Goodbye Stuff

Have you ever stood in your house and just looked around…only to find that every room is a mess? I mean every room. Well I did and it was a little overwhelming. We’ve had an entire week home because of the snow and you would think that my house would be spotless! You would think…In my defense, I have a toddler who “helps” in the  most unproductive of ways and I’ve been working diligently on my monthly goals.

The goals are meant to help us purge the house of anything we’re not using and/or do not want to take with us when we move. I’m also trying to begin boxing up things that we aren’t using now but will want to use in our new home. This is quite an undertaking. Our home consists of my life and his life combined, many, many things that were in the house when we moved in, objects that we’ve acquired in our almost 7 years of marriage, and of course all of the things that have been given to us as gifts or hand-me-downs. Yikes! 

Currently I have 2 bags of clothing/stuffed animals and two huge boxes ready to donate. I have a huge pile of little girl clothes on hangers ready to be tagged for an upcoming consignment sale, as well as multiple other items that I still have to enter, prepare and tag. No wonder my house is a mess. I suppose all of these things just make the dishes in the sink seem more than what they are and the laundry more content in the basket. One thing is for sure, when I look past the dishes and the unfolded laundry I still see that we still have entirely too much stuff.

Dictionary.com defines stuff as “material to be worked upon or to be used in making something.” I’ve begun applying this definition to the things that are in our home. If it is something that still needs to be worked upon (and hasn’t been touched in the last 3-6 months) it’s out. If we have not used it in the last year (clothing included) then we’ll part ways. If the item does not help to make our house a home in beauty or function, then out it goes. Using these guidelines I’m finding it much easier to let it go. I’ve even made a simple print out to hang or place in the room I’m working on. It helps by my husband and I stay focused on the task at hand.

So far we’ve successfully purged the living room and the dining room. I’ve also gone through all of G’s clothes (newborn to 24 months). I had some that were ruined, so they were trashed or will be reused as dust rags. I ended up with a decent size box full of donation items and then a slightly smaller pile that I will be cosigning (and what does not sell will be donated.) I was also thrilled to discover that I had a very small selection of gender neutral clothing items (and then of course random firefighter items) that I’ll be able to use for our sweet boy that’s due in July.

There are only two real issues that I’ve encountered during this process:

1. I’m still on moderate bed rest so my lifting has to be limited (not to mention how a growing belly impacts one’s ability to do certain things.)

2. My husband seems to have much more attachment to items in our home than I do. Don’t even get me started on his t-shirts.

It’s been hard to work around the lifting since my husband worked a 72 hour shift (Monday-Wednesday) and worked another 24 hour shift on Friday. Saturday was filled with his volunteer fire departments annual dinner fundraiser and then of course Sunday had us snowed in from another 7 or so inches of snow on top of what we already had (and it's our designated day of rest). Overall though I’m pleased with our progress and whether it’s the nesting phase that I’m hitting early or the realization that April will be here before we know it, I’m on a roll and I’m trying to keep the momentum. As we prepare our home for sale, I’d love to hear any other words of wisdom or advice for this current phase of our lives.

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