Around The Home

Last week was filled with pricing, deciding, organizing, and decluttering. EVERY. NOOK. AND. CRANNY.

If you have prepared for a garage sale, you know the feeling. This panic that sets in when you realize just how much stuff you have and how many little piddly things end up in places you did not even know existed! I had made a large list of areas of our home that I wanted to declutter and over the past 2 months, and we have finally tackled it.

You’d think that by now, we always have a “decluttered” home. But I have found that decluttering really is more about having a PURPOSE for everything and having a PLACE for everything. My goal was to get to the point that when it came time to move in June, that the items left in our home, were what was coming with us to Michigan. I did not want to have to spend more time going through things. In doing so, I found that some things I found to be beautiful, but some things did not have a place – a permanent home. That I wanted to change.

Also, in going through our items, we found that there were items we have not used since we moved to Minnesota, which meant they did not have much of a purpose in our home anymore. It sounds like a simple task, but trust me, when you start to go through EVERY SINGLE ITEM, you realize quickly that it’s a large task, but one you will not regret!

As a result of our massive purge, we made just shy of $500 at our garage sale. We priced things to sell and knew those items were NOT going to come back in our home! Anyone who asked for a lower price, usually got it, within reason. We just did not want to deal with it anymore. It ended up paying off, which now means we will be getting new tires on our van! What a great way to celebrate a successful garage sale, right? We knew they were getting bad, and when we thought about our last trip to Michigan from Minnesota for awhile, we did not want to test those tires!

At the end of the garage sale, we only had 5 smaller boxes that we had to bring to the thrift store truck in town, which was such a relief. It was a chilly and windy weekend, but a weekend well worth it!

So how about you? Do you have the urge to purge? If so, pretend like you are moving! Find a purpose and place for everything. If you cannot accomplish both of those with any given item, it’s time to get rid of it. I am sure we will be doing this again next year, just because that is life. But don’t live life in clutter – it only adds unnecessary clutter to the rest of your life too!

 

As for the rest of the week…

Mazy’s new favorite book is There’s A Mouse About The House, where you feed the mouse through little slots (which encourages motor skills), all while telling an adorable story! We read it multiple times a day – another reason why I love Usborne Books!

During the garage sale, Dan did a GREAT job entertaining Mazy! He even taught her to play darts!

Now that the garage sale is behind us, it is now time to start PACKING and cleaning! Crazy to say that we only have 4 more weeks, but it’s the perfect amount of time because God’s timing is perfect!