This is how I feel today:

--from Hyperbole and a Half

Except instead of “cleaning”, I want to throw everything in the garbage.

I was reading the comments on a completely unrelated post last night and stumbled across this quote:

“We don’t need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.” –Donald Horban

I realized that there was only a handful of things that I would truly miss if our house burned down tomorrow, and that even those things wouldn’t make or break my life. A couple of  pieces of family jewellery passed down to me. That’s it – the grand sum of the objects in this home that would truly make me sad to lose.

It hit me square between the eyes. It’s something I’ve believed in for sometime, and something we definitely practice in our house…to a degree. Leith and I both decided awhile ago that we’d rather spend our immediate extra money on experiences like family swimming, or annual holidays. We didn’t want to spend our immediate money on things. Things are great, but they don’t last. Memories last forever.

We’ve been putting it into practice over Christmas and birthdays. We try to tell people not to get the bugz much, and our personal requests are limited to things that are immediately useful. Case in point: my mom gave me a label maker for Christmas this year, and I’ve used it almost every week since then!

BUT.

There are years of STUFF piled up in our house. Years of clothes that still fit, and are still in good shape, but are never worn. Closets of jackets and hoodies in the basement. Boxes of miscellaneous junk that was never unpacked when we moved TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO. Obviously, not important in our lives.

There are boxes of papers. Soooooo many papers. Manuals from gadgets we no longer own. Bank statements from 4 years ago. Notes from school. Just in case.

There are board books and toddler toys that get played with and looked at, but that we’ve actually outgrown and DON’T need. There are stuffed animals that need to be corralled…

CDs that might get listened to again. VHS tapes. V-freaking-HS tapes. We don’t have a VCR. Do you even know what a VCR is?? Do they even still make them??

There is so. much. junk.

It’s not hoarded. It’s just there. Hiding behind closet doors and in cardboard boxes. And it has to go.

So this weekend, when the bugz are visiting their grandparents and Leith is working, I am going to DECLUTTER ALL THE THINGS.

Ruthlessly. I have a one-ton truck that we use for garbage dump runs, and I hope that it’s full. I hope that my trunk is full of to-donate bags and boxes of clothes and toys, CDs and VHS tapes.

I want it all gone.

I don’t want to open a drawer and see 30 pairs of pyjamas for two 4-year olds.

I don’t want to fold clothes for 6 hours because we can last 2 weeks without doing laundry.

I don’t want to hide from my office.

I don’t want to feel suffocated by THINGS anymore. I want less so that I can feel more.

So while I prepare, I ask you this: What are your favourite organization/de-cluttering tips and tricks? What do you absolutely keep versus absolutely toss? Do you have too much STUFF?