Saturday, February 19, 2011

Packing up the Dreams God Planted

Ha! I couldn't resist a good Michael W. Smith lyric. I am indeed packing. Yes already. I only have 4 months til "Move Day" and we have a LARGE house full of STUFF! What's interesting is how much I'm giving away.

I come from a family of nearly diagnosable "hoarders". My father is certifiable. Not only does he hoard is own stuff on grounds of: it might be useful someday, I paid good money for it 20 years ago, what if I run out of ______ and need to use parts from this to fix it, hey it was on sale, and it was perfectly good still. You can imagine what a catastrophe my house was growing up. We had 2, two, sheds in our yard to hold all the junk we couldn't hold in our house. However, his hoarding doesn't stop there. He is also the last of his immediate and even mostly extended family. So he is now the designated hoarder of all of their stuff too. It may be true that you can't take it with you when you go, but you can certainly leave it to someone reliable who will put it in excellent cardboard boxes and keep it til Jesus comes back for it.

Why does this affect me? Two reasons: one, I'm related to him, so I have a hard time throwing anything away; two, he lives with us (til May 21st). So, I've been sorting, purging, dumping, giving and labeling. I'm proud to announce I have given away at least as much as I have kept which is a huge step for me. It's freeing to realize, if I don't love it enough to haul it to Madison, I don't love it. It's also freeing to realize that I can always buy another if I ever need it again.

I'm also employing a "Duggar" technique to my packing. I'm numbering every box, then on a likewise numbered index card, I'm listing the contents. That way, if between now and June, I need to read one of my 20 Stephen King books, I can easily find them.

What's been harder is sorting the books and clothes. I hold onto everything. I still have my college class notes. From. Every. Class. I'm just sure I'll need to see the number of vertebrae a sea otter has again at some point. I held onto them initially because, by George, they stood for a lot of work! A simply GPA on a transcript did not account for all the information I had systematically written down, taken in and regurgitated on countless tests. Later, I held on to them (and moved them to several different locales) because I intend on homeschooling. So they are a great resource, right? Maybe not. Maybe there's this little thing called the internet, and a big thing called a library where I can look up any info I happen to need. And most likely more accurate being that my college notes are now (ahem) over 10 years old. So, out with the notebooks.

Baby clothes have proven equally has difficult. I have 3 boys, and it has already been a blessing to keep clothes as hand-me-downs. I haven't had to buy hardly any clothes for any of boys. However, I do not want to move boxes and boxes of little boy clothes to Madison. So, I'm sorting. I'm purging what is not REALLY special, or in GREAT condition. And onesies don't count. I can buy a 10 pack at Walmart, so I give away, give away, give away. Pray for my purging~

However, in direct contrast to purging and packing, I went to the $5 bag sale at Salvation Army today. All the clothes that will fit in a bag for only $5! And guess what I found....SNOW PANTS!! I'm so excited! They are little big for Judah, but hey, he'll grow into them and have PLENTY of opportunity to wear them in the years to come. What a great find!

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