Good morning from New York City. I will admit, I have spring in my step today and here’s why. The theme in my mind today is lighting your load. That’s what I did for my birthday.

I happen to have answered a text message which said what’s your birthday plan with these words. If I’m really honest, what I’d love to do is get rid of stuff in my house and have somebody pick it up and drop it off with me. And my fried responded, well there you are, that’s your birthday present. So my friend Dana – my lovely, lovely friend Dana – showed up with fresh cut flowers from her garden, a box of my favorite cookies, and an empty SUV. Wd we hauled off about 120 books, a bag of old handbags, a huge container of old jewelry, and a bunch of household items. Here’s what I have to say about it. I don’t know what took me so long.

At one point, I had reviewed all of my because I had intended then to do this whole clean up. I had one pile of books I wanted to quickly review before getting rid of them and another pile to I wanted to look at to determine whether or not I wanted to keep them. On top of my beautiful book piles, I had put notes that said ‘to read’ and ‘to review’. But they just sat there.

So what happened was that knowing that I was going to get someone to help me on my birthday lit a fire under my arse. I started going through cabinets, and I canceled the cleaning lady so I didn’t have to – you know how you clean for the cleaning lady? – I didn’t have to clean for the cleaning lady. I had my hallway chock full of stuff and, honestly speaking, the whole thing from start to finish only took us about two hours.

I sitting here marveling at how much better I feel this morning. The house feel so much lighter, and I can’t wait to keep going. It’s like phase one was sending off those 31 pieces to the Real Real. Can I tell you something? I’ve never thought about those things again. I can barely remember what went out. Stage two was getting rid of a really big chunk of the books. And stage three, which I can’t wait to get to now, is going to be downsizing some of my clothes.

Some of you may be eye-rolling because you know people that do the Maria condo stuff want to scream it from the mountaintop, but I don’t want to do that. Yet I do want to say that this is one of those itches that if you just begin to scratch it a little bit can really take off. That’s what’s happened for me. I started with a kitchen drawer, then I moved to my desk drawer. You know, it was a process. So what is that proverbial drawer you need to open? Where’s that pile that’s nagging you in the back of your mind?

You know, I’ll end by telling you this. I’ve had this beautiful footrest in my living room piled with magazines which I thought looked so cool when I first placed it under the desk. Then it got kind of messy, and yesterday I physically removed it from the room, and the entire room feels better just by moving that one piece of furniture. So my footrest was a rather large piece of furniture, but sometimes you can simply move a plant or remove a chair or two from a room to make things feel better. My decorator friend Eric, suggests that you take things off of the shelves or off of a certain area and put them on your dining table. You can either take it back to the essentials and eliminate things, or you can redistribute your things in different places.

It can take so very little to make your home feel better and it may just put the proverbial spring back in your step. I know that’s what it did for me. Noodle that for a few minutes.

That’s all for now. Until next time, from my heart to yours.