Project: De-Clutter

As I write this, the boys and I are hanging out in our "playroom" (aka: half of the garage that I have set up like a playroom with all the toys that take up way too much room inside). While there have been several days in the past few weeks that have hinted at the arrival of fall, today has been the first real day where I could actually smell it. In fact, earlier today while making lunch and doing a little laundry, I opened the back door as well as the garage door to let the cool air blow through the house. I love when it's not exactly cold outside, but the wind is cold. It makes me feel like I can't decide if I should go on a walk or curl up on the couch.

As a woman of constant phases, fall also happens to be the time of year when I hit a sudden urge to clean, re-organize, and de-clutter. I think it goes back to this time two years ago when I began my first bout with nesting. While my mother insisted that nesting 8-10 weeks before my due date was a bad idea, I just had that overwhelming urge to get my house in order. Sure enough, when Kolbe came a whole month early, I was thankful for the urges! Oddly enough, I was also pregnant this time last year. And with my pregnancy with Reagan, I seemed to be in a constant state of nesting. With Mark in Midland the majority of the time, home organization seemed to be one of the things I could do to pass the evenings alone.

But this fall is a little different. No, I'm not pregnant. And thankfully, Mark is not in Midland every night either. Still I've recently had a huge urge to de-clutter our house. I sometimes feel like a cluttered home creates a cluttered mind. Like if all I see is clutter, I'll feel that way too. While Mark hasn't overtly expressed this same sentiment, he does make clever comments like "For every toy Kolbe gets for his birthday we're getting rid of five of his existing ones." (We'll see how that goes...) I can tell he feels the same way I do. Where I used to find myself thinking it was "cute" to group lots of little knick-knacks together on a table, I now covet a completely empty countertop.

I think the thing that gets me the most is that we are a family of FOUR. There are only FOUR people living in this 1400 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house. (1900 when you include the garage which we DO use as living space from time to time!) I shouldn't be making comments about how we've totally outgrown it already. There are much larger families that live in much smaller homes. To be completely honest, I don't think it's a matter of not having enough space. I think it's a matter of us having way more "stuff" than we need. As my dad once told Mark shortly after we got married, "All that really happens after you get married is you start acquiring 'stuff'." Boy, was he right.

And the bottom line is, I don't want to raise our boys thinking that "stuff" is the way to happiness. We could fill every single nook and cranny of this house with all kinds of material things and they'd never fill the vast amounts of space in the hearts, souls and minds of our kiddos. Those rooms can only be filled with our undivided time, love, and attention: things I so dearly long to give both Reagan and Kolbe.

So maybe this year instead of nesting for the birth of a new baby, I'll spend my few rare spare minutes cleaning up and clearing out both my house and my mind in an effort to truly get down to what matters most.