Where Did This Stuff Come From?

Over the past couple months (well, longer really if you count during the summer during my last pregnancy) I've been on a decluttering mission. I'm so sick of the *stuff* that's everywhere. We live in a 700 square foot, 4-room apartment and there's only so much room. What's really sad is that we voluntarily moved here from a 250 square foot larger apartment when we bought the house. But that's neither here nor there right now. In any case, this has been an on-going battle. We ditched a lot during the tag sale in August, and I've donated and tossed quite a bit since then. Yet, we still don't have enough room. This evening I tackled another project I had been thinking about for a while: clearing off the 3-tiered glass and iron shelf in the kitchen. It was supposed to be for decorative purposes, but since there is a marked lack of counter and cabinet space here, it ended up accumulating a variety of junk instead. I finally got rid of enough junk that was on it to move the rest elsewhere and get rid of the shelf. I feel a real sense of accomplishment. But I'm still not done. I have at least 2 more pieces of furniture that need to go elsewhere so we can fit the baby's crib and armoire here. I also did some thinking about the items on our registry and removed the swing, realizing that we just don't have the space to devote to a monstrosity like that. The bouncy seat will be sufficient.

Who knew there would be so much preparation involved? And where did all this stuff come from anyway? Where were we hiding it? Sometimes it feels like I haven't made any progress at all, but there are mounds of things that have gone out our doors so it was all in here somewhere originally. I did learn one thing...no more knicknacks! No more dust accumulators! Because they'll just head back out the door in a few years when I go through another decluttering frenzy. :)