Paring Down

 

I've recently become interested in paring down our possessions.  Perhaps it's the mountains of laundry I did yesterday, which literally took me all day and still didn't get totally done.  Or maybe the total embarassment I feel every time I open the doors to our car and PILES of junk fall out--maybe that's what brought on this idea of paring down.  Or it could have been the fact that we could never park in our garage even if we wanted, because it is full of boxes of outgrown clothes, toys, and baby gear.  Whatever the straw was that broke this camel's back, it has been broken.  Hopefully the result will be a more organized and simple life by this time next year!

This process of paring down won't be easy for me.  I love to shop, and four growing children provide the perfect excuse to mindlessly browse the internet whenever I have a chance to sit down.  Not only is it like eye candy to me, it also makes me feel like I am multi-tasking.  I tell myself, I'm not really vegging out...the baby really does need yet another outfit.  This, of course, is not true.  He is the only one in the house that has an appropriate amount of clothes.  Every other person who lives in this house has so many clothes that we could each wear a different outfit every day for a month without having to do laundry.  Sounds good, except that for some reason everyone but me seems to change clothes two and three times a day, which results in a month's worth of laundry piled up for me to do once a week.  And just in case I thought about trying to keep up with it daily, my house reminds me that there is no place to put the clean clothes unless the rest of the clothes are dirty and in the hamper.  There's simply not enough storage for them all at the same time!  I know at this point you're probably thinking, just get rid of some of them.  Why haven't I thought of that before? 
Well, I do get rid of the girls' clothes; usually about once every two or three months.  A couple of weeks ago, I even went through some of my favorites of their clothes and ironed them all meticulously to take to the consignment store.  Most of them even made it there, and I'm hoping to reap the rewards sometime soon. 
So, my new plan is to pack suitcases for our chilren full of their favorite outfits.  Two weeks' worth of play clothes, and the rest of the play clothes go to Goodwill.  That's my challenge for the week!
My challenge for today is to get our Suburban cleaned out.  This will be no small feat.  It literally overflows with coats, toys, fast food trash (I know, I know), and papers.  My husband has asked me to complete one task today, and that is to drive to a nearby town and purchase ten 50-pound sacks of pig food.  They should easily fit in the back, except that there's everything from chicken wire and tools to a Graco stroller and "pink potty" back there.  This cleaning operation could take all day!  Better get started...