The Plan...

For several months, I've been telling Joe that I wish we could just get rid of all of our possessions and start over. Before we got married, we both had separate houses, complete with everything needed to run a household. When we got married, we didn't get rid of anything, we just combined it all and moved into a bigger house. Almost 5 years and one child later, we have more stuff than we know what to do with or have space to store. I'm so tired of the house (and our lives) being so full of clutter - things we've moved from house to house because "we might use this one day", things that we're keeping because "I've had this since high school." It may sound silly, but I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed with the amount of "stuff" we own. With another baby on the way, I have decided that there's no way we can add another person (and all the stuff that comes along with another person) to this family without getting rid of some of the things that are already here. So, I've challenged myself to do something that some of you might find a little odd. I'm going to get rid of at least one item a day until I feel like the only things in my house are those that I absolutely NEED. I may sell them, give them away, donate them to charity, or just throw them in the trash, but they will be gone from my house!
I haven't told Joe about this decision yet. We're going to dinner tonight, and I'm going to fill him in and try to convince him to join in and do the same. While I admit that I have a ton of junk, I am not at all sentimental about a huge majority of it. Joe, on the other hand, is very sentimental, and I'm sure that this project will be much harder for him to embrace. We'll see...
About the blog... I used to write a blog, and I loved doing it, but when I went back to work a couple years ago, I got busy and neglected the blog for too long. After reading my friend Jenn's blog, I've been thinking about blog writing again, but I wasn't really sure I had anything interesting to say. After my decluttering project epiphany today, I decided that I just might have something interesting to say after all. So... I'm going to use this blog to record and sort through the emotions that are sure to go along with downsizing my possessions, to have a record of just how much I can do without, and to keep myself accountable to actually following through with the plan. Let me know what you think about all of this. I sort of feel like the crazy pregnant lady who went off the deep end after getting frustrated while trying to clean the house. :)