Decluttering

Our current situation is temporary. Since this house is for sale, we’ll be moving to whatever is next sometime soon, presumably. We’re thinking it would be good to downsize (four people don’t need 3,000 sq. ft., even if they have a home office), and get a little closer to downtown… maybe cut our gas bill down a bit. We’re canceling our cable – that’s $50 a month right there. Also, we’re looking at a higher deductible for our health insurance, which has now become our second highest monthly expense after housing. We’ve been trying to get the grocery bills down, but that’s becoming increasingly more difficult as food prices climb… and as we try more and more to buy good, local, REAL food.

We’ve been sorting through a lot of old boxes, too. Years and years of boxes that stacked up in our former basement… dragged across the state of Oregon to eventually get recycled or shredded. When I think how much it cost to move us here (per pound), it makes me feel pretty stupid. Though, I suppose this is what we do as Americans — collect stuff. But, do we really need seven keepsake baby blankets from when the kids were babies? Do we still need all the duplicate photos we took from years of ordering double prints? I know we don’t need all the old print projects from 20 years ago… Anyone want to read a credit union newsletter from 1994??

One idea is to take photos of “keepsakes”… like all of our old graphic design portfolio projects from school. We hate to let these relics go, since we can always count on a good laugh when we pull them out of the dust, but they will never again be useful. They barely were back then.

Away they’ll go… recycling destination… they’ll find their way into paper used by some poor, struggling, design student who needs inspiration. Hey! The circle of life!