My quest to Simplify

I have a friend who is into simplifying.  She has gotten rid of everything in her house that she doesn't need.  Her house is pretty bare.  After talking to her and having another friend begin simplifying their belongings (Heather calls it her "Quest for Less") I decided to jump on the bandwagon.  We just had so much "stuff".  Toys the kids never played with,  kitchen items that never got used or were old, way too many clothes to fit in the dresser drawers, etc.  There have been several talks in general conference the past few years that were about simplifying our lives so we can concentrate on the things that matter most.  Those kept popping in my head as I thought about beginning this monumental task of going through our home room by room. It took me several weeks to go through everything.  It was such a good feeling though!  As we got rid of things that no longer served a purpose in our home, it was very freeing for me.  There were less toys to get strewn about the bedrooms, which meant less mess to pick up.  The kids could actually find things they wanted to play with!  (This didn't come without tears from some of the kids, mind you, but we worked through it.) I had more room in my kitchen drawers for the utensils I actually used, and got rid of expired food items that were hidden in the backs of the cabinets. I couldn't believe how many expired medications we had in the medicine cabinet! Cupboards were washed out.  Sheets, towels, and blankets were gotten rid of (we had 5 sets of queen sheets and not 1 queen bed in our house.  Go figure that one out!) There was not a dust bunny left anywhere! It was awesome!  Our home just felt better.  I'm not sure how else to describe it. We sold many things on our local yard sale site and donated many, many more things to Deseret Industries.  Our first trip to DI, John and I went by ourselves.  We filled the van from the front seats back. I couldn't believe how much stuff we had to get rid of! The proof:

It felt good to get rid of it all.  John was so happy I was doing this. :)  Like I said, our home had a better feeling in it. By the time I was finished, we sent two more loads to DI and filled John's parent's suburban.

I haven't quite finished with all the simplifying yet.  I still have my craft room to go through and the shed out back.  I think I could probably go back through some of the other rooms now and weed out more stuff!  I love this! It has made me a happier mama and wife and let me focus on being better at those things.  Thanks Taffee and Heather for being such great, inspiring examples and sharing your stories with me! August 5th, 2013