CRAP CRAP CRAP
Okay dirty minds.... I'm not talking about poop, I'm talking about crap! You know....the stuff you accumulate in your house that you don't know where to put. Where does it all come from? I'm trying to reorganize and clean my house and I have so much stuff. I'm no pack rat by all means, but I have a lot of junk. But it is so hard to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of. We are going to have a combo garage sale with my mother-in-law, and going through my things is totally overwhelming. Kids toys for instance...my kids have a lot of toys. It is Toys'R'Us of here. We have 3 rooms full of toys, not including their bedrooms. But every time I'm about to get rid of something, they play with it. And everytime we have friends over, it is a big task to put things away. Okay...this toy goes in this room, and this toy goes in that room, and this goes in that drawer, and this goes on that shelf. ARGH!!! If I could just downsize a little it wouldn't be so difficult to keep things in order. Should I just get rid of things and hope no one notices or what? Please comment!
posted by SunnyMcBunny @ 8:11 AM
4 Comments:
Get rid of stuff.
I'll watch the lil' ones during the garage sale if you'd like?
Make stacks- a trash/free pile, a sell pile, and a think about it pile. Decide if it would be good to let the kids in on the plan. They might worry if you give them too much time to worry, maybe do your part and get them on board with it at the end.
When they get home the day of, if they're upset about what is gone, give them some of the $$$ they made and take them shopping. Let them buy something really great and that will show them that giving up stuff can be a good thing- that stuff is just stuff. Better to have less great stuff then a bunch of extra stuff.
It would be great to get them involved on what they want to sell/make $ on and use it as an opportunity for them to learn about money.
Regardless, I wouldn't have them around the day of- you know how hard it is to let go.
It is a difficult lesson to learn for them (and us) but it is important. We have to be able to let go. Besides, space is valuable. More valuable often than the stuff that is taking it up.
When my Big K wants a movie for example, I have him pick out 5 or 6 movies he's willing to get rid of/trade-in, teaching him the concept of letting go/sacrificing for new things. Now we've only done this 2 times because he doesn't want many movies- but I will do it again the next time it comes up.
I do this with myself too. Like with clothes- I'm in replacement mode. I have enough but if something gets ruined or becomes too too outdated/whatever- I can replace it but I don't just go on shopping sprees anymore. Now I only get what I really want, Getting rid of trash bag after trash bag of clothes made me realize it was a bad use on $$$ to have all that extra clothes (stuff).
Now I appreciate what I do have more. Good to appreciate, bad to hoard. Just my 2cents. This advice is for my benefit too- I need to talk myself into getting rid of more too. Hard to take your own advice, easy to give.
Box up everything that you don't think they play with anymore and store it out of sight for a couple of weeks. If they don't ask for the stuff in the boxes, then it should be okay to get rid of. Then, we can move the rest of the toys from the upstairs landing & dining room up to the game room. How does that sound?
sounds like a plan stan, i'm on it!
It will be hard, they will be upset and there will be a certain amount of time that they'll be disappointed. BUT we have to teach our kids to deal with disappoitment and this would be as good a time as ever.
You know that commercial where the parents are practicing dealing with their angry teenager- better now than later right?
Now, I need to take that advice. In fact we're going to start the "if you add to the toys, you have to take away some of the toys" rule. We're out of space too.
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