Some people spend their money on nice cars, fashion (LV purses and Jimmy Choos are not cheap), vacations, interior design, rare art, salon services or coffee to support a huge caffeine habit. Not me.  Besides buying thoughtful pinches, my money goes towards home organization.  I used to think I was a very organized person who would find the prefect places to store my junk but until I got professional help, I didn't know squat. With all these books coming out on "de-cluttering" I'm glad that I had a head start in the game and I give 90% credit to my professional organizer, Vasilia.

My obsession started about 4 years ago with one room. After years of living in a rental home, I was frustrated with my Mud Room.  It stressed me out because no matter how hard I tried to keep it picked up, it was the first room I saw when I got home and it was the most unruly one at that. I just kept using my time to move stuff from a drawer to a bin then to the hanging rod. It was a huge waste of time and money but the silver lining is that if I didn't go thru that, I would have never have found the value in using a professional organizer.  My only hesitations were:  1. how much was this going to cost? and 2. because we were only renting, would it be worth it?  Vasilia transformed my mud room in 2 hours and those two hours was all it took to get me hooked onto this new way of thinking. With her vision and lessons, I grew to understand the difference of letting go of items that I may have thought were important and what allowed me the freedom to walk into any room without anxiety. 

From that point on I decided to tackle each room and "de-clutter".  Vasilia didn't just teach me how to put stuff away in an orderly fashion, I learned that I saved money because I became mindful in my choices of what I brought home.  Very quickly these lessons of home organization seeped into everything else I did in my life.  Most importantly, my way of buying thoughtful pinches. One day Vasilia asked me why I always had to get presents for everyone so I gave her my story of how I just always loved being thoughtful.  She dug deeper and wanted to know how much effort and time I put into this. She asked about the storage of these pinches.  She asked how I felt when I received a present that did not have a place in my newly de-cluttered home. And sure enough my habits of picking up these sales items (pinches) quickly shifted and the mindfulness for my gifts began. The "home run hit" happened a few months later when I told her that my biggest challenge for buying thoughtful pinches were for my mom and mother-in-law.  She listened as I described how I always missed the mark on buying gifts for them, I could never pick the right gifts and that I always had to pay extra shipping because I was late for mailing. She asked me what I liked about the gifts that I received from each of them.  Then calmly, she took a sip of her tea and announced that my gifts to these wonderful mothers would be gift cards mailed in a card which would cost a Forever stamp and no line at the post office.  What? I was in total shock. Obviously she had no idea who I was. She pointed out that one likes money and one needs money and this is the principle of being mindful. Let me tell you, that was the most wonderful Mother's Day gift-giving I've ever had. It was a pinch back to me that I will always be grateful to Vasilia. 

As many would think, organizing is great for many reasons and there are thousands of professional organizers out there waiting to help you from being on the next episode of Hoarders. So if it's alright with you, I am going to take the other 10% credit for my "de-clutter" bliss because I reached out for help after I realized I could not do this by myself.  This explains why my fashion sense is a zero. 

Pinches,

Barb