It’s going to have to be done in stages!

It’s going to have to be done in stages!

Hello Friends,

So this week in between getting the kids to school, me to work, making breakfast, lunch, dinner, getting kids to Karate and gymnastics, doing laundry, doing dishes, giving kids baths, feeding chickens, cats and dogs etc. I thought in my spare time I would start going through some of my things and see what I could start getting rid of.  Little did I know that it would be so emotional, I think I went through every emotion.  I started with the hard part first; my walk in closet. Some stuff is really easy to put in the sell/give away pile old purses old shoes a Walkman I've had since I was 12  I won’t need those on our adventure, but what about all the love letters from my husband and pictures from my childhood? We will definitely need someplace to store my precious pictures and things of such nostalgic value, awards, letters and such. After taking a better part of a day I widdled my side of the closet to a few shoe boxes of old pictures, a file box that probably took the longest to go through, Suitcases, my wedding dress, the kids baby memorabilia boxes, a couple stuffed animals from my child hood and about one third of the clothes I had before. I got rid of 8 trash bags of stuff no one would really want other than me and started the piles of Garage sale /giveaway items.  Storm has to do his side but even with his in there I already feel better I have a good start on what I imagine to be a long process of going through my things and emotionally detaching myself and getting into the mindset that, less is better, stuff is just stuff and what really matters is my precious family and friends.

Should I keep it?

I searched several websites and articles before I even decided to start this process because I like to have a plan and know what I’m getting myself into. One of the things that stuck is, to go through your things the first time get rid of the easy stuff and anything you can part with without struggling over it, if you feel like you can’t part with it then don’t get rid of it yet. Do this in stages and don’t stress about things you are not sure of and to do this one room at a time.  Now I have allowed for several months, 6 to 10 months at least to go through and get down to what I will need to live in a RV with two little boys and two dogs and a husband, so I have time to go through it in stages. I am sure it will take all of the allotted time to accomplish our goal.

Just a glimpse of what I have ahead of me.

(this is not even a bad part)

 As if this was perfectly planned out to coincide with my plan, today is the start of spring break and I have never been so excited to clean and get more accomplished on my Stage one. I already started on our big desk and bookshelf attached to it and I have made some good progress there. I plan on finishing the initial go through of the master bedroom; the place that I think will take the longest because it is where all things go when they don’t have a place to go or if I haven’t decided on a place for it yet. Then I plan to move on to the other parts of the house. The kitchen will be hard because it's my sanctuary of sorts I spend a lot of time there, but I know I can do it. Isis will probably get a lot of the kitchen things that I will not be able to take as she is on the verge of being on her own. By the time we leave she will be eighteen and hopefully well into her first year of college working towards a culinary degree.

Isis my almost adult!

 She will be impressed that I shared her picture (insert sarcasm).

The more I do in regards to our new adventure going through our things, reading, talking, daydreaming the more questions come to mind, more list are created of to do’s, I have more things to figure out. I do believe that this will not only be a physical adventure but I think an emotional and mental adventure. We will all be stretching ourselves to see what we can endure and rise to throughout this whole process. I am more than excited to see where it brings us. I do believe it will bring us closer as a family and closer to God because I know I will be asking him for help all along the way. 

Now off to make more piles!