Our Labor Day Weekend

We spent a lot of our three-day weekend working on more decluttering. We filled Nathan's trunk (a huge one!) with boxes and bags of excess to take to Goodwill. We also sold a box of books at Half Price Books for $11.50 (and managed to leave the store with $3). 

We continued weeding out the clutter after the Goodwill trip. I spent time going through my dresser, asking questions like how many pairs of Christmas socks is excessive? Nathan went through his closet and found several shirts, pants, and ties he didn't need. We came up with enough extra clothes between the two of us to fill at least another trash bag!

Marsh was tripling coupons again this weekend, so we had to make a trip there. We got all of this for $10.65, and they weren't even tripling $1 coupons this time. That definitely topped my Memorial Day triple coupon shopping. It was fun having Nathan with me to help me decide what to buy and to watch my couponing skills in action. He said I "kicked some serious tail."

(An old photo. It wasn't that cold Monday.)

While we spent a lot of Monday relaxing, we were very active for some of the day. We started out the day by taking Nenya on a two and a half mile walk, and later Nathan and I biked another 11 miles. Not bad for two people who have hardly exercised at all the past year!

It wasn't anything too exciting, but we have so many weekends with planned events or traveling out of town that it's nice to just stay at home sometimes!

Enemy of Decluttering: Sentimental Value

Nathan and I have been doing a lot of decluttering lately. We just don't need all this stuff we've accumulated, so a lot of it needs to go. Purging feels pretty good once you get started. However, some items are difficult to toss. If I've had it for 20 years or I wore it on an important day in my life, discarding it is no easy task. And if my grandma gave it to me, getting rid of it is almost impossible.

Nana gave me a lot of stuff. Clothes. Luggage. Plastic containers. An alarm clock. Dish towels. Jewelry. Lotion. After she died, all of that became almost sacred. These simple objects transformed into a tangible link to someone no longer here. How could I get rid of any of them?

I found a new perspective recently as I was snapping green beans. I'd never bought fresh green beans before, but I had snapped them with Nana years ago. As soon as I started working on them, I immediately thought of her. The smell, the sound, the feeling...it was like I was there on the back porch again, with Nana there with me in her apron, working away.

These are the true gifts in life - memories that are so simple yet so powerful. I don't need to keep a broken umbrella to remember my grandma. I don't need to keep the shirt I wore when I was baptized to know I was baptized. I don't need to keep all my stuffed animals to remember all the fun I had playing with them. I could lose everything I own and still have those memories. And what new memories are these boxes and drawers of junk creating?