Drowning In Our Stuff

We have too much stuff. It's like a disease, really. Something we want to be cured of. My family has simply way too many possessions for the size house we live in. Although our house is a decent-sized one story, about 2200 square feet, we don't have a basement (CURSE YOU, Texas!) and our storage area in our home is very limited.

Both of my part-time teaching jobs are over for the summer, and now that I have significantly more time on my hands, I've begun the battle to reclaim my house from all of the things that have cluttered it up over the years.

Right now, I'm concentrating on my son's playroom. I actually find the amount of toys this child has abhorrent. A small army of children could play with all of the things in his playroom and not get bored for weeks, I kid you not. My son is 4 and from the get-go, we were not the smartest parents about toys. We didn't do the recommended-in-every-baby-book-around method of boxing toys and rotating them every few weeks. So, things just kind of piled up. We've put away the baby toys, but he still has an incredible amount of stuff that is currently age appropriate for him. And what's funny is that he doesn't play all that well with his toys. Most of the time, he seems a bit uninspired with all of the playthings at his fingertips.

I would imagine this is pretty common (ok, readers, is it really?) for his age, but it doesn't make it any less nerve-wracking to me. So, I'm on a mission to clean out his toys - throw away any junk and keep and organize what's left. There are two closets in our playroom and a few shelves that all desperately require my attention. I know I could probably throw away and/or donate at least half of what is in stored in them, and that's what I plan on doing over the next few days, probably through the weekend.

Let the good times roll...