I’m getting better at pitching stuff! My girls got rid of 60 stuffed animals on Saturday! Amazing! W/o tears. Whew!

My dh has a 45 minute commute. It’s not ideal to work that far away from home, but when you live in a rural area like we do, many people have to drive similar distances in order to have better jobs. He leaves early, and thankfully is usually home by 5:30 or 6 p.m.

I hope and pray the perfect place opens up for you guys. Hopefully it will soon, but like you said, it’s in God’s hands!

Leticia, 4 bedrooms sounds good to me, but tiny ones don’t help that much, I know from experience. Our girls share a room that is probably 15×18 feet, and one set of bunk beds helps immensely, but still! And I wonder who is messier…little boys or little girls? Girls can be terrible with clothes everywhere and their many crafts-in-progress!

Haley, your garage sounds like my attic! It’s SO cold up there, I do the very same thing. And it needs me. I was just thinking about it this morning, how I am getting all fired up about organizing the stuff that’s gotten strewn about up there…and how much I wish the weather was warm enough for me to open the windows up there and let the chill out! And if it makes you feel any better (it’ll probably make you feel worse!) I used to be almost obsessed about everything being “in its place” before kids. Boy have I changed. I guess I didn’t have enough to do before! Ha.

MIn, that’s so true! We were expecting our first child at the time of purchase, and the house seemed spacious to us, in fact, with the upstairs we figured we had it made…and it was the right price. Of course, we didn’t *realize* the upstairs wasn’t insulated (bought it in late spring, so it wasn’t obviously hot or cold up there!) etc. What clinched the deal, is that the property came with 2 houses, two horse barns, corrals and 12 acres…and we’d been searching for a place with exactly those things. My hubby uses the extra house for his leather shop business, and back then, we were totally self-employed by his saddle making…so this property was/is an answer to prayer. Of course, it’s been a challenge, as it was pretty run down when we bought it, and we didn’t borrow extra to allow fixing it up…we’ve been fixing as we can afford it, which in our self-employment years was very seldom. Hope you find God’s answer for your family, housing/property-wise, very soon.

Juli, thank YOU for being an inspiration to me! Your thoughts in simplifying resonated in me–you are so right, too many THINGS drain me of motivation and energy. I have that book on my TBR list!

Geri, I really doubt my friend only had 5 outfits per child when her children were babies/toddlers! That would be asking for trouble! Hee…I even kept spare outfits in the trunk and diaper bags when mine were little. But the idea is sound…my girls barely have room in their dressers for the clothes they own. All favorites, OF COURSE!

Your house sounds perfect for us, when can we move in and how much are you asking? Lol, we have considered the pros of moving closer to dh’s job and if we ever had, we’d be in bad shape now as he started a new one last year and it’s over an hour away from the previous one. This one is closer to our church though, so we have double the reason to consider moving, as much as I doubt we’d ever do so. But you’re right, moving is the best of all times to go through and purge. It’s a lot easier setting the trash out on the curb than toting all those boxes along with you to the next home! BTDT. But, after 15 years of marriage, I’m still learning. I save way too many things in the name of sentimentality. Oh well.

Loved everyone’s responses!

The front yard came with 3 big shade trees and faces north where our summer breezes come from. So the front has 10 foot deep cement patio spaces, with picnic tables and those white plastic chairs. The 2 hard plastic kiddie pools go out there during warm weather, and the water changing job goes to an older child for daily clean water. We can play croquet or corn hole on the lawn under the trees, and have company over for root beer floats in the evenings. (google corn hole for plans to make the game)

The side yard used to have old lumber and cement tools laying around, and we cleaned it up, added more gravel (it’s really an extension of our gravel driveway) and prettied it up. We have 1/2 wine barrels out there with flowers, herbs, and greens growing. We have a round table for eating there too.

The back has more than one spot. Under the willow tree is kid sized benches and chairs because they love to play and hide under the weeping branches. My veggie beds are raised beds with railroad ties around them. Kids are always sitting on the rr ties and munching on tomatoes and things from the garden. Guest children are amazed that things can be eaten like that right from the plants. The back porch was poured last spring and is nice and wide for more “living” space. It has a couple reclining lawn chairs and a ceiling fan (outside, like on Southern porches.) But the prize spot is around the “cottage.”

The cottage is getting (slowly) a cottage garden around it. Last April, DH and I were contemplating going away for a day or overnight for our anniversary. There are some garden tours I would love to go to, and DH tries to make our anniversary about me! Then I asked if we could stay home and spend the money on the yard instead…He said he didn’t think I’d want to work in the yard on our anniversary. I said, “but what if you built a simple shade arbor next to the cottage, and I watched you (he calls it being his girlfriend) and handed you stuff, and made you iced tea.” He asked if I would really stay out there all day with him. Yes! So my older kids made a plan to clean house in the morning, then take the little ones to the park on the afternoon, and they made dinner in the crock pot, too. So we had our arbor built and had a quiet day in the garden together. It was fun. But the spot turned out so pretty, with the roses already blooming, the shade arbor made the roses look taller and framed them so well. We had no idea how pretty it would be. We filled the underneath with pea gravel, and two wooden chairs and a tiny table, and had dinner there all dirty and sweaty, and the kids served us. I started to realize that the investment of time and effort to make our own place a little more like a bed and breakfast would serve us better than paying to go to one (which usually isn’t $$ possible…)

I know we’re thinking of our little stuffed houses right now because we’re winter housebound, but maybe drawing a little plan for outdoor areas to pretty up would give hope…

I hate clutter. So, I do my best to keep things as organized as I possibly can. With a hubby who happens to be a messy-junkie person it is hard, and with two little boys who love to make messes, it can drive me batty and sometimes is does. I finally got tired of forcing them to make their beds, so those stay untidy all of the time. But they do have a semblence of organization in their room and playroom.

Leticia’s last blog post..Part 3 WARNING THIS POST NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG EYES!

I am so thankful for our bigger house, we really have plenty of room - for now! - but the couple of nice days we’ve had do have me longing for spring, b/c my garage is in horrible shape! It’s been so cold that I’ve been guilty of running out there, grabbing a tote down, getting what I need, and running back into my warm house without putting away, or straightening. And with getting out all my baby girl things for my sister, this has been multiplied. Since having kids, I am very guilty of just picking up and stuffing things, and never stopping to say - “Do I even want this__________, let alone need it?” I just go on auto pilot and pick up, put away, and stuff the rest. I say “since having kids” because before that I only put stuff away if it was neatly organized. Amazing how your priorities change - just seeing the floor clear of stuff by evening seems like a spotless house now!

I also have several closets that you can’t open without an avalanche - which drives this organized-neat-freak-at-heart absolutely batty! My “excuse” is that it’s hard to pull everything out of a closet to organize when the 2 crumb snatchers will have it strung all over the house before I can even see what’s there! Glad to know I’m not alone in all this! Happy day!

In any case, I wish you well on the decluttering. I’m slowly becoming able to let go of my childhood things and that’s part of the clutter. You’ll have to let us all know how that goes.

MInTheGap’s last blog post..Purity is More About the Heart than the Body