January 23, 2012

  • Simplfing

    If you've followed my blog for any length of time you'll know I've been pretty intentional about trying to simplify my life, my home, and my calendar.

    My journey started one middle of the night feeding when Clark wasn't even 5 months old. As I rocked and nursed him I had this thought, "What would it be like to go through every corner, cabinet, box, shelf, and closest of my house to organize and purge?"

    That thought excited me! 

    So John and I said that in 2010 we'd spend the year doing just that. 

    It did take me awhile, and looking back I wasn't that aggressive in purging, but did a lot of organizing.

    Then in the spring of 2011 I started feeling this overwhelming suffocation of stuff in my house. A friend wrote a blog about a book she read and I knew it would be right up my alley. I tore through "Organized Simplicity" in about 1 week and started right in.

    (I did blog about it: I can breath, Family Vision Statement, We're ready to move, Things I've noticed, Want to organize your home)

    The last area that need a fine tooth purge (or so I thought) was my Christmas stuff. This year I purged 3 boxes of Christmas stuff. 

    Last week I decided to do another round of purging through my house. Started in the boys room and I ended up with 7 boxes of items to give away from my entire house!

    So this has been on going for 2 years. Two years of intentional simplifying and I feel like I am finally seeing the fruit. 

    In 2012 we've had about 20 days of company (dinner parties, movie night, play dates, drop in company). In having all this company we've noticed that having a simplified home makes having company over easy! If my dishes are done, I can clean or pick up my whole house in about 15 minutes! No joke!! Even my upstairs stays "company ready" (you know what I mean!)

    Everything we have has a "home", everything belongs somewhere...even chapstick, rolls of tape, and every toy. So when we go to clean up, since everything belongs somewhere, it all gets put away easily. 

    Now before you think I have this huge house, with tons of space...guess again! (Here's a blog tour of my house from a couple of years ago: Tour of my house WOW things have changed! Makes me want to take the same pictures in the same spots to compare! And I also know to some people our house is HUGE...it's all a matter of perspective!)

    Not only have we been more intentional about simplifying our home, we've been even more intentional about NOT buying what we don't need! That has helped!! 

    So if you're thinking about simplifying, know it's taken us two years to really see the fruit of our intentions! Hope this blog encourages someone to stay the course and give it time...purging, organizing, and simplifying doesn't happen over night!