Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Downsizing & discussions

I hope from the last several posts I had you have gotten the idea that things are changing in our house.  After a summer of "I'm bored" and "Why can't we do (fill in the blank here)", I've lost a lot of my look at the bright side of everything and choose happiness momentum.  So, what's a Mom to do?  Here's what I've done so far.

First off, I had a discussion with the family.  We all sat down and discussed why the kids were bored.  My three have really great imaginations and loads of toys, so why the boredom?  Apparently it was because we couldn't go out and throw money at the local amusement park.  Or head to the beach every single day.  Oh, and this one made me giggle, we made them clean their rooms.  Well, if that's terrible parenting then I'm in the club.  Ha!  After our little discussion, we decided that we would try to do something really fun a couple times a month all year long.  So far, we've kept to that promise.  Since the school year has begun we are finding it hard to schedule the really fun stuff in.  We're trying, but it's hard (especially with scouting, 4-H, and soccer).

Now changing gears a bit we have also been downsizing.  By downsizing I mean cleaning out our lives in general.  The kids have been donating loads of toys.  It wasn't easy for them in the beginning to do so, but they are trying.  As for Chuck and I, well, our closets are a lot more bare!  We donated around 4 bags of clothing (I'm talking garbage bags here) in the past month.  We figured out that we wear basically the same small set of clothing over and over, so why keep all the other stuff around?  Most of what we donated were old clothes from college (yeah, you read that right), my pre-kids clothes, and a HUGE amount of dressier clothing on my part.  Since I no longer work, I don't need an entire closet full of business casual type clothing.  Now, I did keep a few things around because you always need a couple business looking clothing items, but the rest is gone.  Ren was thrilled he could actually use his closet since that's where all my old work attire was kept.

Back to the toys.  Like I said, they kids had a difficult time at first with giving up their toys.  They claimed they needed them and wanted to keep them forever.  That was until we explained to them that if they don't play with them, we will remove them ourselves.  I don't know what about that simple statement changed their view, but they are bringing stuff out all the time and adding it to our donation box.  I'm so happy about them doing this!  With them having their bedrooms PLUS a playroom full of toys, it's getting a little crazy around here.

So what's the next step in our great house overhaul?  One word: Organization!  We're hoping to get things in order and organized without having to purchase items to help us out.  I'm loving Pinterest for all the ideas about organization.  How do you organize your kids toys?  Do you have a family policy about clutter and donating?  Honestly, I'm looking for insight and ideas.  Thanks!

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