Decluttering, sorting, purging, minimizing and re-organizing this family of six, including the sale of one of our three homes and a whole lot of “STUFF,” has been quite the project.
It all started in January 2017 and has been going strong for two years and six months now, and it won’t be over any time soon!
After selling one our homes in early 2017 and approximately $2,500.00 in sales on Facebook during the late part of 2017 and all of 2018, we sold $911.00 at our garage sale recently breaking our $723.00 record of sales at any one of my garage sales over the years.
Yes, right here in Vegas! We did it.
We’ve even donated mounds of “STUFF”, to additional resources throughout our valley, along with family and friends. Did I mention, I’m eradicating 3 four-drawer and 1 two-drawer filing cabinets and uploading all my administrative files into my google drive? Yup! I’m over it! Virtual everything, here we come!
Intentional, tactical, strategic planning and executing all tasks and projects, manipulated around my already crazy schedule, of being mom to four busy bee’s and their activities and a wife to “Sniper One”, who by far has been my number one fan.
Alongside the demands of my husband’s shift work schedule and managing our private businesses, we’re doin’ it!
We’re making it happen!
We’re in this together!
Simplifying is no easy feat.
The revelation, while sitting on the beach in the Dominican Republic, during August of 2017 was...
“No more $640.00 power bills. No more endless chores. Instead we’re substituting “stuff” for more ADVENTURES and more of DOING LIFE WELL with our clan.”
Having seen many parts of the world as veterans and having the passion for travel in both of our DNA, Charles and I knew the importance of teaching our kids about our diverse world that is filled with so much beauty in its creation. So, we decided to flip-it. No more STUFF and more ADVENTURE!
It has been a long road, but well worth it.
I like to say, “just give me a backpack, a pair of shorts, a tank top and some flip-flops and I’m good!” This was how I rolled in my earlier days and then came marriage and kids.
Having four children four and under was tough. I was hard pressed to get a second of the day to myself. So, for 10 years, I did the easiest thing possible… I just stuffed all the “STUFF” away. I knew someday I would get to the point of actually looking at what I had and determined whether it was a need or want and that day has finally arrived.
The arduous duty of managing all that was on my plate didn’t end. However, as seasons changed, I found the small increments of time I needed to dedicate to taking “one small scale action at a time.” These small scale actions, allowed me the opportunity, over time, to complete my tasks. On top of managing our busy schedules, we’re doing it… we’re getting rid of our “STUFF!”
For me, it’s a gift! I enjoy what I do and I’m affecting the lives of my people... Together, we have done so much to curb the crazy!
Just to scrape the surface and in an attempt to define the over consumed, commercialized, hyper sensitive, generation of people pleasers, let me share. We buy “stuff”, with money we don’t have, to create debts we can’t afford, to drive cars that depreciate in value, at the rate of 0 to 60 in 2.2, to impress people we don’t even know, to feel confident about things that are ungodly, to live lives that are weighing us down and sapping our energy.
This is what it’s all about, said the majority. Not me.
It didn’t take very long to realize there’s an alternative, as is in most scenarios. It was going to be up to us and the choices we make to effect this change. The alternative to live peacefully and rid of “STUFF!” Be free! Be done! Be liberated physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, to be able to serve a greater purpose.
This was our mission and it’s not over.
