Junk and Memories

I guess you could say I am the opposite of a hoarder. I get into trouble for throwing away things that could have sentimental value. There are totally valid reasons for me doing this.

#1: After my parents died I spent almost 2 entire weeks cleaning out their house. I sorted what I wanted and what needed to go to Goodwill or just be thrown away. They saved EVERYTHING. My dad had bank statements from 1977 when he lived in Brooklyn and went to college. I filled up over 50 garage bags of things to donate, about 20 to throw away and I kept 2 medium size Rubbermaid containers of things I wanted. I refuse to have our house become a storage unit for things that are not needed or that someone will have to sort through sometime.

#2: I do not like clutter or things that are unorganized BUT I do not have a lot of time to organize things. I don't print out pictures anymore unless I want to frame them. I just save them all to a disc each month. I don't scrapbook anymore because I find it annoying to find a place to store the scrapbooks. I don't buy books anymore, I just buy them on my Kindle because I don't like book shelves, they always look dusty and messy. I don't want to have to organize a lot of things that we aren't ever going to look at.

#3: I don't want the girls to be materialistic. I see so many kids that have so much but don't even pay attention to the things that they have. Or they want more and are never happy. The only toys that Annika plays with are stuffed animals mostly given to her by family members on holidays or for her birthday. Once she gets some new ones I take away some of the older ones and donate them. Annika also likes to color so she has crayons, paper and her new favorite thing, stickers. She's perfectly happy with those things. She likes to play with some of my old wallets, purses, scarves and bracelets. There's no reason to get her more when she's totally happy with what she has! Plus the more toys and crap she has the more things there are for me clean up when I really don't have the time to do it anymore.

#4: I hate attaching a sentimental feeling to an object. I do have a few things that belonged to my parents' (like my dad's leather jacket and Bible and my mom's jewelry) that I refuse to get rid of. I just don't want to create a memory for every single object in our home because I feel like we're going to get overrun with THINGS. Josh gets mad because I'm always throwing away things or donating things that I'm tired of looking at. What he doesn't realize is that they are just THINGS, we don't need them to remember things!

And now here's your weekly cute picture:



Annika not only likes to undress herself but now when I'm not looking she likes to undress poor Annabel!