May 23, 2006

It's Official!

On Friday we signed our lease paperwork, so we are officially getting ready to move into our new house! The owner wasn't there, but the agent we were working with told us that the owner is extremely flexible--he's letting us get into the house as soon as we get the keys (probably on the 26th), but not charging us rent until June! So that is a huge blessing and just one more confirmation that this is the house for us. I can hardly wait to be in and settled with everything organized!

In the meantime...I've picked up some boxes from a lady who didn't need them anymore, begun collecting items for a garage sale, and have slowly been changing our address on things like magazine subscriptions. We still aren't sure if our phone number will change; likely it will, since we are ready to quit "using" Vonage plus paying for Impulse Telephone services. (That's a whole other story--please don't ask!) The plan is to get Cox's phone service, since we already use them for our Internet. Until we can get on the phone with them and set things up, I'm not going to contact any of the other companies to make changes. Sigh. There's so much to think about!

Ted has Friday off, so I'm planning to have our garage sale that morning. Whatever doesn't sell will go to Mercy Ministries at church--that much less stuff to have to figure out what to do with in the new house! It's amazing that I have dresses, skirts, shirts, etc. hanging in my closet that I have not worn in literally years. They still look cute and all, and most of them still fit even, but I'm just not wearing them. At MOPS a few weeks ago our speaker talked about organization, and I loved her 2 questions to ask about each item in your house:

1. Do I NEED this item?
2. Do I LOVE this item?

The key is the present tense "do," not "did" I need or "did" I love this item. At one time, yes, I loved those dresses! But not anymore! So why am I keeping them?!

I'm also whittling down our too-small baby and kid clothing items. We just have so much stuff, it's ridiculous to keep it sitting in our closets. This has been an emotional issue for me, and at the MOPS meeting when the speaker talked about items that are hard for us to get rid of, I finally put words to what I've been thinking and feeling about it. In some way, I've thought that if I give our baby items away, I'm in essence saying we're "done" with our family. I wasn't (and still am not) ready to say that, because I trust God to do what He likes with our family. But I finally freed myself from feeling obligated to keep STUFF just because we might have another child. I figure if we do have another baby, God will provide whatever we need! I'm not planning to get rid of ALL of our stuff, but I can certainly cut down on what we do have, and I'm enjoying the opportunity to pass on some baby and toddler clothes to other MOPS moms who have need of them.

Since we're just moving 3 miles down the road, we're not too stressed about getting things in boxes. It will be so nice getting the keys early and just taking trips as we can to unload stuff a bit at a time. I think our big furniture moving day will be a week from Saturday, but that could always change, I guess! Ted is taking all of Memorial Day week off work to get things transferred. Some items will have to go in boxes, obviously, but we're hoping we can unload them and put them on the shelves, then reuse the boxes. It will be a luxury to be able to put things away as we take them over there instead of having all our earthly possessions dumped in the middle of a new house in one day! This time around we'll have approximately 2 weeks to get things situated.

Guess that's it for the house update...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1. Do I NEED this item?
2. Do I LOVE this item?

I was first introduced to the philosophy behind these two questions when I visited flylady.net and subscribed to her e-mail list. She is big on helping people get rid of clutter in their homes and lives, and she says to ask yourself, in addition to whether you need or use something, "Does this [item sitting on my bookcase, for example] make me happy?" I've been able to let go of a lot of clutter and knick-knacks by asking myself that question. It's amazing how much "stuff" I have that I've been hesitent to get rid of because it was a gift or whatever, even though I don't really like it or need it or use it anymore (and maybe never did!). And every time I see that item sitting there collecting dust on the shelf, I feel guilty for not liking it or not using it, so it's a source of guilt for me, not a source of joy or happiness.

Prior to having my second baby, I went through nearly all of our earthly belongings and got rid of anything that I didn't need or use. After having my second baby, I went through all of my maternity clothes and gave away anything I hadn't worn during my second pregnancy or just didn't like anymore. Then I went through all of my non-maternity clothes and got rid of anything that I hadn't worn in a few years, that I probably would never fit back into, or that was completely impractical for the mommy of a toddler and nursling. If it didn't have a pattern that hides spit-up or leaks, wasn't two-piece, and wasn't machine washable, it had to go! I am going to need to buy a few things to round out my wardrobe now, but I feel so much freer not having unused clothing taking up space. I now have one entire drawer that's completely empty in my dresser!