To Everything There is a Season...Everything

I've been doing some spring cleaning.  I had been thinking about the seasons of our lives and how as we grow older we change.  Sometimes, I think it's not so much that we change but perhaps we learn more about who we are and are able to accept who we have grown into.  Maybe we know better what we really like and what we don't and are okay with that too.  But what about our "stuff", maybe it should also change as we do or maybe we should learn that it's okay to grow out of some of our "things" and hopefully we can cast aside the "stuff" that doesn't reflect who we are.

Well, we've been very busy cleaning up the place.  To be more specific, getting rid of stuff.  After living in a house for several years, it's amazing just how much "stuff" one accumulates.  I and my husband seem to have an affinity for "saving" things.  Things that may not work but could possibly be fixed and used...someday.  Things that have a memory attached to them.  Things that are faded, thread bear, war torn, dusty, untouched, forgotten about and so on...get the picture??  Well, I guess I woke up the other day and I thought to myself, "Self, you are at a time in your life of change.  A time where the towels you bought years ago have threads hanging from their ends and almost no color left in them.  You have picture frames sitting around your house that you don't even like anymore!  Things packed away in cabinets, drawers, closets, Tupperware containers and the garage that you NEVER use...things that you have saved for a day that hasn't come in over 8 years."  Then I said to myself again, "Self, if you haven't used it by now, maybe you never will...so, it's gotta go!"

Trends change, our tastes change, seasons change...why not let our homes and lives reflect the season of  change that we are in.  Now mind you, I haven't gone off the deep end and thrown out everything but the kitchen sink but the thought that I keep repeating to myself over and over as I go through each closet and each drawer is, "Less is more, less IS more!"  I am 47 years old (I think, I can't keep up with my age anymore, I have to keep asking Craig how old I am) and I don't necessarily like the same things I liked 16 years ago...and a LOT of the stuff we have is from waaaaaaaaaay back then, not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just that keeping so much of it just leads to clutter.  It clutters my home and my path and fogs up my head.  I hate clutter.  I love organization.  I like everything to have it's own spot.  I like to be able to see everything in the drawer upon first glance...Oh, that excites me just to say it!  Ahhh, you say, "That's not realistic, you can't do that when you have kids!"  Well, like I said, I haven't gone off the deep end, I just woke up.  I think I may have had a Oprah moment, haha:)  I'm not an Oprah fan but I've heard a few phrases from her show that I liked...one of them went something like..."Live today who you want to be."  I don't think that's exactly how it went but you get the idea, right?   Craig and I are on the same page on this one.  It's time to lighten the load.  How refreshing.  It makes me feel lighter already.

I'm kind of a paper and pen freak...oh, and note books too.  I think I covered that a little in a previous post.

So, each room is gone through methodically.  Each drawer, each closet, each shelf.  I found lots of stuff that was just waiting to be thrown away and lots more things that someone else may be able to use...you know, one man's trash is another man's treasure!  I myself like to go to the second hand stores for stuff that's useful to me every now and then and  I love to save a buck so why not send my stuff there for someone else to benefit from?

Here are the rules I'm following to keep me on the right path as I am sorting through all our "stuff":

• If I haven't touched it in a year or longer...it's gotta go.
• If I can walk out of the room and forget all about it being here (so as to indicate I didn't need it anyway)...it's gotta go.
• Oh, and don't forget...Less IS more!

That's about it.  That's all the rules.  Pretty simple, huh?

Looking around, I see LOTS of things we could still do without and I'm still hoping to get rid of at some point but we don't have to do without it all just yet, we're just doing it with a little less clutter.  We can keep the "stuff" we we use, the "stuff" we really like and the "stuff" we are just content with until the next season in our lives changes.


Ecc 3:1  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:...
 Ecc 3:6  A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

Shalom!