Clutter Busters – Guest Blog by Claire Hoffmeyer

“The kitchen ‘catch-all’ drawer is missing! Claire?” Even as a pre-adolescent I liked tidiness, efficacy in my every day habits and helping others. Our kitchen catch-all drawer went missing several times a year. It didn’t travel far. Just to my room, or the dining room table, or somewhere close in the house where I could also secure a trash can to deposit all the unnecessary collections of junk like dried-up pens, crumbled papers, or receipts forgotten.

In addition to our family kitchen drawer, my best friend would commission me to organize her entire bedroom closet once a year or whenever her mother commanded order to her always chaotic space. My compensation: a selection of choice from her wardrobe!

Beyond helping a busy mom and earning free clothes from a best friend, what motivates this behavior? Clutter busting has and will always provide me with an immediate sense of accomplishment and offers me a touch of inner peace.

As I grew up and experienced sharing living spaces with college roommates and friends, I quickly picked up on the reality that sorting through drawers, closets, cupboards, and files does not appeal or even come remotely natural to most. If you find that organizing spaces does not even occur to you as a productive, let alone satisfactory way to spend a few hours, then we’ve got a program for you!

These once-a-month, ongoing, drop-in sessions with Firstfruits presenter, Mary Janowak, offer a unique set of encounters with not only your spaces, but with the people and places you call home. Mary recognizes that our spaces fill with stuff, sometimes that of which doesn’t even belong to us but to our spouses, children, friends, relatives. Sometimes our attics, basements, garages transform into storage units utilized free-of-charge.

Well, no time like the present to regain your ownership! Join us and learn to sort through and organize a plan of action to take back your space and find yourself, your inner peace in the process. Join other women as you learn together how to decide your plan; commit time to take steps; encourage one another; persist with accountability; discern what matters; and motivate one another through self-knowledge, direction, and clear motivation.

Mark your calendar for July’s program: Wednesday, July 18 from 9:30-11:00 AM.

Become a Clutter Buster: free up your life, find your stuff, find yourself!