How much do I love you? Let me count the... stairs.

I'm at that point in my move where the things missing are just annoying: Wite Out, ONE of my black dress shoes, my flip camera... I still have lots of boxes, but what could possibly be in them? If I haven't needed the stuff in there yet, do I really need it?  Oh yeah, but I'm still missing my shoe!

We have a LOT of stuff.  We had more.  But we still have way too much.

Originally, I thought we would be moving into a much smaller house, so I began to get rid of lots of things.  When happened upon a very unique house with lots of storage space, I became less worried about getting rid of things first because I knew we could move them and then figure out what needed to stay or go.  The house we moved into last month is a stilt house.  If you've never seen one, imagine a huge garage on the first floor and living space the size of the garage on the second floor.  This kind of house is convenient when you're surrounded by water and can't get flood insurance.  In the event of a tidal surge with a hurricane, in theory, the living space upstairs would be high and dry.  This means that everything that we love enough to use often needs to go up the wooden stairs on the outside of the building and in to the second floor.  And that means that "Someone" needs to carry those beloved things up the stairs.  Sometimes "Someone" can be persuaded to carry something up by telling them that there is food at the top (works well for some heavier objects).  Beer is also a good reward, apparently.  I think beer and food are really what got us moved in here.  But I digress...

Something happens when you look at something that you don't really use or need and contemplate carrying it up the stairs (or asking someone else to carry it up the stairs) and then trying to find a spot for it.  Like the treadmill.  That oak roll top desk we never used.  That really sturdy (read heavy) leather couch that seemed like a good idea when two big guys delivered it from the store into our one story house.  The question begs to be asked: Do I really love this? Is this as important as it once seemed?  Do I really want to carry it up all those steps?

We're all taught to be consumers from a very early age in our culture.  We are taught that we need to buy more and more things and that these things will make our lives better, more fulfilled, easier.  But more stuff is just more stuff.  And having more stuff doesn't necessarily make things easier.  Many times, it makes things more complicated as we struggle to keep up with it all.

Take socks, for example.  Having more socks doesn't necessarily make life easier, I was thinking as I stared at the laundry basket full of them this morning.  The huge mound of unmatched socks sits there completely listless, waiting for me to do something with them.  Of course, we threw many unmatched socks out before we moved (probably all of the mates).  If we had fewer socks, we would have fewer socks to try to keep track of and perhaps we would take better care of the ones we have.

Lots of our possessions didn't make the cut even out of the old house and I'm OK with that.  I often think of something I read many years ago when I was first trying to figure out how I was supposed to keep my home clean and was reading, "Confessions of an Organized Homemaker" for the first time. The author, Deniece Schofield, said these memorable words: "The more you have, the more you have to take care of."  Simple, yet profound.  Even if it is just having several sheet sets, towels, or an extra set of silverware, to have it means that someone needs to take care of it.  Someone= (probably) me.

The beautiful thing about our house right now is that I can easily do a trial run of finding out what I really need and what I don't.  I can leave something down in the garage and see if I miss it enough to lug it up the stairs now that we're out of people hanging around looking for food (or beer). And I'm finding that many of the things that were brought upstairs are going to end up back downstairs unless they're proven worthy of keeping.  And that feels good.  Good bye to those things I no longer need!

We've sold the treadmill, the oak roll top desk, and many other things we just weren't using.  And it feels really good.  Having fewer things really makes a huge difference in my ability to keep up with it all because "someone" (read me) has to put them away, keep them clean, etc. We still have a ways to go, though.  Less is more, right? 

I still haven't found the Wite Out since I started writing this, but my one black shoe did finally show up. Now I just need to figure out where to put all of my clothes!


Have you let something go that you thought was really important in the past that you realized was just holding you back or weighing you down?  How do you handle all the "stuff" in your life and letting it go when it is no longer serving you?