Liv and I made multiple trips to our local Salvation Army during June and the whole house feels lighter.  It’s still full of So.Much.Stuff. but definitely lighter.

I went back and looked and I have been on this declutter journey since 2012.  That’s at least my starting point – the year that I decided we had too much stuff.  Over the last six years I have definitely brought things into our home, but it has been at a drastically reduced rate.  The point is we (my family) are still consumers.  We buy new clothes, phones – which reminds me I need to do something with all of our old phones!, sheets, dishes, all of the normal things that you use and change throughout everyday life.  It all just accumulates unless we make a conscious effort to let it go.

I told Denton the other night that I feel we are getting to where I want to be in certain parts of the house.  My criteria for letting something go for the past six years has been “Do I really like this thing”?  Not even do I LOVE this thing.  Was it something that I truly liked and wanted to have in my house?

Now, when I go through our spaces I stop and ask myself – “Do I LOVE this item”?  If the answer is no, it goes into the go-away pile.  And I make it actually go AWAY.  But lately, I’ve been asking myself an additional question.  If I actually do love it and want to keep it I ask myself if I love it enough to CLEAN it.  Or clean around it.  Because at this point in my life, if I’m not willing to spend my precious time to myself cleaning this item, it’s going to go live with someone else.

Time is precious and finite.  I do not want to spend my life CLEANING things.  Not even things that I truly do love and appreciate.  I realized the other day that I deliberately did not have nick nacks when my kids were small.  I just did not want to spend my time cleaning those things when Hayden and Liv were tiny, so I didn’t.

Hayden asked my Daddy what he was doing one day when he was about three.  Daddy looked surprised and said “I’m dusting the coffee table, I’m sure you’ve seen your Mommy do this”.  Hayden very solemnly said, “I’ve never seen my Mama do that, Papaw”.   I’m sure that some of you are cringing, but this still makes me laugh.  We sat in the big recliner and read books, or played on the swing set outside, or a multitude of other things when they were little and I would not go back and change one instant of it – dust and all.

Anywho!  Here’s what I hauled away in June:

My lovely comforter.  Denton absolutely hated this thing.  I loved it.  But let me tell you why it’s going to live with someone else.  If you live in the wilds of Alaska, you need one of these.  It’s a Nicole Miller king sized comforter.  And we couldn’t stand to sleep under it in the dead of winter.  It is SO hot.  Even if we turned the heat down to arctic temperatures we would wake up sweating like we had walked 30 miles in the Sahara.

It is so, so lovely, I hope that someone loves it and gives it a wonderful home.  On another note, it will not fit into my washing machine.  Every time I needed to wash it, I had to take it to our local laundromat and run it through their largest machine which cost me $4.75 each time.  Nope.  Goodbye lovely comforter, I have many others to replace you with that do not cause me angst each time I look at you.

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More clothes from the never-ending donate pile from Liv’s room.

Boots and shoes from Liv’s closet.

I bought this shirt for Denton and he took one look at it and said “no way”.  I liked it.  It reminds me of  being in the stacks at the library.  Oh well.

I found these in a drawer no one ever opens.  They do not belong to us.  That means, that they have been in that drawer for over ten years, and no one noticed.

Surprise, surprise, surprise as Gomer would say.  Books and magazines that I am parting with.  Well, it’s no surprise about the magazines, I have no trouble whatsoever with donating them each month, but the cookbooks…..They just have to go.

Liv has started in on her toys now.  My mother may have to look away from this post.

I was ruthless when it came to the kitchen cabinet where we store the coffee mugs and to-go cups.

And my pots and pans drawers.  Remember my lovely Princess House pots that I love?  And that I broke one the little lovelies?  It pains me to admit, but I have managed to break ALL of the lids.  So before I do any more damage, these are going to live with someone who isn’t as destructive as me!

More random bits and bobs.

I bought myself a cordless vacuum and it has changed my life people!  And now I have Olivia hooked on the thing.  I will write a proper post about for you, because I am completely serious when I say that I LOVE that thing.  Denton told me that he does not love inanimate objects, but I believe that it’s because he doesn’t vacuum anymore, otherwise he would seriously love this thing too.  So it’s goodbye to Mr. Shark who has a cord.  Denton still will not part with his Dyson vacuum, which I was banned from using immediately after we got it.  It’s not my fault his vacuum couldn’t handle little men from the kids room’s, lol.

Also, please do not look at my filthy coat closet door.  Or the trim that needs to painted.  Or that red wall.  Have I told you how much I dislike painting?

Okay, that’s what I hauled away in June.  Are you getting rid of things you no longer need?   I would love to hear about it!

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