Coming out of Hibernation

I would include a nicer picture, but my memory card decided to fail big time and delete all of our recent pictures.

Over the holidays, I ended up taking a completely unplanned, (some would say forced) break from updating here. We were hit with every viral illness and 24 hour plague possible, it seems, one right after the other. Those flu bugs rolled their eyes and laughed at our vitamin armed (but sleep deprived) bodies, marched in and took the fort.

 Our long list of things that we wanted to do over the holidays were reduced to doing nothing but what felt like a trillion loads of laundry, and fevered movie marathons.
Despite spending the holidays with humidifiers, mentholatum on our chests, cold packs on foreheads and with emergency buckets in our laps, I honestly can't say that it was all bad.
We spent a lot of time together as a family, crowded and piled on two sofa's together in the basement rec room, cozied up under blankets and laughing together. (I did manage to knit some, but I wouldn't recommend knitting cables while fevered. I have some frogging to do.)

While I'd never want to spend another Christmas feeling so lousy, I don't feel like all was lost. A lot of happy memories were made and for that I'm grateful.

I'm still picking up what's left of Christmas and putting it all away in the appropriate boxes, hoping that next year we're able to enjoy it all a little more. 

I don't normally make resolutions for the new year, I'm from the school of  thought that if something in your life needs a drastic (or slight) change, it really can happen any time of the year, why wait until the new year?
However, cleaning up after Christmas always brings bittersweet refreshment and inspires more cleaning/purging. I not only enjoy having the floor space back that our Christmas tree took up, and having a simple, much more sparse mantle, but I'm also finding a cheap thrill in taking the time to get rid of things around the house that we aren't using or enjoying anymore and are just taking up space that we could be using more efficiently.
Also, i'm going through closets and finding things that are either outgrown, never worn, or in need of mending before they can be worn again. 
I have been trying to think of the things that take up more space in our lives than they're worth, if that makes sense. Simplify. I find that when my surroundings begin to feel chaotic, I begin to feel stressed, and scattered. I can't focus as well, and feel as though something is always eating at me.

Part of this is simply how life is with a baby-babies make messes, and force you to keep putting things up on higher surfaces so that they don't get into things that they shouldn't. I find though that i'm running out of surface space and no longer enjoying my home.

I'm no where near my goal yet, i'm still sorting through boxes of odds and ends, making piles of boxes to go to the thrift store, and still adding to them.  Hopefully before too long our home will be restored to a peaceful dwelling and we'll be all the more happier for it.
 
What are your tips for keeping down the clutter level in your home? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!

P.S 
I'm also going to be joining Rachel over at House Full of Jays for a smart, daily water intake challenge. I know a lot of us sometimes forget out important it is to hydrate, and how thirst can often be mistaken for hunger! If you're interested, check it out here.