I know, I know, on the biggest shopping day of the year, I am reading a book called Throw Out 50 Things! I just started it and it’s great. The author, Gail Blanke, is a life coach and a former columnist for Real Simple magazine. She has a really conversational tone–very friendly and enthusiastic. She’s definitely getting me excited about cleaning out our stuff because she emphasizes how free you’ll feel with less things blocking your way.
When we throw out the physical clutter, we clear our minds. When we throw out the mental clutter, we clear our souls.
We already live pretty simply–we have a small budget and a small house, so we can’t really go beyond our space or our means. But not having stuff is not our problem. We have plenty of things, from my past, as hand-me-downs and as gifts. I would really like to streamline some more because I believe that if you’re given a certain amount of space to live in, you shouldn’t have more things than can comfortably fit within it.
And kids only need so many toys. After a certain number, they end up rarely playing with some things. Anyways, we need to encourage them to use their imaginations more rather than have a toy for every scenario (and whim). I think we’ll be gathering some toys in a give-away bag this holiday season.
I’ll share more from the book and our give-away later.