Cleaning Out

Day Three Prompt -

Yesterday we kept stuff in, so today let's clear stuff out.  What is in your diabetic closet that needs to be cleaned out?  This can be an actual physical belonging, or it can be something you're mentally or emotionally hanging on to.  Why are you keeping it and why do you need to get rid of it?  (Thank you Rick of RA Diabetes for this topic suggestion.)

Gathering the stuff to go

This day’s topic is right up my alley right now. 

We have been cleaning out.  Yes, Silent Sam and I have decided that our little house has too much stuff.  We have lived in this house for 30 years (gulp!) and now it is just the two of us here.  The kids are married and living in their own places.  As small as our house is, we don’t need three floors (including the most dangerous of spaces – the basement) full of stuff. 

I think that a light bulb went on last fall when we were looking at houses.  We were amazed at how much stuff people had in their houses – especially the closets.  The closets were jam packed.  We were feeling pretty smug about it until I really looked at our closets.  While not crammed, there was plenty of stuff in each.  Hmmm.. Maybe we weren’t in such great shape after all…  Then I realized that all the closets in our house were being used and we weren’t using all the bedrooms as bedrooms any longer. 

Do we actually wear all those clothes?

It was time for a change.  Articles on the topic began to catch my attention.  I read in various places that actually cleaning out can help you lose weight.  Yea, sure.  The theory is that if you are not weighted down by all the things in your house that you will concentrate more on your health.  That cleaning out the clutter will help free you to pay more attention to yourself. 

We are deep into our clean out.  We will make our third trip to Half Price Books today to sell off books.  The first trip was just for all the CDs that were sitting not being used.  Then there were 4 boxes of books.  Today there are three more boxes of books.  We have had the Amvets donation truck 4 times so far and they are coming again on Monday.  We feel that we have gone through the house once but know that there are several more rounds to go. The first round – especially in the basement was probably the easiest and produced the most items to get out of the house.  The next round will be harder but every little bit counts.  The mindset is in place. 

This is what it feels like each time the Amvets truck pulls away

It feels GREAT! Do I think that it will help us lose weight?  I am not ready to discount that theory completely.  I think cleaning out brings to your attention all the money you have wasted (or at least it did for me) on things that don’t matter.  Things that you don’t really need.  Distractions. When you get rid of those things and you stop shopping for things you don’t need, you do have time to think about what is really important and what you need and don’t need.  You make space in your head to be more intentional about what you want to do.

Thanks for reading.