own less stuff

I can’t wait. I am so excited. We are building a house and now that it is getting more finished, I can really see what I have to work with in terms of space. The house itself is bigger, but it is a more open floor plan so I don’t have as many options of where to put furniture. I made a list today of the things I don’t want to take to the new house and it’s getting pretty long! Some stuff was just a temporary solution for the apartment and some are extra now that we have a different layout and I inherited some better furniture. So, I won’t even move some of this stuff. I’ll leave it in the apartment and have a sale when we get moved out. If it’s still nice, I can do it on the front lawn. Otherwise I will have it in the apartment. Either way, it’s going!

We just got back from Goodwill. Ended up buying 5 pairs of shoes. (2 for me, 2 for daughter, and one for son) Also bought a brand new Cranium game and new bottle of men’s soap. Spent less than $20. The kids are growing so the shoes are not clutter, the soap will get used up, and the game is educational and we can use it for homeschool. But the shoes for me weren’t necessary. Oh, well. I’ll get over it.

We went to a friend’s house for a kids party on Thursday night and they were set up for a garage sale for Friday. So I shopped. I have been cleaning out all kinds of stuff so I felt like treating myself. And she had everything so cheap! And she has great style. (Of course, she has no kids). Sound like enough justification? Anyway, I got a T-shirt that would replace a too-small one I had to donate. And a more stylish purse to replace 3 I was putting in consignment. And a DVD of National Velvet to replace a VHS of it because it takes up less space. I spent a whole $2.50. Maybe I don’t feel so bad after all. Writing down why I bought each thing makes me feel better. I saw lots of other things there that I liked, but I really thought about each one and couldn’t come up with reason enough to bring them home.

My goal was to pack for 8 hours this weekend. A broken car put a damper on my plans. I’m housing sitting so I haven’t been around to do 15 minutes here and there and being able to transport myself was central to my plan. Still, I managed to pack for about 2 hours yesterday and have been stuck at the house for much of today. I didn’t accomplish as much as I’d hope today because I spent over a hour fighting with a shredder that I jammed. Still, my room has managed to look horrifying. Why do things look worse when packing instead of better? sigh Anyhow, I’ve found 4 pairs of workout pants to give away. Hence, my entry. I’ve also found a pair of shoes to discard and an old wallet. Things are moving along, I guess. There’s really not much choice at this point.

Wow. This is what this goal was mostly about—having less stuff to pack and move when it again became time for me to move. I’ve been working on this goal for 3 years now. wow. I started packing this week. I have about 3 boxes and a suitcase ready to go. I have a ton of items left to pack. My original goal was to move in August but I changed that to September due to work obligations. Mom is not okay with the change so I’m moving in August but honestly expect to have a lot of things in her house until September. My focus now is to pack things such that I can move my furniture in August. Hence, most of the packed boxes contain books, notebook, and movies—the things that were stored on my bookshelves. My large bookshelf is about 1/3 clean now. I can’t say that I’m aware of having less items than when I started 3 years ago. It may be that I simply would have had more had I not been constantly throwing things out. I’ll let you know how the move feels after it’s done. It took something like 6 cars for me to move from GA to TN without furniture. We’ll see how many carloads it takes for me to move across the city without furniture.Regardless of the outcome, I like to think that I’ve developed healthier habits from this 3 year voyage. Time will tell.

Based on my description in my last entry, I’d guess that I’ve cleaned once in between this entry and the last one. Regardless, I haven’t cleaned as much as I’d like. I planned to clean for 2 hours on Monday but didn’t get to it. I’m taking a boss-mandated sick day today and was able to go for 1.5 hours. My chester top is clean! Hooray! I also emptied all shopping bags on door and bed handles. Not fully unpacking has become a bad habit of mine. I threw away/recycled some papers, not many though. Still, I guess this helps me with my goal of owning less.

I just spent another hour working on my dresser. I thought I was going to get to the bottom of a side but no. However, I did remove enough that I could push my radio over so it was no longer hanging off the edge threatening to fall. That push probably contributed to my inability to see the color of my dresser top, of course. Anywho, I didn’t find anything especially interesting tonight. I found information on perks for a credit card and was fascinated that most of the papers were from 2007, with some going back to 2006. Three years of papers accumulating in one spot? imagine that. I want to be done with this task (i.e., cleaning off the dresser) NOW but alas, there’s still more to remove.

I still haven’t begun to pack because I really want to get rid of this paper first. Remove it/organize it or drag along the pile. I choose to not just pack it up. I can do this.

I spent 30 minutes today and 30 minutes earlier this week cleaning off my dresser. I can FINALLY see a difference. It only took like 3hours of work. Seriously.

Eek. Last entry was in Feb—has it really been that long since I’ve uncluttered? :/

Anywho, I plan to move in June or July so this uncluttering/organizing/owning less things thing is kind of coming to its finale. The goal was to own less stuff so I wouldn’t have as much to move when I moved again. I’m headed into the packing stage. Today, I spent a hour cleaning off a dresser top that I really want to clean before I leave. I figure it’s go through it all and deal with it, throw it all away and hope that none of it was too important (and I’ve found some important things in my on and off dealings with it), or move it all and have a pile of junk when I get to the other side. I don’t want that last situation to be the reality. That was the same thing that motivated me to clean out the mail trays (which are still doing pretty good, BTW). Sadly, I can’t tell the difference in my dresser even after a hour of work :o. Still, I will press on. It’d be nice to have it clean this month but that doesn’t look too likely since I’m booked this weekend and it’s the last weekend of the month. I’ll keep you posted. :o

I spent another 3 hours cleaning out my mail trays and I AM DONE. Yipee! That makes 5.5 hours for the month. That means I technically owe another 30 minutes, but I was ahead 60 minutes last month so it only washes out. AND, I accomplished the month’s goal. That’s the best part, followed by finding things like birth certificates and debit cards.