When you've had enough

On our journey from stuff to barely enough; you can read about it here.We had come to a living situation even smaller than before.We discovered an adorable rental; 1,000 square feet to be exact, still the backyard was the biggest we'd ever had and we bought a small, movable shed for outside. We thought this would be doable, and gave away more things in order to strategically fit everything six people and two small dogs would require.

Can I tell you how difficult it is to decide what you need and don't? How to limit everything even the amount of underwear per child? Once a week laundry isn't possible with that sort of set up. It's pretty much impossible, I mean you don't even have a place to stash multiple clothes baskets unless you want to stub your toe a dozen times a day!

I'm complaining, I know, but there is a point to this.

After the holidays, a few birthdays and such my children had accumulated a few things. All parents are highly aware of the constant battle over toys. Putting them away, not losing them, keeping all parts together and just containing the mess!  Almost all my children's things are hand me downs, pre owned or gifts. Ironically they don't even play with things I think are cool.  And that's where I begin with another point here, do children even need all the stuff they have?

My siblings and I often discuss how very little we had as children. There was nine of us, and yet my parents obviously didn't think toys were important. We were usually tossed outside for playing, we had ONE swing set with three swings a few bikes between us, a few roller blades. We used a lot of sticks, a lot of acorns, and a lot of sticks. Sticks can be almost anything to a child's imagination. My parents always asked us to make a list for Christmas; I'm still trying to understand the point in that because we neve received anything we put on the list.

We loved going over to friends house's growing up; the amazing toys there. Things we only dreamed of owning. I always remembered playdates and filed away the toys I had played with for future reference. Often to compensate I'd make myself dolls out of sewing scraps, I even used corn husks once because I had read about it somewhere. Sometimes we had dress up clothes, cast offs from our parents. We had one ball, two baby toys, a few stuffed toys each, board games and plenty of books. My little brother for six or seven years running asked for a "Zorro sword"  and dress up set every birthday and Christmas. He finally gave up asking for one around the age of twelve.

Now whether my parents had a bigger point here or just didn't care is up to you to decide. But let me tell you our children have stuff. And so do my niece's and nephew's. We  love the idea of them playing with things we only dreamed of as children ourselves. The only problem is they don't share similar feelings about all the toys as I thought they would.

Here take a look.

 

Okay so maybe that's not a lot but I have had enough with it. It's all over the place. They don't play with half of it, they have favorite's. And I'm left picking up and or trying to contain to one place in our house.

I had my older boys pick a few of their favorite things, I chose for my daughter since I know what she enjoys playing with the best. Everything else went into boxes to be put away for now. Maybe we'll rotate toys in six months. Notice I also labeled what I packed away, we hope to move soon and this will help me stay organized.

The improved result!!!!!

To me this feels better ! We refer to this room as the "toyroom" it's actually the third bedroom in our home. (Our children like to share a room for now, the new one co-sleeps with us. ) I haven't a picture to post but the closet  in this room also contains our books, table  toys and learning toys.

Growing up in a minimalist household helped me to really appreciate things and even see how throwing too much materially at my children isn't helping them at all. If they have to wade through piles of toys, if the toy thinks too much for them how will they ever develop an imaginative mindset ? Sometimes making do with what you have isn't a talent it's a learned skill. Or maybe you've just had enough.

Our journey from stuff to barely enough

1. 

We had stuff.

We have stuff.

We journeyed from stuff to barely enough.

Our first home that we owned was small. Built in the 1920's when closets were unnecessary, malls didn't exist and people didn't require multiple outfit changes in case they wore the same outfit twice in different pictures! We had come from apartment renting. And even though our home was considered small we had other family members living with us on and off for three years. At one point our home housed five cats, two small dogs, one baby and five adults including all of our "stuff".

But then we grew.

Baby number four wasn't going to deter us from our small home. We were minimalistic, we had to be. I was babysitting on the side and considered my home a small business of sorts. Yet, when the time came for us to transport ourselves twelve hours of a drive away we became aware of the amount of stuff we had. While our charming home was, hmmmm small and it seemed as though we had a handle on keeping clutter low and accumulation down we found out we were wrong.

That was our dining room, see how the design of the house is? We loved our cosy little home, we entertained a lot in it without much of an issue. Yet even that dining room set was given away when we moved and downsized.

Here is another picture that shows the outlay of the home.

We sold the tv in the background. 

We sold our second car.

It just couldn't come with. We kept the children in this next photo, but most of those toys were given away ;-)

We had to keep our home picture perfect for house showings when we placed the house on the market, that spring of 2013. What a chore it was! Me with first trimester illnesses, three babies, babysitting off and on combined with pets! I never wish to do that again. We must've pulled it off, after thirty showings (I counted) we had a buyer!!!!

We were excited for 5.2 seconds.

Then we had to pack and downsize while we figured out that mostly everything had to go. We were only taking one truck, one vehicle, and we hadn't even discovered a rental home in our new state......

  

The truck we rented for our journey seemed huge. Yet after two dressers, one bed frame, my husband's tools for his job, and you know, the usual bins of outgrown clothing, one crib, dishes, blankets. Somehow those things take up space! I gave away books, clothing, decorative things, most dishes, most pans, sold my sewing machine, gave away a lot of crafting items. It was an eye opening experience.We had stuff alright and it felt as though we were going to have barely enough when we'd arrive in Kentucky!

My pride went out the window as I gave away stuff

Who was I without it? I'd always enjoyed clothing,shoes, my crafts, my books, my display items, my plants! Even though I'd given away and sold much things broke on that truck ride to Kentucky and I wished I'd have given it away. I had two crock pots and one broke, two deep frying pans one broke. Favorite cups, mirrors, dressers were scratched, things chipped. We were also between jobs, homeless and coming out of a financially drained situation. Replacement wasn't going to happen.

Humans base much on stuff. They hoard, they place value, the memorize exactly how much they paid for something. Some of my family members have quoted price, and memories concerning an object. Some extended family members have added extra room, built extra garages and have purchased extra storage for stuff. Some people display anger when someone touches their stuff, maybe borrows without asking, or damages it unknowingly. 

That wasn't me was it? I was giving things away, yet I still felt loss until God whispered that I wasn't any better than a hoarder. Our journey from stuff to barely enough was a wake up call to the things God wants a Christian to place value on.

James 4:1-3

" what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, you commit.murder. you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives so that you may spend it on your own pleasures."

Does stuff own you?

Are you finding that the more you obtain the more you have to worry over? Is stuff causing arguments, anxieties, stress? Maybe stuff isn't even the problem, it's a heart issue that needs to be taken up with God.

With Grace, time, patience and actively searching for God's will, our family is on it's way to devaluing stuff. Even if it means we have to live with barely anything in the process.

Linking with