Hey Decluttered™ Friends,
While this is more of a personal blog post in nature, it is technically our very first official blog post! (I promise to have lots of tips and tricks in future posts). However, I wanted to dive a bit deeper into what has happened this last year, because it has been a doozy! And maybe this will help you in some form or fashion, because honestly I would not be here without getting the help I needed to get through what felt like the hardest moments of my life. I’m not complaining by the way, but we have seen similar events for our clients and it’s exactly why we do what we do, because we always want to encourage decluttering and organizing your everyday so you can focus on what matters most, in the best and worst of times!
A professional organizer can relate...in more ways than one
Have you had a close relative’s death in your family?
Have you had to sell your house?
Have you had to buy a house?
Have you broken a bone or torn a ligament (or both)?
Have you bought another business to grow your own?
Have you expanded your business into a new market?
Have you moved?
Has your kid been diagnosed with ADHD?
Has your kid had a rough year for other reasons?
If even a few of the answers to these questions are YES, then you need to keep reading. Now imagine the answer to EVERY question is 'yes' and it all happened in a 4 month time span! Yep, that’s me. What would you do in my position? Would you get online and start searching for whatever help you could get, possibly reaching out to friends, family and a professional organizer near you?
Decluttered™ Expansion & some hard news
In February, as part of Decluttered™’s expansion and rebranding, we combined forces with The Simplified Team, as the owner wanted to step away, which meant we also expanded our coverage of Dallas-Fort Worth and expanded into a new market, San Antonio, as part of the purchase. It was such an exciting time and was our first step in expansion!
Literally in the same week, I found myself flying out-of-state because my father fell ill and passed away one week after contracts for the above were signed. Meanwhile, we were in the process of selling our house and moving because we were also in the process of buying another house. Suddenly I found myself spending 3 weeks cleaning out my father's house (he was a hoarder) and also having to sell his house.
Then not even a week after he passed, I get a call while sitting at his kitchen table, out-of-state, from the school that one of my children is really struggling at (and it’s been happening longer than recent events). My heart broke hearing this! Luckily we were able to figure out this kid has ADHD - and we literally help clients to organize with ADHD.
I’ve had plenty of training regarding ADHD and I can't express how awful I felt that I wasn't there for this, but I'm certainly grateful for the diagnosis as it has made a huge difference. And because of our training, my team was able to get things quickly sorted to make everything more functional in our home.
Back to Texas and a Decluttered™ move of my own
All of this is happening and my team also went into my house, packed the house for staging the home to sell, while I was out-of-state. Then when I returned a month later, they came back to help me with paper organizing as my father had kept every piece of paper since 1978 when he bought his home, and while I made a big dent in that while I was there, I still came home with boxes of bills and things I needed to deal with as part of organizing the estate with his passing.
3 weeks after returning to Texas, we sold our home and moved into a temporary living situation, in which the Decluttered™ team put their unpacking and organizing service to good use by helping me get settled! 2 months later, we moved again into our new home, and once again my team was there. Now, I understand I have the advantage of hiring them BUT this is what they do for all of our clients! Organizing your everyday means they are there for all of the moments, good and bad, to help with your home.
This Story has legs (literally)...but I'm still standing!
Unfortunately on April 9th, Easter Sunday, I took a bad fall and broke a bone and tore a ligament in my foot. I can’t express that out of everything, I could no longer even try to keep up. I took this as a sign that I needed to slow down and take a break. I needed to focus on my kids and if you think it was a rough road for me, it was even worse for them.
But nearly 5 months later and we are settled in our new home, organized, smiling and laughing again and slowly finding our new normal.
I’ve since started looking into other home organizing services near me…being organized means lots of things! During these crazy months, things like signing up for Instacart and having our groceries delivered made a huge difference. Finding a new physical therapist close to home has helped. Getting recommendations for any services near me on Facebook women and mom pages has helped. My husband has struggled with his new closet and asked if there was professional closet organizer near me that could help (hint, hint lol), and of course as part of our closet design service, I have redone 2 of the closets in our new house and helped him organize the closet so he could function better. New spaces bring on new challenges!
All of this said, can you imagine if I had no help?! It was a hard year, both emotionally and physically, and I can’t say enough good things about the Decluttered™ team. Clients tell me all the time how knowledgeable, easy to work with, and how kind they are and we’ve helped many through these types of stressful moments. Thank you to my clients for understanding and working directly with my team. Thank you will never be enough for all of the work the Decluttered™ team did this year - it allowed me to begin the healing process these last few months as they stepped in and allowed me the time off I needed.
Thank you to everyone that helped me and cheers to coming back on two (almost) good feet!
All the best,
Kiera
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