I have been getting such joy out of minimizing our belongings on our journey to a more simplified life and home. But lately, I’ve hit a plateau- I’ve gone through my closet, my bathroom drawers, the winter gear, junk drawers, and our office area. But why do I still feel “heavy” like I have too much stuff weighing me down?
I came across a Decluttering Burst Challenge on Courtney Carver’s blog and thought it was just the right activity to get me motivated again! Boy, did it work. The challenge is to discard or donate 100 things in one hour. I have to admit, my hour may have been cut in half because a toddler will do that! But I still was able to get rid of at least 100 items. I wonder how many things I could have purged in the whole hour?!
First, I tackled the kitchen. Why was I keeping a spice cabinet full of expired herbs and sugary packaged rubs? I’ve been trying to cut out as much unnecessary sugar from our life, so any prepackaged spice with sugar in the ingredients list went right in the trash. I also *may* have dumped out all our white sugar as baking with it just doesn’t happen anymore! That got a response from Chase, so maybe I went a little too far with that one. Whoops! But, I ended up purging over 55 items just from my spice cabinet. Then, I moved onto the garage cabinets where we had boxed up some kitchen items so we could have more storage space in the house. Those boxes were filled with items I was holding onto “just in case”… which we all know never comes! The 20 canning jars I bought with the intent to can jam? Sat in the garage for over 2 years- they were added to the donate pile. All the lids and accessories that went with them? Added to the pile. I had boxes of pretty glass storage containers- but why? They weren’t of any use to me. Added to the pile. The garage held over 45 pieces of glassware, serving platters, and decor pieces that were added to the donate pile. Then I walked through the house for one last go- I spotted an extra decor vase that was cluttering up the guest bath counter (when we bought the house, I bought decor pieces in sets of three, yikes!), a shoe organizer that was empty due to me purging the closet earlier this year, and an extra curling iron that I never use. Out back, I found a planter filled with decorative rocks that just makes me anxious because Lucy ends up dumping the rocks all over. In the pile it all went! Do I get to count each decorative rock as an item?! If so, I’m well over 200….
All in all, I filled the trunk with 104 items. I realize this may sound wasteful to some. But what is even more wasteful in my mind is for those items to sit boxed up or never used- now they can be of use to someone else! We took the load to the donation center that same day- and you know what? I do feel a bit lighter.
