“If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”      William Morris

Of course, to each his or her own style and taste level, but since it's doubtful I'm saving bits and bobbins for fantastical art creations, I'm fighting a crescendoing urge to yank a box of lawn bags off the shelf while wheeling down the paper goods aisle.   

Maybe it has to do with the warming Florida weather but more likely it's the fact that there's nowhere to hide my eyes anymore. There are at least three TV shows devoted to hoarding, a dozen declutter articles screaming from the mags at the checkout counter, and therapists on The View, Oprah, and Regis and Kelly analyzing the 'why' of all the stuff I'm being told not to ignore. Apparently, my stuff is not good for me. 

Drawer diving and cabinet cleansing have always fallen into the Things I Want To Do And Probably Won't Get To Any Time Soon category.  Forced possession purges have arrived with a moving truck, hired to cart my life off to somewhere else.  Those start with a promising few black bags exiting from the kitchen, followed by some shredded stuff from the office, and then the efforts peter out by the time the garage looms as the last bastion for stuff.  In the end, like Dave Barry, I'm throwing spiderwebs and still-full cat dishes into the nearest standing box. I can't, in all good conscience, recommend this as an optimum method for clutter busting.  

Most of the articles and experts tell us that the question of what you'd grab if your house were on fire is the baseline for determining an object's worth. 

So picture this.  It's been one of those days, and now the house is burning.  Family, photos, pets, and purse are out of harm's way.  What do you want to save?

Probably not the Crockpot with the missing lid, the inherited but never-used china, or the box of grad school papers and books from 1995.  But what about the collection of cookbooks accumulated from all my favorite places even if I haven't opened any of them in at least five years, or the fur jacket I bought at Bonwit Teller when I used to travel to New York for weeks at a time in winter? I know I live in Florida, but I loved that coat. I felt chic and smart in that coat.

How much space do perfume bottles take up anyway, and I need a second vegetable peeler in case someone comes to cook potato au gratin with me.  No one ever has enough towels, do they?

I ask myself the 'useful/beautiful' question all the time.  This seems to be a simple and rational criteria to keep stuff under control.  I don't start the mail when I don't have time to finish the mail.  When I add something, I toss something.  I know the benefit of having a key hook and a purse table by the door.

What I can't figure out is why my desk is full of unopened mail, my backseat is cluttered with items to be returned, and why my cell phone is missing at least 1/2 the time.  I'm beginning to more fully appreciate the meaning of the road to hell being paved with my good intentions.

If I take up the banner and start a campaign to clear out around here I'm going to have to lay down a few rules according to the "experts" ...

1.   My house is not a museum. I'm not obligated to keep granny's dishes just because she used them. She gave them to me because she didn't want them anymore. Things aren't sacred simply because they belonged to a relative. 

2.  My garage is not a storage unit.  Kids-listen up!  Pick it up, or toss it out, but either way - my car will be back in the garage by next Sunday. 

3.   There will be a One Box Rule for baby clothes and other currently useless mementos we can't bear to part with (yet). No specifics on the size of the box, other than the owner has to be able to lift and carry it into the attic all by themselves.

4.  Containerize, containerize.  No cardboard boxes allowed.

5.  All the towels will be 'good' towels until they're not; then they will be rags, marked RAG with a laundry marker and put into the rag bin, not back onto a closet shelf.

6.  The kitchen is for food prep, it's not a Williams-Sonoma outlet.  The amount of equipment stored there needs to be in proportion to the amount of cooking actually going on there.

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 I know being organized, or clutterfree, isn't about getting rid of everything; it's more about making room for other good things to come into our lives, new things.  Nature abhors a vacuum.

Um, vacuum?  I think that thing is missing a belt or something.