Too much

Lately I've been purging stuff. We had a garage sale at our church and I donated a lot of stuff. I saved it up in our garage for about a month. But now I'm feeling that itch again. Something has to go. I get such a high when I get rid of stuff now. I used to get that feeling when shopping, now I only go shopping for groceries, pet supplies and for some occasional special purchases. I want our house to be comfortable. I wanted to sew again but I haven't really reached the point where I'm organized enough yet.

 So I purge. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff I've donated, tossed or recycled since I've been about 19. I always knew that I don't want to be surrounded by junk. Having lived with a lot of stuff already, I want to be able to move freely and dance in my living room if I want to...Ok with or without my DH.  Sometimes I just have to dance and sometimes my dog wants to join, how can I do things like that if I'm surrounded by clutter?

When we moved to Minnesota I thought that we had gotten rid of enough things to be comfortable. But, it turns out that I need different things to be comfortable here or it just didn't fit in the house the same way. So, out it went, to the recycling bin or to the thrift store. I try not to throw away good, usable things that someone else might be able to get more use out of still. I did sell a few things, like shoes that I bought when I worked in an office. I had to have these designer shoes...turns out that they aren't as important to me anymore. Especially since my office is sometimes muddy and I get poop on my shoes daily. (Remember that I'm a homesteader!)

We live in a stuff centered culture (Assuming that you are in the US like I am anyways. Some other cultures are the same, but for my discussion I'm talking about the US mainly.) We have too much stuff in our houses, so instead of going through it all and getting rid of what is no longer applicable to our lives and well being we keep it all and even rent a space to put the stuff we don't want to see or deal with; Some people call this a temporary measure, but I call it avoidance. Your life changes, it's OK to be finished with something and let it be used by someone else. You don't have to hang on to it forever. Let it go. (Please don't sing...) You free up mental space when you let go of physical objects too. You can free the stress in your life as well. You may not realize that all the junk that you own is owning you right back. It weighs you down and can make you heavy-I mean overweight. I know several people who have lost weight by decluttering their lives. Not to mention that it isn't for the weak or weary. But you may feel that way at first.
Be intentional about your things.

If you don't know where to start than start with the trash. Take out the trash in the bin and then walk around with a new trash bag and throw away things that are laying around the room. It will look better even if you only get one piece of trash picked up.

Then go through something easy like....your car, your purse, or one junk drawer. You could even try to go through something and set a goal of getting rid of 5 items from a room. I do this all the time. I don't like dusting and having to pick things up or moving a lot of things to vacuum. And having pets means that cats will walk on every surface and knock things over so, this is why I can't have nice things. (No, I'm kidding) Dogs jump on things and my large 'declutter dog' likes to jump and dance with me. (It's cute, I promise.)
So, I try to keep things to a minimum in our lives.
DH and I would much rather spend time together doing something meaningful. I won't go into details, but experiences are much more lasting memories than trinkets. Also, strangely we spend less money this way on junk and more on what we actually want to do with our lives.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that my home, life, or pets are perfect. NO! I'm human and if I'm right so are you, so we aren't perfect.
The only perfect person is/was Jesus Christ.
That brings me to another point.

Don't let perfection get in the way of good enough. Sometimes I only have time to clean off the counter in the bathroom, or do the dishes in the kitchen. Just because I can't make the room look perfect doesn't mean I shouldn't do anything. I do what I can and if it's good enough then I move on.
I'm not going to spend my time scrubbing and cleaning. Is my house spotless? heavens, no child. But, it is not a filthy cesspit of bacteria either.

It's good enough (unless I'm about to do something on the counters, then I scrub and scour it) most of the time.
A magazine is not coming to take pictures of my home anytime soon, nor is the clutter police coming, but...when you have less things to organize you have less to clean and more time.

Which is more important to you?