Yesterday, I was unloading the dishwasher  in that ho-hum, autopilot fashion that I think most of us employ when tending to mundane tasks.  Grab the cups, stack the plates, sort the silverware…  Grab, grab, stack, stack, sort, sort.  This mug was the last thing I took out of the top rack, and as I set it on the counter, it made me smile.  This mug makes me happy  – seriously, how can you not be happy when you look at the Life is Good guy?? –  and I don’t use it often enough.  It occurred to me as I was looking at this mug that it was one of just a very few items that I’d taken out of the dishwasher that I really loved.  (My striped mugs still fall into the “love” category as well)

As I looked around the kitchen, and then the rest of the house, I started asking myself how much of what I was seeing did I love.    Not what was “nice” or expensive or fancy, but what I really loved… for whatever reason.  It didn’t take me long to realize, “Dang, we accumulated a lot of extra ‘stuff’ again.”  It’s stifling, and suffocating, and I don’t want to live that way anymore.  I want to love what’s in my house.   Now granted, I know I’m not going to love everything.  I don’t jump for joy every time I open a new package of q-tips or kitchen sponges, but I use them.  If it’s not something I – or something else in my family – love OR use, what on earth is it doing in the house?

It’s not the first time I’ve done this either.  I’ve been struck with inspiration before, determined to de-clutter and simplify…. but somehow the extra stuff creeps back in.  I don’t like it.  So, starting today, I’m going to purposely change that. I’m going to streamline.  Simplify.   I’m going to take the next week, or month, or six months or however long it takes and go through my house room by room.  If it’s not loved or used, it goes.  I want my home to be mindfully filled with things that make us happy, not a receptacle for so much accumulated extra stuff that we can’t even find the things we love.  Thankfully the kids are all helpful and discerning when it comes to decluttering as well.  They have no problem parting with old toys and clothes they no longer use, especially when they know they’re going to go to another child who will enjoy them.   They always get into the project once it begins, and are excited by the new, less claustrophobia-inducing house once progress is made.  Tegan, at three, tends to be more of a saver than the others, but who am I to question her love for a stick or a rock or a gum wrapper from 6 months ago?   And the husband is even more supportive than the kids.  Any time I’ve suggested the possibility of less stuff, it’s always been met with a resounding, “Yes.  Throw it away!  Get it out of the house!!”

So I’m gonna.  Now.  And I can’t wait.