One of my goals for this year has been to continue our journey towards living a simple life. One of our first steps in 2012 has been to further simplify our possessions.
My first realisation that we needed less 'stuff' came when we lived in Melbourne for a time, in our pre-kids life. We lived in a small (tiny!) apartment in the central city. I learnt to be very careful in what I purchased. In my mind I found it had to fit into one of two categories. It had to either have a function or it had to be beautiful. If it fitted into one of those two categories, I then had to think of where it would actually live in our apartment. If I could not think of an appropriate home for an item, I did not buy it. Simple.
Fast forward 5 years and our lives are now very different. We live in a three bedroom home, with a garden and two kids. We have more possessions, having kids will do that. You get more 'stuff' in your home but you also don't get the time to sort through it. When we left Christchurch last year, we got rid of a lot of stuff- we donated it, we sold a little and we dumped some too, although I dislike sending items to landfill if I can find another option. Now we find ourselves moving house again (I will tell you more about that another day!). So last weekend we had a garage sale, selling off a lot of items. What did not sell, we have given to charity. It feels good. To look round my house and know that packing will be easy, as everything in our home will be coming with us. They just need to be boxed up now.
I am hoping to post a series of posts this year about simple living, this being the first. If you are traveling along a similar journey at the moment, please feel free to post your own links in your comments. I always love reading others inspirational posts.
