I have thought several times about what can be said to help families dealing with a move, especially when you are going a long distance. I think the number one biggest thing you can do is to GET RID OF YOUR STUFF! Now, this sounds easy, but when there are 9 people involved it is not so simple. Just with furniture, I figure that we have 9 beds and one hideaway couch, 2 full sets of living/family room furniture, dining room/kitchen furniture, and 8 closets full of current clothing! The garage & storage shed alone could probably have filled a semi-trailer before we began all of our decluttering! But we have really been whittling it down to make it manageable. It's time to Simplify our Home!
My goal is to fit everything we need into one moving truck which is probably about the size of a 2-car garage, but narrower & longer. SO -- think about that! An entire household, 6 bedrooms, office, 2 living/family room areas, dining room, 3.5 bathrooms, all into one space. The key? We need to get rid of lots of the stuff we've gathered over the past 4 years! Plus all the stuff we brought with us from the previous moves, that has continued to serve no purpose, in the hopes that we "might need it someday".
There are lots of resources out there on the internet to help you with your delcuttering efforts. I think it's a great idea to "pretend" to move, even when you're not. Just go to www.google.com and enter in "decluttering" and see how much comes up! Some of my favorites, which you can research on google are:
- Don Aslett (cleaning & decluttering guru) www.donaslett.com, www.cleanreport.com
- Flylady (helping women to "finally love yourself" by clearing out physical & mental clutter) at www.flylady.net
Well, you get the idea, and I'm just rambling today, but I really needed to get another blog entry on the site, and I thought, "Well, what have I been doing for the past 2 months?" Besides painting and home repairs, the number one thing we have to do to make our home fabulous for potential buyers, and make our move smoother, is to dejunk!
So, as I sort through closets & drawers over the next few weeks, my mantra will be: 1) Do you HAVE to have this item? Is it critical to your daily life? and 2) If not, is it an item that you absolutely love, that you would run into a burning house to retrieve because it is so special? If the answer to these 2 questions is NO, then GET RID OF IT! Give it to someone who will really enjoy it and will benefit from it, and quit storing it, moving it, caring for it, and letting it take over your life!
There are many great organizations for getting rid of useful things that you don't need. One of the ones I have found recently and have really fallen in love with is "Freecycle". Just go to www.freecycle.com and see if there's a group in your area. It is an email group where people post things they want to give away, and you can give and receive, and recycle stuff, for free! Just be careful to give away more than you pick up! ;)
And of course there are organizations like Goodwill, Deseret Industries, the Salvation Army, Helping Hands, and M.S. that will take your used things and make them available to those in need. So think of it as blessing the life of someone else, and it won't be as hard to give your things away!
Well, I'd better get back to my project. By the way, does anyone have need for any stuffed animals? How about a yogurt maker? What about a bunch of great scrap paper? Books? Magazines? Old jeans to make into a quilt. . . ahh, the freedom of letting go!
