A jewel

Next Monday I'm participating in a "decluttering" challenge with some friends, called the MinsGame (created by The Minimalists at their webite).  Basically the goal is to return/donate/recyle/sell/finish/ or trash a certain number of items for each day of the month.  So, Day 1 would be 1 item, Day 2--2 items, all the way to the 29th.  If a person completes it, they'll have taken care of 435 items!

I was so excited that I started a little early and started gathering possible items.  In 5 minutes I found 28 things in our guest bedroom!  The room in the house that gets used the least!  It was definitely eye-opening.

The kids got excited, too--there were walkie-talkies we'd forgotten about and an old photo album in the very top of the closet that they loved looking through.  I also found an old picture frame that I don't really like now, but I sure loved the picture in it and took that out to keep!

I love it!  Here we are on our wedding day, May 16, 1997, on the steps of the LDS Bountiful Temple.  So fun!

We did something big

Last weekend we did something big, really big.

We took everything out of our storage room above the garage and cleaned it out.  See that pile there? That's all the empty storage and packing boxes we were hanging on to for "when we moved someday."   They're getting recycled now.

It was a bittersweet, cathartic process and a physical symbol that we will probably be staying here in Ridgecrest for a while.  

And that's okay!

An added bonus--this once very packed storage room is now only 1/3 full!  YAY for clean-outs!