Minimalist In Training

Do you ever feel suffocated by things? If you do, I completely understand! We made the mistake when we moved to just pack everything up and we can sort it later. Words of advice... go through it before you pack it up! I constantly have to remind myself that it didn't get this way overnight.

We have family members that are constantly giving us stuff.

We have 4 kids, so toys and clothing are multiplied out of proportion.

We've lived together for 13 years, and have lived on this planet even longer than that, so we have combinations of childhood keepsakes and hobbies that clutter areas.

We stink at organization.

But we are trying. We've lived in the new house for almost a year and a half now, and we are finally going through the garage. One entire bay was stacked full of boxes. We've put loads of boxes to the curb (hoping people will take some to save us from running them to the thrift store). We still have more to go... and the inside of the house is just as cluttered.

It's slow progress, but yesterday as a family we dedicated an hour to cleaning up the library. We moved games and books, sorted through paper, and moved items that don't belong in there. There's not much of a difference yet, but with continuing a half an hour each day to maintaining the house with all of us involved, eventually we will have the house uncluttered!

Cookies, Clothing, and Celebrating

March is always super busy for us. Alexis was born on the 6th (birthday post will be separate from this post), plus there are many other family birthdays. Usually in Ohio we get our first taste of Spring, cabin fever lifts, the local farm stores get in baby chicks, and the foot of snow outside turns into a slightly grassy mud hole!

We had a lot of Girl Scout events this past week! March 7th was Goodwill Goodturn Day. Each girl donated 3 bags of clothing to get a community service patch! We also started working on another community service project we will finish up in May. We plan to knit hats for preemies, and make tie blankets that we can donate to hospitals.

 It is also cookie booth time! Alexis and Lillian have been in girl scouts 3 years, so they are first year Brownies. Avery just turned 5 so she is a first year Daisy. So for the past 3 years, we ask everyone we know in January to order cookies, we receive them in February, and in March we hit the stores to sell to the masses! We've already had booths the past few weekends, and we still have this next weekend for sure. Super fun times!!

 Today was the 103rd birthday for Girl Scouts. It just happened to be the day we had planned on taking the troop to a salon for a girly day. We turned our outing at Belles & Beaus into a birthday party, with some balloons, cake, and snacks, and the girls got their hair done up with hair chalk and glitter, plus a little makeup, and also had their nails done!

 Next week we will have a small St. Patrick's Day celebration while we start our tray favor crafts that are given to hospital patients on their lunch trays. We do flower shaped tissue paper "stained glass" ornaments that they can hang in windows.