jess: 31:36

I love that and I I think another benefit of the Facebook group, in addition to the coaches, is that with that many people, there is going to be someone who understands your like weird thing, yeah Right, like one of my best friends is in the group and her husband has not gotten rid of a shirt since high school. Um, like like that, that's a lot of shirts, bud. And so when she was first, she was like hesitant to join the Facebook group. Like she bought the program, she's working through the videos, blah, blah, blah. But she was like I don't, I don't think I need strangers doing this with me, like it'll be fine, yeah. And she was asking like okay, so like how did you handle when my husband is less, how did you handle when less you know, didn't want you getting rid of any of his shirts? And I was like well, wes has 10 shirts, don't struggle with that, that's. That's not something I really know about at all. He kind of has always like owned what he needed and then when something got see-through or got a hole or got too tight or whatever, he would throw it away or donate it, depending on why he was getting rid of it, and replace it Exactly Like he has a cartoon. Okay, that was my black t-shirt, so now I need another black t-shirt. That's very Steve Jobs of him. Of him. It's pretty hilarious. I try not to pick on him because I've got plenty of weird quirks, but his closet really makes me laugh.

Jess: 33:10

And so it was really nice, like when she, I convinced her to join the Facebook group and then, not long after we were in, someone posted something along the lines of you know, here's the afters of my bedroom. I know it doesn't look like it's completely finished, but my husband's not ready and so I left all of his stuff, but my stuff has been decluttered. And it was just so like we were like she called me which it's 2022. We don't call people Right. But she called me and she was like did you see this? Like it's fine, I can just do my stuff. Yes, yes, you can. And I think it was just different hearing like you saying like don't throw away your kids stuff when they're not looking like. That's not what this is about. Like people with respect, when they're ready, they'll be ready, and uh, and it's just really. I think that's just one of the biggest successes of that Facebook group is normalizing all the different roads that we are on.

Diana Rene: 34:09

Right, and there, there are enough people in there that you will find at least one other person that has the same what you perceive as like a weird thing happening in your home. Um, they have it too, and maybe even to like a further extent.

Jess: 34:27

Yes, I love that. I think that sisterhood is perfect for that, because you're not the only one doing. I don't want to say weird for like the 50th time, but it really normalizes a lot of the quirks.

Diana Rene: 34:40

Yeah, so you mentioned your husband's t-shirt, so that makes me wonder. You said that your husband grew up in a cluttered home. Also, has he struggled with clutter, or is that something that he has more naturally been successful with? Or talk to me more about, like what I know. You said that he gave you a hard time for buying the program because, like, why would you need someone to tell you what to do? And I hear that all the time and it's really funny. But how has his journey been? I guess is a better question.

Jess: 35:16

So his parents still live in his childhood home and so when he moved out to go to college he took some of his things and then lived in a dorm and an apartment and a shared house, blah, blah, blah, like kind of jumped around, the way that young adults often do, right, and really, because he was moving, so really was kind of pretty bare bones about what he owned, okay, and then right before we met he had moved to Arizona, lived there for about a year and then moved back to Texas, and so that was another kind of major culling.

Jess: 36:01

Um, so he kind of owned fewer things and was fine with that, in large part because anything that he wasn't ready to deal with was just still at his parents' house, right? Um, meanwhile my, um, my parents are divorced and my mom and stepdad which is where I kept the majority of my things Um, cause my dad rents a room, like he very bare bones, yeah, they, I'm the oldest kid. And so when I left, my brother got my room like he was texting pictures of that. I guess he was emailing pictures. It was emailing pictures of his room before we had gotten to my dorm the day that I was ready for you to go. So I have kind of always like my, my childhood clutter came with me, even into my dorm room, okay. And so I have kind of always like I don't feel like I had a reset in college, like this is my dorm, with my one set of sheets, like it was all of my junk, it was totes and totes and totes of stuff.

Diana Rene: 37:02

Yeah, that's interesting because that's not super common.

Jess: 37:09

No, and I think it really has rippled out into even now Like there are things that I have gotten rid of this year that I probably took to college with me from my, from my home.

Diana Rene: 37:25

Yeah, that is interesting, and I think that, um, I think it is more common for people to be able to leave all their childhood clutter at home, right, even if it's like in the garage or attic or something of their home. So that's an interesting dynamic that you took it all with you and continued to take it all with you to take it all with you.

Jess: 38:02

Yes, that's probably not a good chalk in my column in terms of learning from my mistakes. Like the best I've ever trekked and schlepped all of this clutter around with me as I moved dorm to dorm and then got my first little apartment. Why yeah?

Diana Rene: 38:15

Well, it's funny because we have moved I don't know I think three or four times since we've been married for 11 years and until I went through the whole decluttering process, like we would move and we would like go down to the basement and we would like bring all the boxes from the basement and put them on the moving truck and we'd be like what's in those? And I'm like I don't know. And we'd be like what's in those and I'm like I don't know, and my husband would be like I don't know, but it must be important if we had it in the basement, so we would like move it to the next house and like it wasn't until we decluttered that I like would go through them. And I've told this story before and my husband knows I tell this story so he won't be mad at me but he had this ginormous box of it just said important on the outside. So like we kept moving it house to house.

Diana Rene: 39:04

And then when I went through like the whole decluttering process and I got into the basement, I started going through these boxes and I opened this huge box that says important that had it was full of and this was like probably like half the size of like a refrigerator box, so like a really big box, and it had empty CD jewel cases, so like not CDs, empty cases, like not CDs, empty cases. And I like I vividly remember walking upstairs and being like, why, like, just why can you come here and look at this? Why is this labeled important Number one? And he said, cause they're my memories, and he was like very matter of fact about it and he like, like the look on his face, he was like what do you mean? Why is this weird? And to him, as a teenager, we had CDs and you looked at the lyrics before you could Google them and he just felt an attachment to them. And so we brought post-decluttering, post post, getting rid of almost 70% of our items. That was that box survived. It was part of the 30% that moved to our new house with us. And then we were going through it again when we were at the new house because I was doing like a maintenance round and I was like let's just try, let's, let's see what he says about this box.

Diana Rene: 40:40

Now that we're like in this new house and like he feels really good about how much we've decluttered and everything, because he was very, very resistant to decluttering, like okay, we can get rid of these, that's fine. But he had my girls with him and he like had my oldest go get a trash bag and then he taught them like this chant and they were like we're throwing away our memories, as he was like chucking them in the bag. And so that's just a really good example of we hold on to the strangest things and, like I said, I'm not talking bad about him. We talk about this all the time but we just hold on to the most random things. And then we do it sometimes out of sentimentality, but sometimes we just hold on because we don't even think about it. We just throw it on the moving truck. It must be important if it's in this box and we just keep moving it from place to place.

Jess: 41:47

Well, and I think that reason is also one of the reasons that it is so hard to declutter is like, a lot of times clutter just is those unmade decisions, yeah. And as long as you can put that off, as long as you can make that decision later and wait, then moving is easier. It's more expensive, it's more space. But if I don't have to ask myself, like do I need this DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince cassette tape, even though I bought it with my own money, like do I have a cassette player? Right, you can't even take a picture of this and just let it go.

Diana Rene: 42:26

Right, yeah, you don't have to, especially if you're moving to a bigger space, right, like you talked about, and you were like, oh, we're going to have all this space now. Of course, we can keep that, we'll just buy a new dresser.

Jess: 42:42

Exactly, yeah, and I am embarrassed to admit I now I'm I'm working on getting them out of our house. They're empty. But this is one of the things my husband teases me about. Like he'll just like walk through the house and count dressers and like one is a buffet, like we're using it as a sideboard in our dining room and one holds like all of our outdoor, like bubbles and sprinklers and like swimsuits and towels and swim stuff, and then clearly, we use them for clothes. But I think we have like nine dressers in this dumb house right now. Like that's a whole lot of a whole lot of storage that maybe represents things that don't have to live here.

Diana Rene: 43:27

Yeah, and maybe those also that might be hard for you to let go of those and maybe, once you do, you'll feel like you're finally really at the end of the program, Because I think maybe and correct me if I'm wrong those represent, like what you thought was going to work and it's kind of hard to admit that that wasn't the solution, especially if you went out and spent money on them, Because dressers aren't cheap, it's not like that. I mean, even baskets can be frustrating if you buy a bunch of them baskets or bins but like for for entire, like big piece of furniture, that's not like a cheap thing to go out and buy and so it can feel hard to maybe admit or acknowledge that that wasn't what you needed.

Jess: 44:15

So I do realize. But yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Like I look at them and I'm like but this is, this is a solution. Like it's not a solution that worked, like I don't know that you can call it a solution if it didn't solve a problem, right?

Diana Rene: 44:30

Okay. So that makes me wonder out of all those 100 baskets that you bought, do you still have them?

Jess: 44:37

Oh my gosh, almost none of them, really, in large part because I thought that baskets were going to help me solve toy storage. Oh yes, and when I put random toys in a basket, the basket just gets dumped, and I think probably any mom of littles can tell you one of the worst sounds in the world is the like crash of a basket being dumped over. And so I really I got rid of all of my playroom baskets except one that's holding like items, like that's where we're keeping all of the like toddler sized cars and trucks and hot wheels like toddler sized cars and trucks, hot wheels like roughly like adult fist sized right, are together in a basket. Um, and then our musical instruments are inside of uh, I don't remember the brand, but it's the, the target drum that the lid comes off and the music stuff goes inside, yeah, so I guess that's kind of basket ish, but almost nowhere else. I guess also in our, our med room, I've kept the baskets that I bought there. But honest to goodness, that's probably very different than a hundred.

Diana Rene: 45:52

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jess: 45:53

I could probably have 18 left, if I'm like counting correctly in my head. Okay, and I think about the time that I spent loading up two tiny little babies to go to Target, yeah Right, and buy them and bring them home, and this was prior to like curbside pickup oh yeah, like we were inside of Target. Yeah, and my tiny little people are like licking the shopping cart because they're so gross.

Diana Rene: 46:23

I know the threshold for like convenience taking little humans out of the house has like lowered so much since COVID, I feel like because so many stores made it so much easier.

Jess: 46:36

Well and that. So Target drive up in this area started a couple months pre COVID. Okay, my mom used to make so much fun of me. She was, like you don't even go inside anymore. I'm like, hey, I'm saving a billion dollars by not going to Target. Right, have you met these people? Yeah, I'm not taking them places. I love them, but they cannot go places, right.

Diana Rene: 46:58

I have a niece who was born in September 2019. So, like you know, the first few months of her life she was home because she was a newborn and then COVID hit. So she's like totally a pandemic baby and the first time my sister brought her into a grocery store was when she was like almost two and like she took a video of her and it's so funny because like the look on her face she's like what is this? All these people and the bright lights and all this stuff, and I'm sure it was pretty alarming.

Jess: 47:36

My youngest is a June 2020 baby. Okay, like I was mega pregnant when everything shut down, yeah, and so he really even going into other people's homes now just kind of stands in the middle of the room and looks around with big eyes, sheltered child.

Diana Rene: 48:00

That is so funny. Okay, so my last question for you, jess, is how has decluttering impacted, if at all, your children, who are five and two? Right, he'll be two in June.

Jess: 48:15

Yeah, okay, yep. So at first they were really anxious because things were changing. Like the house looked different every day, yeah. But my daughter walked in to a room pretty early in the program and she said how did you do that? How did I do what? She said you made it bigger in here so I got rid of some of the things that we're not using. She said I think you can do that, I think you can do that everywhere, so I think that I can too. That's so sweet and we just like we have more, more space now that they can use. Like before I was really stressed about toys and so I would like dump armfuls of toys back into the playroom, like midday, constantly. I was like really bad about kind of just like kicking a stuffed animal or whatever just into the middle of the playroom floor so that it wasn't anywhere else. Um, and now that it's, it's more maintained, there's fewer things like okay, you want to put the little tykes trampoline in the middle of the living room, go for it, it's a fun toy, yeah.

Diana Rene: 49:36

I love that. It it's a fun toy. Yep, I love that and it's so fun. I love watching through the eyes of children as people are going through the program, because they don't have like all all the mental and emotional I mean they're starting to, but they don't have like the level that we do with all of our stuff. So, like it's very obvious to them. Like like your daughter said, how did you make this room bigger? Because it looked bigger to her.

Diana Rene: 50:04

And one of my favorite stories is from someone her name is Megan and she was one of the like OG, like first member. I think she was like the first 10 members of the program in 2018. I think she was like the first 10 members of the program in 2018. And she did her kitchen and she's like you know, we've lived in this house for seven or eight years and my five-year-old walked into the kitchen that had clear countertops and he said, mom, when did we get these new counters? And she was like, she laughed and then she was standing there and she's like he's five and he probably has never seen like the cleared off countertop like in his whole life. I know about that and she's like. So now I feel like I have brand new countertops in my kitchen through his eyes.

Jess: 50:57

One of the first things that you had me do is take everything off of my fridge. Yes, and I was reluctant, but I was going with it. I figured that was a bit of a process to undo if it didn't work for me. Yeah, and the third or fourth day, my, my five-year-old son is not the most observant child in the world. Yeah, he walked into the kitchen and he said how did you make that silver? I did not make that silver, he's like. Yes, you did. It's always been silver, it's just been under a million.

Diana Rene: 51:36

I love it. We need to like compile, like a list of all the things that kids are saying as we're working through the house.

Jess: 51:44

That's awesome, but they are. They are funny.

Diana Rene: 51:49

Awesome. Well, jess, I feel like I could talk to you all day, um, but for the sake of your time, thank you, thank you. Thank you for coming on and talking to me and just being really open and vulnerable about everything that you've gone through in this process. But, like everything leading up to this process too, it's been really fun to chat with you.

Jess: 52:09

Likewise, I feel like I frequently talk back to your videos, so it's been really fun actually having a conversation with you.

Diana Rene: 52:17

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 at thedeclutteredmom 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.