Can I please be a minimalist?

For a few years now I've felt strangled by our possessions.  I can't exactly pinpoint the moment it started. Maybe it was during this last move we made, when it took me months just to get all the boxes unpacked. Maybe it was the moment when I realized that even though the house has what I initially considered to be way more than adequate storage in the kitchen but I still could not fit all our kitchen items into it. Maybe it was another move altogether, even. Lord knows we've moved plenty of times, and each time with more "stuff" than the last. The point is, lately, I really have been wishing that I could just walk away from all of it.

I find myself looking back in time to my first apartment, when I was able to fit everything I (and my son) owned into the bed of a pickup truck. I remember how much I would long to have "things" when I would go to a store window shopping. Having no money was my biggest problem because I wanted nearly everything I saw. I was driven to buy this and that just because I didn't have anything. My creativity would go nuts imagining how things would look in my home. Yet now that I am older and have gotten so many things that my home is overflowing I wonder. Would I be better off without all the clutter? Do I really need to have every surface in my home covered with "pretty things"?

I imagine how nice it would be if I could start and finish cleaning in just a couple hours on a Saturday morning. I imagine how wonderful it would be to open a drawer/cabinet/closet door and not feel like the contents are so disorganized that it's all going to fall out on me.  I recently decided to move some of the items in my kitchen around so that I could store actual FOOD in the kitchen, and moved the small appliances into the pantry in the laundry room. And the funniest thing happened... there were FIVE small appliances that I did not remember having, including one that we have never used yet. How sad is that? 

I have gone through my clothes several times in the last two years.  Before we left Wichita Falls I packed up sixteen big, black 13-gallon trash bags with clothes and shoes that I felt I did not need and donated them to Goodwill.  Then, after moving here, I packed up another seven of them with even more clothes and shoes (some with price tags still on them!) and donated them at a local dropoff for abused women and children.  The result? After all that purging I still have what would probably fit in another ten or so bags of clothing left, more than enough to survive on. In fact, I probably could stand to get rid of some more. I was pondering just this morning whether I should go through all those thirty pairs of flip-flops I have stored in a shoe organizer hanging on the wall behind my hanging clothes. Out of sight, out of mind, but still taking up space that I could probably use for something else.  And don't even get me started on my husband's clothing! We have a HUGE closet, and since I have whittled my clothes down so much and he hasn't yet started on his clothes, he takes up three-fourths of it!

All in all, I keep looking around my home and thinking about the things inside it.  Would I feel more relaxed without having all those how-to books?  Would getting rid of all the extra dishes, bed linens, towels, curtains, and things that are not being used make me feel better?  I already got rid of half our Christmas decorations, and when I recently put the tree up I realized that I still have a LOT of extra stuff that won't fit on the tree, should I get rid of that? How many blankets are too many?

The bottom line is, I am ready for change. I am tired of being owned by my possessions. I am tired of having so much that I am overwhelmed.  If I could get rid of 90% of our things, then maybe I would be able to focus on the really important things. And maybe the house would stay cleaner. But I have a non-supportive husband who is the complete opposite of me - a hoarder! And therein lies the problem. No matter what I do to simplify life and get rid of all the things weighing me (and my spirit) down, he will always be not only hanging onto all the useless things, he will continue bringing in more stuff. Into the garage, of course, but it's still more stuff to pack up and move if we ever decide to do so again. And since we've moved at least twenty times since we've been together, I'm thinking there is a really good chance of that. So I will just continue to get rid of anything that is mine. Maybe eventually, all that will be left of me in our home will be just a few clothes and shoes in our closet. The rest I will leave for him to pack. And unpack.

I HATE TRAVERTINE

Who the hell decided that putting a tile that is porous and full of thousands of little to pea-sized holes onto a floor was a good idea? It took me four hours on my hands and knees today scrubbing with Dawn dish soap and a scrub brush just to get the ugly yellow floor in my kitchen clean enough for me.  All those little holes sure do hold a LOT of dirt compliments of the dogs, the cats, and the humans in our household.  And yet even clean, all those pits in the tile make it look dirty. WTF?! I can't wait to get rid of the stuff! Oh, but wait.... Until we can save up the cash, I still have four bathrooms full of the crap to scrub! Grrrr!

Ron spent most of the day cleaning his RC car stuff out of our workout room, so the good news is that once I can get in there and clean it up, after I work the next three days, I'll be able to actually USE it. THANK YOU, RON!!! Of course, as I say that I'm simultaneously wondering if I will be angry with him for it later. When my legs hurt so badly they keep me up at night. Oh, wait, they already do that! I did actually sleep last night, though, for the first time in about a week. Heavenly! And speaking of, it's time to head to bed, since I work in the morning. Tomorrow's another day in the wonderful world of being paid a little for a lot.

Hard Day's End

It's been a really tiring day. Today was wound care day, and lemme tell you, this one was a really strange day.  For those of you who don't know, I am a nurse. A career Med/SURG nurse. I sloth and toll in the world of bedpans and call lights. It's not out of the ordinary for me to hear about the color or texture of bodily fluids on a daily basis. But last year my manager came

Hello again

As usual, life got in the way of my wanting to do a single thing about this blog. Sorry! All I can say is that I will try to get on here every once in a while and write a bit about the happenings in our life.

This has been a really crazy year so far. Not a lot happening outside of work, except that whenever we are off we try to jam as much stuff into our time as we possibly can. Did I tell you that as soon as we bought the house here, the military told him that they could not give him the civilian job they paid to move us here for? It was horrible! Evidently, thanks to Congress and the damn government not signing a stupid budget, they did not have any money to pay his salary. So Ron started

Heartbreak for the Nasons

We woke up today to find that Chloe's eye was nearly swollen shut, and the swelling was all the way up  into the top of her head.  So, being the responsible pet owners we are, we called a local vet and loaded her up and took her in to have her looked at and get some antibiotics for the eye infection we were sure she had.  But we were floored when the vet told us that it is a tumor behind her eye that is pressing against her eye from behind, and not only that but she has questionable spots on her lungs and underneath her heart. And possibly in her breasts.  The vet said

Last night was GREAT!

I know it's hard to believe (sarcasm intended), but guess who bowled a 211 last night? CODY DID! It was good to see his enthusiasm about it, even as he tried to act nonchalant about it. Ron and I were both really proud of him. I guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree.  We were really starting to wonder, what with the teenage-boy hygiene we have going on around this

First Page of our "New Home Album"

I'm off today, thank heavens! So I'll be spending most of my time cleaning and doing laundry. I do plan on going down to Lake Worth to buy me some new workout shoes, but that's going to be later. I've been looking at the dust in this place long enough.  Well, that, and the fact that now there are Halloween candy wrappers everywhere. I forgot about that little