Clutter

I'm usually reading several books at the same time.  I just switch between the books depending on my interest.

One book that I keep coming back to is by Sarah Ban Breathnach titled Moving On: Creating Your House of Belonging with Simple Abundance. It may not be one of her most read books, but this one has a pull on me.

I have been examining what my clutter is saying to me.  What am I hiding?  What am I avoiding?  At long last, I have discovered what my clutter is all about and it isn't really that bad.

I have a lot of stuff for arts & crafts and science experiments.  I have more books than I could possibly read - eight bookcases!  But now I know why...

My clutter is saying something beautiful about me and our homeschool journey.  I have all this "stuff" because I have good intentions.  I want to read these books with my kids.  I want to color and doodle and figure out the mysteries of the universe.  But with all this clutter, I can't find what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it.  Then the moment is lost.

So my new found understanding of my clutter has inspired me to get my front room in order.  I purchased a keyboard for my kids and freecycled our organ.  The kids and I are about to start sorting worksheets that were donated to our homeschool to use as drawing paper.  It has been sitting on the dining room table since Saturday.  It's going to be great to see the table top again!

I've already ebayed my McGuffey Readers and Ray's Arithmetics which we were never going to use - homeschool flop for me, but again good intentions.  I thought that these would work in our "one room school house"/Little House on the Prairie type school.  Nope.  But hopefully, they will bless someone else's home.  Between library donations, PaperbackSwap.com, and simply giving away books to other homeschoolers via our local yahoo group, I have downsized my library by at least 50 books.  My goal is to do this every week.

I'm also dealing with Mt. Washmore...again.  So, I've decided to wash and donate at least one bag of clothes a week.  There are 7 people in this family, but we don't need this many clothes!

I meandered a bit, but my point is that if you are struggling with clutter...ask yourself what it is saying to you.  You might be surprised to find that once you meet each other, you can walk away a better person.