Decluttering for freedom

Happy Thursday evening,

How are you wonderful friends doing? One more work day for many then it’s off to the weekend. Anything planned? I’d love to hear from you, so shoot me a text or drop me a comment and make my day even better.

This weekend is our community garage sale and boy do I have the stuff to put out. Funny though, I haven’t even gone through most of the things in my garage. Game plan therefore is to pull the golf cart out of the garage and begin going through storage bins and boxes. If I haven’t used something then it will go into the sale. I need to clear things out and NOT make way for anything new. I think I’ve finally hit the point in life where less is best. My only exception is, Christmas. I will be keeping most everything Christmas. I’m hoping as I go through bins and boxes that I can at the very least condense things down to less containers. I just want a little more organized. I’ve been purchasing storage bins over the last year to color coordinate with the holiday. Hoping this too will make for more organization and less duplicate things.

Yesterday and today I’ve worked on my loft/craft room. I’m half way there to getting it organized and it feels good to sit on my couch and enjoy less clutter. I’ve decided I want more freedom to do other things over cleaning stuff. I’ll still be crafting but I’ve decided to down size thing in this area too. I have way too much and in all honesty, I want to keep only the crafting things I truly enjoy. I’ve learned for me anyway, if I want to be good at something then I need to work on mastering that particular thing. I can’t keep dabbling in all things art, though I do enjoy it from time to time.

I love all my holiday villages and I want to keep creating village platforms and scenes. I do enjoy my Cricut and I want to use my embroidery machine more, but I don’t need to work with clay. I don’t need to paint so many wood crafts. Do you know I have 5 glue guns? Yup, 5. I don’t need 5. Maybe 2, but not 5.

I have at least 10 embroidery hoops. Again, 5 too many. I’ll keep 5 of the different sizes, but I don’t need 3 of the same size. I must have at least a dozen scissors and again, I don’t need that many.

I could go on and on with the amount of stuff I have, but I think you get the point. I just don’t need this much. The other day I even cleared out my closet. I filled two large garbage bags with clothes. Either they don’t fit me anymore. They are too young for me or I’ve out grown the look. No need to hold onto things that don’t suit me any longer.

One thing I won’t be able to part with are my many journals. I do have an abundance of these, but each one holds things I’ve penned and I cannot get rid of those words and feelings. Maybe one day those words will be gifts to my children. Maybe they will have questions about something in my life and who knows, the answers may lie within the many pages I’ve poured my heart onto.

Yesterday a person posted on one of the journaling pages I follow a picture of her journal with what looked like smudges across the pages. She said at first she was embarrassed to share the photo because what I thought looked like smudges were in deed her tears. While writing her feelings down she had been crying. She said “I decided not to trash the pages of this journal because throughout it were parts of me that happened to be sad or tragic. My tears had dried and now they were a reminder of where I had been and where I am today. I’ll keep these pages just the way they are.”

I loved that post. Those of us that journal or have journaled, there is an abundance of knowledge that lie between the pages of those most treasured books. I also love having a journal where I actually put pen to paper and not fingers to keys. Call me old fashioned, but sometimes, holy moly it’s amazing to hold an actual book or journal and a pen or pencil. I still love filling out and signing my Christmas cards.

I have a box full of letters from my dad. Those will forever be a part of my most valued possessions. Dad’s gone, yet in those letters, I have a part of him. He had beautiful handwriting. Near perfect. If I can remember, I’ll take some photos of his letters to me so you can see his impeccable penmanship. The letters he wrote me were parts of his heart and words he needed to say to me. I used to love writing dad letters. Sometimes I think it’s easier to write our feelings then to speak them, at least this is true in my case. My letters make more sense then my words spoken.

Anyway, with a clean loft and crafting area, I’ll have a clearer mindset, so watch out world, here I come. I have a bunch of things I can’t wait to launch. Decluttering in progress because there’s an entire life I can’t wait to live.

One thing I would like to say about my clutter. Every piece of it did come with a good intention, I just happen to have one too many and that’s okay. I don’t have to change my intentions, I just have to change how many good intentions I have.

I’d like to leave you with a final thought on decluttering by Peter Walsh.

Life is too short to be tied down to stuff. I think it’s time we begin to enrich our lives and the lives of those we love and care about. It’s okay to keep the things that bring you real joy and happiness, but before you become to tied to things or before you go on those spending sprees, ask yourself, “do I really need this and if so, how will it enrich my life or the lives of those I love?” I think we will all be a little surprised at how much we don’t need. Just my thought anyway.

Well guys, tomorrow is another early day. Time for bed. I hope you all sleep well. Thank you for taking time to read tonight’s blog and please don’t forget, until next time, Love Life++ Hugs.