OFF TOPIC - 40 Bags in 40 Days Decluttering Challenge [White House Black Shutters]

Firstly, this "Off Topic" title and label will be used a touch more this year. Obviously it will be stuff that isn't about books or films, but I feel the urge to post up regardless. It's important to me for whatever reason, heh.

So this post has to do with this fantastic challenge that should help bring at least a hint of peace to one's house, in theory ;) I had just talked about my flirtation with minimalism to someone on their review of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and figured I needed to go back to it. To explain, here's a list to keep things as organized as possible:

• Lived with my mom but she didn't like my stuff to be anywhere but my room or out of sight in the garage. Got a 5x10 storage unit for the excess. Shared with my BFF and decided to add a 10x10. Also, packed up some stuff in the garage. After a while, got a second 10x10. Storage lady then offered to hold a 10x15 so we got rid of one 10x10 and the little 5x10.
• Moved to an apartment with BFF. While we got more stuff we needed (kitchen stuff, furniture, etc), we also got stuff we didn't but we liked (craft stuff, wee!) or for 'whenever' we got a house (knife set, Ninja blender, etc).
• Moved to a house that has a two car garage (one door will not open at all, and the other only manually, so it's not that great for cars yet) and a shed. Plus a maid's room and extra bedroom. As you might guess, since we didn't have craft room furniture and the like, so a lot of boxes forced their way 'as is'. This was supposed to be temporary.
• Of course, a year later, now I curse the 'extra space' which just begged for more junk. On the plus side, we managed to empty the 10x15 unit and put everything in the garage. Every so often we take out a box or two to go through it. Alas, some useful boxes from the apartment (at least two of kitchen supplies) are trapped like at the far end. We ended up wasting money on some doubles. Others we just try to do without. I miss my mixing bowls :*( 
• We started to empty the remaining 10x10 unit, but having run out of room in the garage, started putting things in the shed. At least this time we tried to do a quick scan of an incoming box so that it can be sent 1) to appropriate room, 2) to shed to go through later, or 3) given away to friend who was planning a garage sale. My crap at my mom's house is still there, eep. Bless her for letting me enjoy the free storage space.

So you can see how this challenge should help me get some structured work into this! I love my house, but I wish I could just do a quick cleanup and invite people over rather than always making excuses (cleaning is the least of my problems when there's stuff and boxes scattered about). Though I may make a concentrated effort over the next month to empty the last storage unit, even adding those boxes to my current clutter should hopefully not drown me too much further if I dutifully work on this challenge. Or so I hope, anyway. While I won't bore you too much with daily progress, I will likely do updates on occasion. Did I mention I plan this taking much more than 40 days? Oh yes, because I doubt I can do this literally daily, but at least I can show some real progress over a few months!