I just want to say a big thank you to everyone on this thread. You keep me motivated to keep plugging away at areas and encourage me to revisit them after I think I'm "done" (when I'm really not!). I read the book so many recommended above (Life Changing Art of Tidying Up), and it was great, giving some new ideas about how to treat things. I won't start thanking my clothes anytime soon, but I am going to try more purging in the order she's recommended, bringing all items of a type together to see how big my collections really are, and to start with the blank slate and decide what to keep - rather than starting with everything and deciding what to throw away.
My home contains about 20% of what my sister's house has, and yet there is SO MUCH that I could get rid of without missing. I admire those of you on here who have really purged down. It helps to know my main preventers for getting rid of things are in order: my husband ("but are you sure?..."), emotional reasons ("that was grandma's"), practical reasons ("I might need it") and informational reasons "I might want to consult it later"). Step one will be not to show my husband things I'm getting rid of!
The exercise of thinking about what I want to declutter is illuminating. At first, I think I want to declutter to have a beautiful put-together and coordinated home like I see in magazines...but after thought, it's really that a cluttered home makes me feel like I have a to-do list that's never complete and thus home is stressful rather than relaxing. It also takes time to keep up putting things away/cleaning.
And every time this thread pops up, it reminds me to keep on with it, helping me create habits of not just removing clutter but not letting it into my life. I am pretty bad about seeing "deals" and picking up free stuff, and this helps me curb those instincts for only things I really want. Free isn't really free.
So thank you.