It’s already February and I can’t say I’ve made any real New Year’s resolutions, except this: I resolve to purge my home of items that are not useful or extremely sentimental.
This, of course, includes all the many toys with which my children refuse to play. And, sadly, there are many. A few weeks before Christmas, we started packing up toys that no longer see any action – some that truly never did. After Christmas, we packed up even more. My crawl space now runneth over. When time allows, I plan to sort through the items to see what can be donated, sold or tossed.
The purging isn’t exclusive to my children’s items. One day in January, my husband and I spent a good three hours – if not more – cleaning our bedroom and closet. Our goal was to remove all items that had not been worn recently and realistically would not be again. We also removed countless hangers that weren’t being used (how in the world did we get so many?) and other items that somehow made their way into our room and served only the purpose of cluttering our space.
We ended up tossing a large garbage bag or two and donated six large garbage bags of clothes (quite overdue!). It’s a little embarrassing, but at the same time, it feels pretty good. It’s almost like going on a diet and successfully shedding many, many unwanted pounds.
Now, the question is: how do we keep it that way? A bit of work, I’m guessing. Same as with our children’s closets and toy boxes. And with another birthday next month, we definitely have our work cut out for us.