Welcome your
highness. I am Princess Jan, or at least
I will be after I complete this next year.
No I am not of royal birth, nor did I marry into royalty, although I am
married to a true prince of men. I have
a plan that will take me from the throes of being a mere slave or indentured
servant to my home ,my debt, and yes even a few relationships I’d truly be
better off without—but that is for another time. They are no one of importance and I’ve merely
let them be a bother to me far too long.
It is time to move past their emotional vampire ways and move on to
being the Princess my PaPa always called me.
In all
seriousness we are all paupers in one way or another in our lives, perhaps it’s
debt, perhaps it’s a cluttered house, perhaps it’s merely a lack of
organization or education. Whatever it
is, we are all paupers one way or another.
Only I’m tired of being one.
My big
sticking points are clutter and debt, well and those lingering relationships,
but enough on that part. Clutter and
debt are two things I KNOW how to deal with, but simply haven’t, or at least
not totally dealt with.
While the
health department isn’t going to shut me down, the house is far messier than
I’d like anyone to see it and Lordy don’t open a closet! The debt…well that is one I cover heavily in
my "Mind Your Pennies" but how to deal with it
is also a major part of the Princess Plan.
I actually
developed the Princess Plan several years ago and then life happened, as it
often does, and I drifted away from it.
I’m tired of drifting. I’m tired
of waiting for my knight to ride in on his magnificent horse and save me
from the clutter of the house—Heck I’d even take Mr. Clean’s white tornado, but
since neither has showed up it’s time for me to earn my crown.
So I decided
the best incentive is to air my “dirty linen” so to speak and blog about how to
get from clutter to totally clutter free in a year. A YEAR?
Woman are you nuts? I can hear
you all saying that right off the bat.
Yes a year,
because I am talking total declutter, scorched earth, no holds barred,
everything but the walls and essentials MUST go. Only I don’t want to just order in a dumpster
and a back hole to do it.—Although that is a thought.
A lot of
what we have has worth to others. If it
has worth, then it can help free me from being a pauper to debt as well. Or it can be a charitable donation and help
others. So it all must be sorted
properly, discarded in one way or another or put up completely organized.
This will
take a long time. After all I have a 3,300
square foot home, a large basement, a huge garage, 7 out buildings, a cargo
trailer and a fifth wheel all to declutter, and we won’t even discuss what all
needs to go on the 90 acres that holds all this.
What is sad
is when we moved in here in 1997 we only had the house, basement, garage and
barn and all of them were nearly empty.
I had empty closets, drawers and cabinets! We have simply accumulated…don’t get me
wrong, we are not hoarders. I rotate
stuff out of this house on a regular basis, lots of stuff. I have a real need to be clutter free.
However, I
do understand how easy it would become a hoarder and I actually know a
couple. I strive to not be one.
So that
brings us to this blog. “The Patterson Princess
Plan”. I am starting this challenge to
myself on June 1, 2012 and I ask you to come along for the bumpy ride. I’ll start out posting a basic concept of how
the PP works, in case you haven’t already read it on my other blog “See the USAthe Mystery Shopping way” or been on a list where I have
discussed it previously.
I’ll post
the goals as they come up, how I did on them, ask for advice, invite you to
join me in decluttering your own home, give helpful cleaning tips, as well as
recipes for things like cleaning products, potpourris, suggested reading and
websites and much more.
Please join
me on my ride to find my own crown and yours.
Jan who has
promised herself she would do this for way too long in OK
