Getting Rid of Clutter

In our family Christmas letter that we sent out, we announced that we would be putting our house on the market this Spring and moving to a bigger house. As unexpected things have come up, we've begun to realize that we are in this house to stay. There are some big challenges associated with that decision.

1. We don't have enough room for all of us to sit down at the table for dinner.
2. We only have one bathroom, which translates to one toilet. We have five young kids. Take a moment to imagine the chaos.
3. We are "bulging at the seams," as I like to say.

A couple of years ago, I went through our possessions and weeded a ton of stuff out and had a yard sale. Then, last August before we went to Utah, our basement flooded. I decided that since I had to move everything anyway, I might as well sort through and have another yard sale. Plus, we rented a huge garbage bin and the whole thing was hauled away full.

Here I am again, already needing to de-clutter. We have so much "stuff" that I feel like I can hardly clean my house. The goal this time is to really strip away many of our possessions. It's really painful. I have kept a lot of things over the years. For instance, though I got rid of most of my college notes, I still have the ones for my favorite classes (Advanced Invertebrates, Marine Biology, Parasitology). Things like these are going to have to go.

I can see the benefit of having gone through these things several times. It makes it easier. I saw things in August that I thought I couldn't or shouldn't part with that just make sense to get rid of this time around. In fact, this time, I plan to go through everything twice. I'm working on the first time through right now and for the past week since we got home.

My vacation really prepped me for this. The house we stayed in wasn't cluttered, of course. I want to live like that. I think our house will always be a bit crowded, but it doesn't have to be cluttered. The time off also cleared my mind and helped me get rested in preparation.

My kids aren't going to like it. I've already had some discussions with them, telling them that we're going to get rid of most of the toys. I've told them that it's going to be difficult, but that we are going to do it. I've already had some run-ins with one of the girls over some of her toys. I might not be very popular for a while.

We're also going to put some work into the cosmetics of our home. I'm excited about that part. We've lived here for nine years and little has changed. We painted the whole house white and have left it that way. We'll shake things up a little bit. We still want to keep it light because of the winter months here, but it will feel good to have some change.