24/31 days of being honest: The Basement Museum

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This was my first post about my basement project and what has now become my Basement Therapy Project!  I wrote this a little over a year ago.  Notice that in the blog my goal was to have it done by Christmas–I didn’t say Christmas of any specific year!

Enjoy.

We have been in our house now for 15 weeks and we still have too many boxes to go through.  I am painfully going through each one and organizing “stuff” and then I decide if I want to keep it, recycle or trash it.  It seems like it should be pretty straightforward but it isn’t.

It is like my own personal museum of precious artifacts.

I have the Single pre-Eric era, the Early Years of migrating to Dallas, TX, Palatine, IL and Livermore CA and the Starting a family Period and now finally the Raising of the Family.

Within each time frame I have too many things that are laced with too many wonderful memories of that time.  How can I get rid of scrapbook supplies–especially now that the girls may be interested.  Or my rollerblades, books never read, journals never finished, quilts 1/2 done and the list goes on and on.  How many winter coats do I need, hats, mittens, it is just all a little too much.

That is just my stuff!  I have mega blocks, transformers, almost every lego ever made, craft and art supplies for kids, building blocks, a million books, a rocking horse, Little People, and so much dress up I don’t know what to do with.

My goal is to have our basement finished by Christmas.  I want to go through each box and make thoughtful decisions and spread the word on what I have so that I can hopefully give things a good home.

I’m not sure how I got to this place.  I know that it is too much and I feel good about letting go and getting rid of the excess.  When I look at it all it is much easier to tell my kids no they don’t need another (insert latest thing) and for me it means that I really don’t need anything either.

We have been weeding out since last November and I look forward to when the biggest chunk of this project is finally behind us and we can move forward in making more purposeful purchases.  It has been an awakening for all of us.  When the kids look at a pile of stuffed animals it become obvious that they don’t “need” all of them.  When I get all of my quilts organized I think about all the hours I spent on those projects and I remember picking out the fabric, researching the history of the pattern and the excitement of beginning the project.

Thank you God for giving me the determination to complete these projects and the grace to learn from my mistakes.  Please help me make wise decisions when I make purchases.

Today I’m linking up with Women Living Well, Whatever Works Wednesday, Work in Progress, and with Ann.

23/31 days of honest: vision boards

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Last night I gave a small talk to 5 very different women–all linked by our faith.  I stayed up long after they left my messy basement.

I talked (probably too much) about how I would collect magazine pages of “things” that made my heart sing.  I didn’t know why I liked these pictures but I did.  I never really looked at the notebook–once I collected the picture and it was “safe” I just left it.

My suggestion to my friends was to just cut out things that they loved and didn’t know why–it was really interesting as we then talked about our boards as we were completed.  We all had similar visual images that made our individual hearts sing–but together it could have been a choir.

“I love paths!”

So do I!! we would chime in and talk about our “path” that speaks to us.

It really made me think that we really are on the same sorts of journeys–just at different spots along the road.

One of the themes that I saw among all of the boards is that within our own personal stories–we share chapters, pages, paragraphs, sentences and sometimes only a word–

if we let allow ourselves to share, open up and invite love into our lives.

I’m linking up with Barb here.

22/31 Days of being honest: themes

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I’ve been writing about my basement–for a long time now–like years.

This time I’m not just moving and re-organizing–I’m moving stuff out and re-organizing how I think–not just about my load of cra precious memories, but the why of how I came here.

I’m not too proud to ask for help.  I have found 2 friends that joyfully help me make tough choices and cheer me on–they comment about how skinny my arms were, how I don’t even look like the person I was 25 years ago–that struck me.

I’m not the person I was 25 years ago.  I grew up into the person that I wanted to be–I just never got rid of things along the way.  When I grew out of clothes, I kept them, when I grew out of a hobby/passion, I kept the stuff, I have gone from one creative passion to the next without purging.

As I was showing my friend the crochet rug that I made and still use–I explained how I dyed the fabric to be the perfect shade of yellow and how I dyed the purple in a ombre fashion by hanging it and letting the dye settle to one end . . . the amount of detail, time and energy I put into that rug was enormous.  Thanks to Laura, the wonderful women who taught me how to make these rugs, I now have many still and have given many away.  I would pour myself into each project.

I loved how it felt to create something that would be one of a kind.

I found this needle point kit–I never started this project.  I love the saying.  This project was buried among the other’s in the needle point graveyard!

this is from the 80’s. I loved doing cross stitch

I had totally forgotten that I had this project and somewhere between the 80’s and now I bought this:

I love this! It is in my bathroom and I read it everyday . . . .

Can you notice a theme here?

Tonight I have a MOM’S group over to talk about vision boards–this will be one of the examples that I will use.

I really do believe that the moments that matter most in life are the ones that you feel in your heart–I always say “it makes my heart sing” because for so long my heart didn’t sing.

What makes your heart sing?

And extra blessings to my friends who are so eager to help me without judgement.

Be Blessed.

I just linked up with