Less Is More

Addie has been asking me to tell her stories about when I was little, especially in relation to me watching and reading the Little House series since that is where her interests are right now. As I was telling her story after story, I realized that I have always loved simplicity. Growing up I wanted to be Laura Ingalls, wear dresses all the time, use a water pump, raise chickens, milk cows, and live in the little house.

Since I can remember, I have always found myself organizing what I could- the top of my dresser as a little girl, my closet as a teenager, my classroom, files, and cabinet as a teacher, and now my home as a wife and mother. And one of the things I always find myself doing in relation to organizing is purging. Constantly.

As a family of four it is inevitable that we are constantly finding ourselves with stuff. Everywhere. I hate stuff. My philosophy is if it has no purpose, we haven't used it in forever (like 6 months), or true sentimental value, it has no place in our home.

My motto for stuff is "Less is More."

The more stuff I have the less time I have.

Why?

It has to be cleaned/dusted.
It has to be kept up with.
It has to be put away.
It has to be dealt with in some way.

All of that takes time.
It takes time away from my children.
It takes time away from me sitting still and enjoying my home.
It takes time away from other things that I would rather be doing.

Less stuff means more time with the ones that mean the most to me.

So we have been going through a spring cleaning purge..... again.

As of this moment, I have completed the dining room, the laundry room, the entry way closet, the guest bathroom, and several of the kitchen cabinets.

This has left me with empty spaces in those places.

I love empty space.

In the coming weeks, I will be showing you before and after photos of our purge and spring cleaning in our different spaces.

The other night, Addie told me, "Mom, we need to clean out my room. I think I have too much stuff."

She is starting to learn the feelings of too much and enough.

That's a good thing.