Stuff!

Yesterday I cleaned my house with a garbage sack in one hand. If I did not like something enough to pick it up one more time then out it went. I have been sick for the last five days or so and am now digging into the mountain of chaos that accumulated during that time. It is comforting to know that as invisible as my efforts sometimes seem, I am actually accomplishing something. But having a house look like this makes me start thinking stringent Amish-like thoughts. Do I really need all this junk? The answer is obviously no. The one thing that keeps me from reverting to monastic simplicity is the fact that I love stuff. I love my incomplete set of encyclopedias, my tea-pots, the china I only use once a year, and the bin of colorful, instep bruising duplos. They make me happy.

Of course I cannot possibly love all the things in my house that way. I have some serious work to do so that I don't spend my life doing meaningless and infinite picking up.

Guiding thoughts:

"The space for the stuff you want is taken up by the stuff you've settled for."

"Is it beautiful? Is it useful? Does it have a place?"

"Do I want the stuff more than I want the simplicity?"

Tsh Oxenrider wrote a great book called "Organized Simplicity." (Yes I know book titles are supposed to be underlined, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. No, Cntrl "U" doesn't work) One of my favorite suggestions from her is to create a mission statement for your family and your house. That way, as I sort through my closets and my schedule I know what my purpose is. Anything that doesn't help me fulfill my purpose has to go.

Okay, this post needs an ending, a pithy denouement, but I am late to pick my son up from pre-school, so all denouementing will have to wait. Have a wonderful day my friends.