Today It Starts

This is the book that inspired me years ago to get rid of the junk we were living with. Of course much of it was not considered junk by the people who live here. But they never missed it once it was gone. Oh I was soooo ruthless. I ditched tons of stuff...clothes, old bank statements, dorky knick knacks I had been saving for ??? Christmas decorations, tupperware type stuff with no lids, lids with no bottoms.... I burned hundreds of books... yes, it's true. I mean how many copies of Sociology Today (c. 1982) does one family actually need?

Recently I have had the desire to scale back the amount of stuff we own even further. The kids were hanging on to all kinds of broken toys, empty containers and just plain garbage they were keeping in their toy boxes. The new kids came with all kinds of broken toys, too (three Barbie "computers" ...all broken). Most of that stuff went when we changed the rooms around a couple weeks ago.

And the clothes...YIKES... Melissa came here 12 pairs of pajamas and 3 bathrobes. Molly has 9 pairs of pajamas and 2 bathrobes. Matt has only 5 pairs of pajamas but 6 little jacket/coat type things. The girls also brought with them over 60 pairs of socks!! That was actually pretty handy for a while there... no searching for matching socks with only two minutes to go before they left for school. We have since managed to lose a good 90% of the socks.

But today is the day we start decluttering again. I am RUTHLESS when it comes to this. I do not think I have ever missed ANYTHING I have ditched when decluttering... So much for the worry "If I throw it out, then I will probably need it the tomorrow." OR "This might be useful for something, someday." I don't entertain any of those kinds of thoughts... I just pitch... And by the end of this week I expect to be living with lots less laundry if nothing else.