Purging

Blog #3 for the night if you're counting...

When we decided to put our house up for sale, it was apparent to me that I needs to clean, organize & purge every area of our home so that it showed to its best advantage. I take responsibility for about 85-90% of the clutter in our house. I like to think that we have nice stuff, we just have too much of it.

I started in mid-January with surface level purges as I like to call them (that's the easy purges of getting ride of stuff you don't really like that much) and packed away a bunch of stuff that we don't need on a daily basis. So far I've packed up a good portion of our decorations, books that I've read but want to keep, out-of-season clothes, extra toilettries, and DVDs. I've also got my scrapbooking stuff in that area. I've gotten rid of clothes that don't suit me or don't fit well, books I'm never going to read, DVDs I'm never going to watch again, decorations that i don't "LOVE" and some kitchen stuff that we bought with good intentions but don't use.

For me,I'm ready to start with a clean slate. I know that in the past I have bought things foolishly, but I want to let those items go and learn from them. Tyler sees me getting rid of stuff (aka donating to charity and letting people we know pick through stuff) and he sees money walking out the door. I totally get his point of view, but I want the unwanted stuff gone as soon as it gets that label from me. I can only work hard to try to make sure that I don't fall into the same old habits. I tried to explain this to him (albeit not in the nicest way at first) and I think he gets it. I can't blame him for being skeptical.

I started a lot of the purging on my own, but I've also recently read a book by Peter Walsh called "It's All Much". He makes some really great points in his book and I highly recommend it if you're too attached to some material things. Some of my favorite points are:
-You need to live in the now. So don't save stuff for when "you have a bigger house", "you lose some weight", "it comes back into style", "when I finally have that dinner party". If you really do think things will change, give yourself a time limit and if you still haven't used that item within that time limit, out it goes!
-We have limited space, so do you value that item equal to how much space it takes up in your home?
-Stuff doesn't equal memories, or relatives. Don't keep things out of obligation, but because you actually enjoy them. And if you're not giving it the space it deserves (i.e. if it's in a box in your attic), then you either need to get rid of it, or honor it properly.
-Maintainance: once you have your home in the order you want, do the one in, one out rule.

Since I've begun this purge I feel better about myself and my home. It's been easier to keep the house tidy and I don't feel the need to purchase stuff as much. Sometimes you just have epiphanies about things too. For instance, since I began drinking Starbucks, I also began buying neat coffee mugs here and there. At first from Starbucks but also from like Safeway & such. When I go to have a cup of tea I always use these mugs instead of the ones that match our dish sets (of which there are 8 mugs) since the funness of them, increasing my enjoyment of my beverage. It occurred to me that I have enough "fun" mugs for me and my company to use and that I don't really need to keep the matching mugs out of obligation to the set. I mean, there's no "dish police" that will come make sure that my coffee cups match my plates! And I'd much rather serve coffee/tea in my fun mugs...once I let go of this obligation, I packed up the mugs to go to salvation army and freed up an entire shelf of my cupboard. With the lack of cupboard space that is common in new homes, one shelf is a lot of value!

My purge continued tonight in a new level. I'm not sure what started the thought, but I decided that I needed to delete my two facebook games: Farmville & Mafia Wars as they are huge time suckers. I have enjoyed playing them but they are extremely time consuming and the enjoyment I get from them isn't equal to the time spent on them. And you can never truly master these games as they are constantly integrating new items to get, new levels to achieve etc: there is no end in sight! I don't come away from the game play feeling better about my day. Whereas when i watch a good show or movie, write a blog or read a good book I do feel good about that. So onto the computer i went, hesitated for a few minutes and then blocked the applications from my facebook. I honestly felt some anxiety about deleting them and some regret...which reassures me that I am/was way too attached and needed to sever myself from them. Now if I can just get Tyler to quit them as well, we might actually have some time on our weekends to spend together rebuilding our relationship!