Musicjunkie, I had a huge pile of laundry hanging around for a week+ too. I finally put it away last night, but I took out all my summer clothes to store and haven't stored them.

Angelique, yay for finding your skirt! It's nice to uncover stuff

QuietCalamity, I hope you got the chance to start on your pile. Sometimes I tell myself that I will just look at 5 items, or just go through the pile to find things to throw out.

Cleaning the patio sort of irritated me because I threw out most of what was there. I could have done this months ago and actually had a patio to sit on this fall!

I found another motivator for decluttering. An apartment building burned down in my city a few weeks ago, only a few houses down from my best friend from elementary school. No one knows what happened, but apparently there had been complaints about junk and debris. The newspaper articles refer to all the clutter as combustibles. It sure makes me look at my house differently.

I also thought about a conversation I had on another thread on here about hoarding. We were talking about how we often don't get rid of a pair of pants or a sweater because it's just one thing, why not keep it? It doesn't take up much room! I'm getting rid of that stuff now. It really does add up.