Finding Contentment

Has anyone seen my new jeans?

10:54 PM, Monday, March 12, 2007 .. Posted in Family .. 3 comments .. Link

I think the first natural step to simplifying a home is decluttering it. So when we set off on our challenge a couple of weeks ago I choose a specific day when I didn’t have anywhere to go and asked Mark’s mom to take the kids to her house – for the entire day.

She was gracious enough to agree, and with Mark at work I had the house to myself. I had already wrangled up some boxes, so I began in the heart of the home – the kitchen. I opened all the drawers and cabinets and pulled out anything I didn’t use very often.

I was ruthless. In went the meat tenderizer, the hand grater (I have a food processor that can grate), nearly all the plastic cookie cutters (I kept a couple of good metal ones), the melon baller, the extra pizza cutter, several of our ever-growing collection of coffee mugs, a couple of extra plastic pitchers… you get the idea.

Then I attacked the part of the house I knew would be the hardest – an extra closet where all the outgrown stuff is mixed in with stuff we were keeping in case we needed one day. That closet took me the rest of the day, and by the time the kids got back I had filled up about nine good-sized boxes. I called my younger brother, who came over and helped me carry the boxes to the church. We stored them in an extra room in anticipation of the Cub Scout’s upcoming yard sale. Unfortunately, the room was on the top floor, and I was too beat to even try to work anymore once the kids came home.

Throughout the week, the decluttering process continued. A couple of days later Justin, 11, grudgingly went through his room and closet with me. We came away with three more boxes full of stuff. He still has a ton of stuff, but I thought this was pretty good for Justin, who has some pack rat tendencies.

But I still had a lot to do. In the midst of all this decluttering, I finally broke down and bought three pair of new jeans, which I desperately needed. Most of my clothes were casual business clothes but since God gave me the opportunity to be a stay at home mom, I had a bigger need for comfortable clothes for working at home and in the yard than I did for going to the office.

When I came home with the new jeans I went through all my drawers and my closet, which was packed to the gills. I had seen a home organization show on television where the host said people only wore 20 percent of the clothes in their closets, and boy was he right! I ruthlessly boxed up anything I hadn’t worn in the past month and anything that no longer fit (no more keeping things I thought I might fit back into one day). I did, however, keep a few very summery pieces I knew I would wear in the warmer weather.

The clothes that are left in my closet take up about 20 percent of the space! My closet looks positively bare and I have empty spaces in my drawers.

Faced with boxes of clothes I no longer needed and not looking forward to toting them to the top floor of the church, I posted my clothes on our local Freecycle group. Freecycle is a national program broken down by county in which members post things they no longer need or want. No money is ever exchanged. A woman came that very same night and picked the clothes up.

It wasn’t until a couple of days later that I went looking for one of my new pair of jeans. Not finding them in any drawer or closet in the house and having checked the washer and dryer, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I mistakenly put the jeans – tags still attached - in one of the boxes of clothes I gave away.

Buying a brand new pair of jeans and than immediately giving away is not the best start to beginning a life of frugal living. Oh well, at least my closet is clean!

Now all I have to do is go through the toddler’s toys, my teenage daughter’s clothes, my office, the basement, the laundry room…