twigghugger turns 1 years old!

A year ago today, I took the plunge and began this blog (see What Yet Another Blog). Why? Well, for one thing, I had finally finished grad school and consequently, had time to turn my attention to other matters. Since me and my tiny apartment harbor an Inner Packrat, paramount was the need to reduce my accumulation of stuff.

Over this past year, slowly, but surely I have made great strides in achieving just that. While constantly chanting the twigghugger mantra to myself over and over (...and over!)

• Identify
• Gather
• and Remove!

I searched the Internet for donation, reuse and exchange options. I was delighted to find that there were many more such choices available than had even been the case just five years prior.

Space cleared, has miraculously, remained so! Let me tell you that I consider this to be a huge accomplishment! Before, I was basically just shifting the piles around, but the Secret to My Success has been the gradual, but actual removal of excess things. Now, not only does it look more neat and orderly, it stays that way. I even survived the holiday frenzy without too much disruption to this hard fought for turf.

If you are as serious, a packrat as I am (was...?), reaching this point may seem daunting, if not impossible, but by breaking it down into many, tiny steps over time you will gradually see results, like I did. As I stated last year, maybe the idea of hugging a tree is overwhelming, so start off small and do it one twigg at a time, and you'll get there! Also over this past year, consciousness about the environment has grown phenomenally, so I'm hoping my approach to decluttering will continue to grow easier as well.

Now, I'm not quite out of the woods yet! There are still a few things to tweak here and there, as well as working on a couple of projects like my Magazine Mountains, better clothing organization and Oh! A special mission impossible type project I've been procrast…that is saving for last: Kitchen!: the Final Frontier! (aka as 2008: A Lack of Space Odyssey).

But, this year, for the most part, will be about Accumulation Control. I plan to maintain last year's gains, by giving careful consideration to what gets brought into the house in the first place.

Anyway, in honor of twigghuggers first birthday, shout outs to

• Barbara Sher - for issuing the Jolly 2007 Challenge which was to pick a project for 2007, something fun and enjoyable, and to write about it.
  
  R. Walker - at murketing.com (a blog I stumbled across in December 2006), who posed the question Can getting rid of stuff feel as good as getting it?.

A year later, I can definitely answer, "Yes it can!"