The whole process started so innocently. Yes, this latest guilty realization of hoarding came as I was in search of Valentine's Day decorations. (February is just around the corner, after all.) While rummaging through the buffet in our dining room in search of paper hearts to delicately hang from our chandelier, I stumbled upon it. "It" being my hoard of greeting cards.

Like a junkie who just uncovered a hidden stash long forgotten, I knew I had to rid myself of this evil hoard. But each card probably had such deep sentiment and meaning that my life simply wouldn't be able to go on without the comforting and earth shattering messages in the cards like "Happy Birthday." Yes everyone, I agree, I had a very difficult set of decisions ahead of me. As Lulu looked on from the other room, she could sense the pain and confusion I was probably experiencing.

Here's a little background that I'll pass off as a thinly veiled excuse for this paper-based addiction. Just as my mom has done for many years, each time I receive a thoughtful card in the mail, I proudly display it on our fireplace mantle. Having moved to another state, far from all family, this simple tradition makes birthdays and anniversaries feel more special. While we may not have the physical presence of family on a daily or weekly basis, the display of their heartfelt words reinforces our bond and reiterates that someone is thinking of us from afar. What I'm trying to say is, "I learned it from watching you, okay Mom?!?!" This photo of our dining room circa October 2004 shows my tradition.

After displaying the cards for a week or so after the event, I lovingly tuck all or most of them in the buffet drawer nearest the mantle. Years of completing this tradition has taken its toll, and this weekend the shocking realization of the situation had set in -- the greeting cards were taking over. 

Greeting cards are now packed so tightly in this drawer it can barely be opened. Forget storage for paper hearts, I knew I had to stop in my tracks and remedy this situation immediately. Alex hadn't started photographing the event until after I had started organizing, attempting to hide my shame from the cold and soulless lens of our camera. What we're left with is the grotesque mid-cleaning crash, overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation. Lulu, bored with my plight, began looking forward to her next nap, clearly only moments away.

I sorted through the stacks, keeping personal favorites and those with meaningful notes. Clear patterns began to emerge. Without a doubt, my friends and family know my three passions in life and know them well. The assortment of cards that made the cut clearly fit into three primary categories.

1. Cute animals, specifically pugs.

2. Cake, specifically cupcakes.

3. Alcohol, specifically martinis.

Okay, maybe "passion" is a bit extreme. Or, upon closer inspection, perhaps not. 

After having appreciated all the cards one additional time, I recycled those that didn't make the cut. I was able to put a big dent in the sheer quantity of my hoard, and after completion, now have a drawer that is nice, neat, and has open space for the next round of holidays!! 

Having completed the task, and now refocused on my Valentine's search, I opened the top right drawer of our buffet. There, among errant paint chips of years past and a bunch of other random junk, lie an unspeakable horror -- more cards. Perhaps there's no hope for me after all, but I'll admit it, I quietly closed that drawer without a bit of sorting or savoring, leaving that project for another day.

Are you finding yourself drawn to organizational projects this time of year, perhaps as a New Year's resolution? Do you too find yourself saving greeting cards and other thoughtful keepsakes, only to be later surprised at just how large your stash has grown? Are there other items you "save" that have gotten out of control? Please tell me I'm not alone in my sickness.

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But let me back up for a minute. In January, we had a bit of a public outing regarding a hoarding situation in our house. My vice: the collection of nearly 100 paper shopping bags, stored jammed behind our white hutch. (Even Lulu is embarrassed by my behavior.)

My husband's: hoarding of scraps of wood, that have slowly taken over our basement making it difficult to use as a wood shop, and laundry/storage area.

As part of a new year's resolution to purge and organize, our public shaming of each other was met with a little huffiness substantial results. We remedied the bag situation so that the area behind the hutch was cleared of this clutter, and we worked on getting the basement into decent enough shape that it was clean(ish) and more functional. 

But old habits die hard, and if anyone is a fan of the TLC show Hoarders the way I am, you know that more often than not, those afflicted with hoarding tendencies are either chasing the junk removal trucks down the street in an effort to rescue a few "really important" items from their fate in a landfill, or play it cool for the cameras but later fill their homes back up with stuff once the coast is clear.

Well, we have a little bit of both going on here. Might I direct your attention to Exhibit A, the state of the basement, lovingly referred to as The Hellhole. 

Despite carting five trips of donations to a local charity, and throwing out several large contractor bags of trash earlier this year, the mess down here slowly amassed over the last six months. I did my best to ignore it, until our hand was forced. We just finished refinancing, and having our home appraised was part of the process. Embarrassed by the mess, the morning of the appraisal (yep, you read that right), Alex was frantically tidying up down there to make it less offensive. 

An hour or so's worth of work later, significant improvement was made. Though we have several ongoing and active projects that require much use of our basement/wood shop/hellhole, Alex has done pretty well to keep it fairly organized. Sure, it's not even close to a clean and organized example of what basements can be, but it's workable.

I, on the other hand, did a better job of concealing my little hoarder backslide. Alex routinely checked behind the white hutch to ensure I was no longer stashing bags in my original location, so I selected my new hidden location. As I mentioned at the start, my secret stash sat hidden away until the counter top work blew the whistle on it a few weekends ago. On the fateful day, as Alex started emptying out the cabinet...I knew what was coming. 

As he pulled out handful after handful of various crumbled bags, expletives started to fly and I knew I had been busted. I scurried around behind him, trying to quickly organize the piles he had exposed, throwing them into the brutal light of day. No longer hidden away, I made every effort to protect my bounty, but my efforts were futile. Here's my death glare that screams, "Touch these bags and you lose an arm!"

Okay, even I have to recognize that the stash had grown a bit out of control. So I completed the quick task of organizing the bags into reusable grocery bags, plastic bags, and paper grocery/shopping bags.

Next, I went through them and came up with a decent size pile of those that could be discarded. Here I am, with the "aren't you proud of me, honey?" smile, as I bid these bags farewell. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I really appreciate times like these when you're forced to face your out of sight disasters. Even though I'm a neat freak, as long as things are clean on the surface, or the door to the basement is closed, I can usually ignore these problem areas for quite some time. But the recent appraisal along with the upgrades in the kitchen, are forcing us to make some decisions about what should stay, what should go to a new home, and what should head into the garbage or recycling bin. It's also presenting an opportunity to reorganize our home and our lives.

Having to pull out drawers and empty cabinets has forced me to make some decisions about kitchen items that we can part with. In addition to donating a bagful of items to a local charity, I'm thrilled to report that our kitchen junk drawer has gone from this nightmare...

...to this semi organized state, now free of batteries leaking acid and other atrocities.

Have you tackled any organization projects recently? Is there an area in your home, or an item that you "collect", that despite your best efforts you can't keep in order? Have you every been busted by your partner for a little bad habit "backslide?" I'd love to hear your stories.

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Though my bag obsession was made public by my loving spouse, you have to realize that I'm not alone in abusing an area of our home by housing excess items that otherwise belong in the trash. And so in keeping with our theme this week of New Year's resolutions, this post will be devoted to the little problem my husband keeps hidden from the world in his secret mad scientist-like lair otherwise known as our basement. 

My husband has a wood problem. I mean, my husband has a problem with tools. No, that doesn't sound right either. What I'm trying to say is that Alex has a classic case of "I'm not going to throw that out because I might use it some day on another project," which frighteningly enough you hear hoarders recite time and time again on reality television shows. 

Back in 2002 when we began our home search, one of Alex's requirements was that our new home have a basement. I didn't give it much thought, but he insisted on a space for storage. Little did I know, our new home's modestly sized subterranean space would soon become a sore spot in our marriage. It's so bad in fact, that many of my closest friends have never seen this area of our home. And those brave enough to venture down the rickety stairs have remarked that they "can't believe I can put up with that" or they "can't believe it's part of my home," given how neat and tidy the other floors are. 

So here's the moment you've all been waiting for. Are you ready? Brace yourself for a glimpse at the horror:

Good grief, I'm feeling a little bit nauseous just looking at the photo. Is anyone else itching with claustrophobia? Here's a highlight of some of the items stowed in this steaming pile of crap:

• Scrap pieces of wood from each and every home improvement project we've tackled in the last decade. Buckets of it, piles of it, and stacks of it, leaning against walls, stacked on shelves, tucked in the ceiling, it's everywhere you turn. This wood hoard also includes every leftover piece of wood siding, crown molding, old boards removed during projects, or wood that is going to be used on a project...sometime...someday. Do you see all of those nice straight boards leaning on the shelves? Yep, someday those will be our storm windows...someday. 

• A claw foot bathtub. Yeah, seriously. We scored a great deal on this beauty about eight years ago, and it's been slumbering down there until we can refurbish it for our master bath. It's in the photo below. Just look really hard at what's beneath the old framed photos, part of Alex's Halloween costume from last year, and all the other junk.

• Alex's pride and joy, the server rack. Do you see all of those blue lights and wires on the right tucked under the stairs? He's wedged the thing in there and I hope it never has to move. It's actually one of the few organized things in our basement.
• An old oil drum, partially filled with rain water and oil, left from our home's oil heating past, who knows how long ago. 
• A beast of a furnace with dangerously low ductwork. I can't count the number of times Alex has trudged upstairs with a bleeding cranium, nearly unconscious from his most recent head trauma after walking smack into the duct while not paying attention. I usually know what's coming when I hear a loud thud and then a muffled curse word or two. We even put a danger sign on it, but it hasn't helped him remember to duck.
• Every tool that we own, including all of the great ones we've talked about in our Toolbox Tuesday posts, as well as some that Alex deemed necessary during our trip to the home improvement store but have yet to break out of their packaging. 

• A box of wedding gifts, that after nine years we just haven't found the "right" place for. 
• The original seats that came with our Mustang.
• Our laundry area. I use that term loosely, as it's our washer, dryer, jug after jug of dust encrusted detergent and bleach, and used dryer sheets and lint strewn about on the floor. (You can barely see it on the right)

• Rolls of screen, house wrap, hand clamps, a hammock, beadboard, PVC, and even leftover fabric all hanging in the open joist cavities. (Okay, I might be responsible for the fabric.)
• A small inadequate tool bench that houses little more than Alex's obsessive collection of antique hardware.

• And, about four tons of other miscellaneous junk, house ware items, dirt, grime, dead bugs and general scuzz...like this box of plumbing, sandpaper, gloves, ductwork, and notebooks that served its purpose until the bottom blew out of it and it now sits, still, unmoving, sad, defeated. 

Yeah, it's really that gross, and seems to pale in comparison to a little stack of shopping bags, doesn't it? So my hope for 2012 is that my darling husband resolves to clean up this space once and for all. I think the last time we cleaned it was back in 2007, so it's long overdue for the little sprucing up. I know we're both tired of tripping over things and spending countless amounts of time searching for items we need for the project at hand. 

I am being critical about the mess here (Alex deserves it after yesterday's post), but we're off to a good start on the cleaning process. Alex tossed several contractor bags worth of garbage over the weekend, and I made four trips to the local charity this week to donate items that we thought someone else could use or enjoy. At this point you can almost see that we have a bathtub sitting in the basement, which I think is an improvement. So if we keep up our cleaning spree another three or four times, we might be in business. But someone is going to have to give up some copious amounts of wood. (Cough, cough.)

So let's have it. I want your honest opinion in the bag vs. basement hoarding fight of 2012. Who's the undefeated champion of the worst habit? In my opinion, Alex and his wood and tool issues have me in a TKO.

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Well, we have a couple dirty little secrets in our house. Some are my responsibility, others are Wendy's, but regardless they drive each of us nuts. The problem is that as long as they remain secret and we have other projects to take care of, they will either stay the way they are or just continue to get worse.

Today I'm taking the opportunity to call out one of these secret stash locations by publicly shaming its creator...Wendy. Perhaps this is a call to action, or perhaps an intervention, but either way it's dealing with an issue that has reached its breaking point as far as I'm concerned and it needs to change. Besides, what's not fun about a little public intervention?

Ok, before I go any further and have everyone on the Internet whispering about what an awful, horrible, and downright deplorable husband I am for exposing this aspect of our life (gasp, he's talking about their hidden junk area), please realize that Wendy is a willing participant in this intervention. I'm also relatively sure I will get my own intervention in the coming days or weeks, so please, don't cry for me Wendy, Argentina.

And now we can continue with our virtual intervention.

Our kitchen is horrible. No, really, it's a joke. We've done all we can along the way to turn it into something useable and useful, but it is really somewhat terrible. It's a large room but the layout is awful. The cabinets are all jammed into one corner, there's little storage, the lighting is subpar, the appliances are dated and there's no storage. Did I mention there's no storage?

It's for this reason that back in 2003 we bought and refinished an large storage hutch to go on the unused opposite wall of the kitchen. This hutch has worked great. It stores and displays a few of our glassware items behind doors, has a few drawers full of various kitcheny stuff, and holds larger items in the two lower cabinet doors (hello Kitchen-Aid mixer and cookbooks). It's a kitchen workhorse.

The thing is, this kitchen workhorse also hides Wendy's dirty little secret. While all of the compartments are full of useful and kitchen-related items, Wendy ran out of places to keep her various bags that she wanted to save. Being an environmentally conscious and economically savy consumer that she is, Wendy likes to reuse shopping bags as much as possible. This is especially true for larger paper bags, specialty boxes, canvas/fabric bags, and other qualifying containers.

So what is an environmentally conscious and economically savvy consumer  to do when she runs out of space for her bags? She creates new space for those bags...behind the utilitarian yet attractive hutch cabinet. You can see the edge of a Trader Joe's bag winking at you from around the back side, starting to spill over.

Honestly, I know what you may be thinking. "That's not so bad, it's just the edge of a bag. Just tuck that sucker back there and call it a day." But this is along the same lines as those guys on the Titanic that said "Hey, look ahead, there's a little floating chunk of ice peeking up out of the water, let's go ahead and bump it and push it out of our path so we can be on our way." We all know how that one turned out. (Okay, so I've probably taken a bit of creative license with my interpretation of the events that unfolded on the Titanic.)

Last week I decided that enough was enough. After returning from a shopping trip and realizing the bags we brought back had nowhere to live, and hearing how a few days prior one of the bags had slid down and turned the kitchen and patio lights out on Wendy, I decided to liberate and organize the mass of shopping containers held captive behind our kitchen hutch. The aftermath of the liberation movement was emotional and shocking.

A plethora of shopping bags had been freed and were attempting to organize a revolt to overtake our kitchen. It was complete and utter havoc, and I nearly had to don a set of riot gear to hold them back. The occupy our kitchen with shopping bags movement had commenced, and it was up to me to get it under control.

Yes, that's a veritable mountain of shopping bags that Lulu is standing on and looking dejected about. I agree with Lulu, it was a horrible realization. She was ashamed, I was ashamed...we were both ashamed that we had let this sickness go for as long as we had. It was as much on us as it was Wendy, we had enabled her...condition...through complete inaction. The collection of bags highlighted the past three years of purchases at stores who have profit margins that are apparently high enough to afford nice bags. Grocery, boutique, clothing, winery, and other stores comprised this what's what of our interests.

We had bags from around Old Town, as far west as Napa Valley, and as far east as Sweden. Wendy the bag lady had bags that covered roughly half of the world! There were bags in perfect condition, and others completely torn and unusable. If there is one thing for certain, we had enough bags shoved behind that hutch to last us through a nuclear fallout. You need lots of bags for those, don't you?

Rather than take the brute force route and throw everything in the trash (probably causing a hoarders-like breakdown that would surely bring Wendy to swearing at the camera men and threatening to off herself with the bags), I took the obsessive compulsive route and organized them into piles of like bags. I figured we could still use many of them, but they just needed to be put in a better place in a neat and tidy fashion.

Once all was said and done, we were looking at 90 bags. Yes, I said 90, with a nine and a zero. Ninety! I couldn't believe they all fit behind that innocent looking piece of kitchen furniture.

We went through the bags, determined which ones should be tossed, which kept, how I might publicly shame Wendy on the Internet, and where to store the ones we were keeping.

To be honest, it really felt good to take care of the mess, but I know it felt better for me than for Wendy. She didn't really care as long as she couldn't see the bags, but I could always see them. I was also always worried about the possibility of a fire hazard, but that's mostly because I'm paranoid.

After everything was said and done, Wendy had a small pile of about 12 bags she had to decide how she'd prefer to handle. I had to catch her as she walked back towards the hutch to slide them behind...out of sight, out of mind. I told her that this was an intervention after all. You don't see Dr. Drew offering Charlie Sheen a hit of blow after getting him to kick his drug habit. Today the cabinet remains free of bags, and Wendy the bag hoarder has done well thus far. 

Wait, what?? Wendy just informed me I don't know where her new secret stash is hidden. <sigh> I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But as long as they're not sparking a fire behind the hutch in the kitchen, I still consider the intervention a success. And how fitting is today's post about Wendy, the hoarding bag lady on the day after she posted about the best contractor grade garbage bags?

Stay tuned as Wendy brings up some of my horrible secrets. I think I know what her focus will be on, but I want to point out that I neatly arranged her mess for her, and then helped to put it away, so I hope the same treatment will be afforded during my virtual intervention. Wishful thinking I guess.

So what are your dirty little house secrets? I hope they're not too bad. I mean, nobody wants to hear about piles of garbage and dead cats. If you leave a comment like that, I'm calling Matt Paxton of Hoarders and he's coming to your place.

Not to be outdone, Wendy proceeded to call me out of my disaster area of the house. Don't miss her post on the basement. I have to admit, I'm quite ashamed. FYI, thus far there has been no assistance for me on cleaning the basement, just sayin...

Photo credit: CBS, How I Met Your Mother

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