Paring Down

Yes, I'm still alive! But 5 full days + 4 half days of work crammed into only 6 days did not treat me well. By last night I had a sore throat and a stuffy nose. And now I'm 10 hours into yet another 12-hour work day, which has been filled with copious amounts of tissues and hand sanitizer.

But now for the actual point of my post. While I was on my lunch break at the day job today, I saw this article on Yahoo. It got me thinking about how ironic it is that Glen and I spent our first 3 years of marriage living in a one-bedroom apartment, acquiring things, andnow that we've nearly doubled our space and are living in a 3-bedroom house, I have a weird fixation on paring down our possessions.

I don't think I could ever go to the extreme this couple did:

My husband comes from a family of 7, and with marriages and babies, that number is increasing. 4 plates, like this couple has, would not be nearly enough if we have even part of his family over for dinner.

Heck, as tempting as it sounds I'm not even sure I could go for the "100 personal items" thing if I have to include toiletries and undergarments in that number. But I'm tempted to have a go at whittling down my actual clothing (tops, bottoms, dresses, shoes) down to 100 pieces. Sounds like it should be easy, but I have 30 pairs of shoes alone. And I wear almost all of them on a fairly regular basis. But having less to choose from, especially if I really love the pieces I have left, would making picking outfits SO much easier.

I'd also love to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff in my office closet. Ideally, I'd use the entire thing exclusively for Mischievous Kitty supplies, but there's stuff from the apartment in there that I just haven't bothered to weed through yet. I haven't used it in more than a year, so it's probably safe to say I won't miss it much. The clutter definitely affects my motivation to get stuff done for my jewelry business, particularly during busy times like last week and this week. I'd love to just go in, sit down, and start making something, but it's easy to lose motivation when I'm already tired and have to clean and organize just to get the overflow off my desk.

I think I'll have to set aside a weekend in the near future to do both of those things. Perhaps I'll post some before and after pictures. Maybe I'll even finish fixing up the (almost finished!) den!

Has anyone out there done any paring down of their "stuff" lately? Have any inspiring success stories to share with me? ;-)