Bag Lady

 

 

I know it’s cliché, but I am finding it hard to believe it is the end of the school year.  Which means we have lived in this house for almost a full year.  And we still have stuff in the garage that needs to be “unpacked”.  I’ve had some round about thoughts lately, that I do believe have perhaps settled down and come full circle.  Some times it takes me a while, but every so often I get it and have a light bulb moment. 

This house meets our needs.  When we first looked at it, we walked away for 30 days and continued to look for something we like more, that had more room.  This one had been remodeled by the previous owners so it was fine, but not really to our tastes and probably not what we would have done had the job been up to us.  It is not large, and the office set up for Iain is not the greatest.  But, it is right across from the school that we wanted.  We found other houses in the area that we liked much better but they seemed to have some issues that made us nervous, like foundation reports.  So, in the end we kind of “settled” for this one.  I will not lie.  I do not love this house.  But, I do love where it is and I do love the neighborhood..a lot.  It is worth it to be in the area. 

There are many things I would like to do to this house to make it feel mine.  I would like to change the front of it, paint the brick, add a front patio space, put in new windows, replace the awful fake wood floors, put some color on the walls (oh the beige…it bores me to death).  All of these things take money.  A lot of money.  So, in my very round about way I have realized how much I value being able to make these changes, if we are to make this house a home.   I have also realized I do not have to do it all at once, or even start with one of the bigger jobs.  Even a small change can make a big difference.  So, I started with my little Pinterest blog experiment, and my front flower beds (which were full of awful, boring, old person plants). 

Once immersed in these projects, it became clear to me that we were living in a bit of chaos. Too much stuff.  So, I started filling 13-gallon garbage sacks full of things we did not need.  Clothes, linens, toys, etc…So far I have taken about 8-10 bags to the Goodwill drop off and with each bag I feel lighter, more free, and like I have more room, more freedom, more time.  Less chaos.  Less clutter, physically and emotionally.  I have not missed one.single.thing. that I have donated.  Things that I thought I needed to hang on to for purely emotional reasons….gone! 

I have a fantasy that this reduction in clutter and chaos will free up what we need to do in order to get our finances in better shape so that we can afford to to the bigger projects sooner than later.  Will post pics soon.