... to purge! Things, not food. (Ewww.) I have this incredible urge to go through all my belongings and get rid of/recycle/donate a lot of it. Part of it is needing to make room for our Christmas presents. And, I already boxed up R's baby toys and sent those to the basement. I even went through his giant pile of artwork that was about to consume my entire office and recycled anything that wasn't sentimental (like handprints or "firsts") or dated or just really cool. I organized all of R's new toys, and he was very excited to discover where everything was and to see how clean his room was.
But the desire to downsize our stuff is also part of my hope to simplify my life a little. We don't really need most of the things we have, and our house is wee and gets easily cluttered, which drives me bonkers. I'm going for peace and serenity in 2008. (Is that possible with a three-year-old around?)
But we'll see. Because at the same time, I keep looking at new furniture to buy - shelves, consoles, cabinets, etc. to store our stuff in. I think that kind of negates the getting rid of stuff goal.
7 comments:
You are in danger of encountering the Law of Horizontal Surfaces. This law can be demonstrated by taking one kitchen counter and clearing everything off of it. Unseen forces emanate from the pristine counter and start a migration of stuff. Leave the counter alone overnight and in the morning it will be inundated with stuff.
The most expensive thing you can do to a home is install a simple set of shelves. The call goes out all over the world.Stuff from China and Japan and England begins its lemming-like journey. Immigration to the United States proceeded at a slow pace until the Mississippi was crossed and the flat Great Plains were encountered. The flood gates were opened. Huge numbers of people came. They were simply following their stuff.
The only remedy I know of is to take up hot air ballooning and keep the balloon in the house. If you clear out your stuff you will hear the sound of little stuff feet circling your house.
This phenomena is also known as the Toolbench Principal and the Bookcase Paradox.
Bless your clearing out! I know that feeling...you've gotta ditch stuff while it lasts, because it can be easily overtaken by nostalgia, and then you can't throw ANYTHING away.
Enjoy your new uncluttered world :)
Ooh! That's what I'm doing tomorrow! I am going through the garage (we don't have basements). If I haven't touched it since before we moved here? It's going. Any kids clothes will be moved to their closets for storage. I have way too much "stuff". 2008 means change, purge, clean. For me, anyway.
I plan on doing the same thing this weekend. I am ready to purge some old things not to make room for new but to rid myself of a lot of clutter. Good luck.
Oh yes Kristin is it Purge Time. I started when I took down Christmas. I had a box for the Goodwill of things I take out every year, and put back in the box again without using. Those are gone...Now I need to go through my clothes and take ALL the SIZES I can't wear and box those up too. Thanks for the inspiration...I will get on it tomorrow!!!! Go Girl!!
Oh, man, could it be a cabin fever sort of thing, because the crap is totally driving me nuts, too!(Did you see the episode of Newsradio where Phil Hartman's desk always had random food items deposited on it, and he'd throw them away and turn around and there would be more?) When we bought this place, the sellers had just taken it back from tenants who left everything they owned inside, and the sellers had nailed a "Free Stuff-Please Knock First" sign to the front gate. This seems like a pretty cool way of dealing with this right now.... I do think Ikea probably has the nifty organizing system you might be looking for, and you would be totally justified in purchasing it.Umm, four year olds are a whole lot more serene, just not so much at night, in my experience. But-OH! I just did this tonight, and want to tell the world- I'd been having a hard time getting AJ to settle down at night(hard as in almost wanting to kill myself), and today when I took the Christmas tree down, I put the blinky- chasing each other lights up in the boys' windows-AND IT WORKED! After one threat to take his new "friends" away, he settled right down and watched them! So everyone was asleep by 9! Just a thought...love you!
How is the purging going?? It's Monday Morning and I am beginning many areas of purging. One is my closets, many boxes will be delivered to our Hospice Hope Chest (our goodwill store).
Hope you'res is going well!!
As always, I enjoy your comments!
Post a Comment