Busy Making Myself Less Busy

Some of the things we've removed from our basement in just the past few weeks.

We’ve been so busy getting rid of things at my house that I haven’t had time to write anything.  When I put away all of the Christmas decorations, we went through every container and picked out a few things to get rid of.  Then we repacked what we were keeping and actually had three empty plastic storage containers when we were done.  I also removed all of the baby/children’s clothes from the furnace room that were too small for any of my kids to wear so we could sort them and find new homes for all of it.  The last few weeks have been full of:

• ​Packing excess stuff for Easter Seals to pick up (I look forward to getting their postcards in the mail letting us know they will be in the area)
• Bringing clothes, toys, and books to friends for their kids
• Taking clothes and even an old crib mattress to a local food/clothing bank
• Dropping off some old mathematics journals to our local library that I had been saving for some reason
• We also brought two boxes of board books to a young couple at our church who recently had their first child

It’s nice to see things going out the door, even if it’s just a couple things for another kid at the daycare that my kids go to.  My wife made sure to bring our oldest son with to the local food bank hoping that he would start to appreciate the life that he has.  I also used the opportunity to have dinner with a friend I don’t see very often when I brought her some clothes and toys for her daughter.  It was great to have a dinner with just the two of us without kids or spouses.  That’s the type of thing I hope to have more time for as we pair down the amount of possessions in our home.  
Along with minimizing our stuff, we’re working on minimizing the utility bills.  One evening I spent time in the basement adding some insulation around the outside walls and caulking around the windows.  This was previously an impossible task with all of the decorations and storage totes filled with baby clothes sitting in the way. This was also a task that someone suggested to me about 2 years ago and I haven't completed until now!  I have a long list of projects both big and small that I’ve wanted to do around the house for quite a while.  I’ve complained to my wife in the past that we can barely keep up on the general cleaning, dishes, and laundry.  Forget about finding time to do any major projects on the house like painting or making time for a hobby.  As I get rid of things that I used to find myself routinely moving out of the way so I could get to something I needed, I’m finding more time for things like finally insulating the basement and pulling out my guitar.  The only downside to removing things from the basement is that soon I won’t have all of that stuff in the way as an excuse to not work out.  I’m sure I can find another one though.