Friday, June 11, 2010

Keep only what is useful or beautiful...

"Have nothing in your houses 
that you do not know to be 
useful or believe to be beautiful"
                       William Morris





I got this quote from my mom (actually it was on her facebook page), and it describes PERFECTLY the feelings I've been having and the tactic I used to decide what stays and what goes.  Surely it's because we knew we were moving into such a tiny space, but we were VERY picky with the things we packed.  If you've been reading for a while, you already know we sold most of our furniture and big stuff like that, so that's out of the picture.  But MAN we had a ton of other crap...an entire house full of things that were neither useful nor beautiful.  (Since taking up space does NOT count as 'useful'.)  

For example...when we were in Utah and getting ready for this adventure I decided to go through my clothes and keep ONLY what I really really love.  I ended up with 4 bags...FOUR. BAGS. of clothes to take to good will.  


And I still kept everything I liked.  That means I was lugging around all this junk and looking at it every day, which made me think, "I have nothing to wear".  When the truth is I have LOTS of things to wear...clothes that I LOVE....that make me feel good about myself.  Maybe I just couldn't see them all because they were hiding in all that crap.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE that it's GONE!  Why keep it around? Nobody knows.

As a continuation of our clean out, the day before we left for Idaho, we took another whole trailer load of stuff to Good Will, and in another trip about a month ago, we took a trunk-load of books.  

Now that we're here, and we have plenty of room for everything we need (with room left over), I don't know why we didn't do this earlier.  I wonder why we kept all that stuff around for so long.  More junk = more to organize (and give you a headache), more clothes = more laundry, more dishes = more to wash, more space = more to clean!  Seriously, why keep it?

I really wonder what it is that makes us hold on to stuff.  Does it make us feel better somehow?  Do we not get rid of it because we are lazy or because we really think it is useful or it will someday be?  Whatever the reason, I'm glad we figured out that we don't need all that junk.  We are in a good place.  A place where we really have everything we need and enough of the things that we want that we're happy.  I am so glad to be here, and my challenge is for YOU to try it out.  It's spring time still (at least if feels more like spring here than summer), and even if you think it's too late for spring cleaning, it's not.  So try it out...go through your things and keep only what you know to be useful (that's KNOW and not THINK....if you haven't used it in the last 6 or 12 months, it's not useful...and fooling yourself into thinking it might someday be useful is just that...fooling).  And of course keep everything you believe to be beautiful.  That means if you have decorations that you don't love, get rid of them.  Clothes and dishes too.  Keep only what you really truly LOVE (that's all you really use anyway!  The rest just takes up space!).  Have a yard sale and use the cash to replace the things you didn't love with things you DO love.  Or give it all to Good Will and know that someone will find your ugly useless thing there and it will be just the beautiful thing they need.

Feel free to do this or not, but I promise it will be worth it if you do!  

3 comments:

Bonnie said...

You have inspired me. After moving all my junk across the country 3 times, I have been thinking I need to get rid of all the stuff sitting in the garage. I just need to give in and do it, huh?

Rachel said...

I am itching to declutter now Kallie!! When I finally move from CO to NE I'll be going through all of it like you have!!

Kallie said...

Do it! Both of you! :) You'll be so happy you did!! xoxo

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