Out With The Old

With the spring fever I've been having, but being able to get outside, I've taken to doing some cleaning inside. My father-in-law watched my younger two while the older two were at school and I went through a bunch of their toys and stuffed animals. I took out 2 garbage sacks of stuffed animals, 1 box of toys, and as I've been going through clothes I've gotten rid of 3 sacks of clothes. Plus a really big stuffed bear and a child's banana chair. My house feels so much better with that stuff gone, but I have a lot more I need to go through.

I need to go through the books again. Since I've begun reading the children more of the classics we have read less of their other books. Also, the library is a wonderful thing. They can check out their short little children's books, and then we can return them and they aren't cluttering up my bookshelves and ending up on the floor to be stepped on. I can only ready Barbie and Scooby-Doo so many times. Plus, I'm not a fan of Scooby-Doo right now because my baby is constantly pointing out "monsters" to me all over the place. Not only that, but I'm finding my taste in books is changing. I've discovered so many wonderful books that have clear differences of right and wrong, morals in keeping with my beliefs, and meaningful life lessons and that are also engaging and entertaining, that often when I read something else I come away disappointed. I'm disappointed in the "innocent" potty humor, the crudeness of many characters, especially boys. I'm disappointed in the roles of women and girls in many books. I'm disappointed in the weak story lines and character development. I want books that I can read to my children and they can play out the stories and become better boys and girls, men and women. I'm not sure how many books will be left when I get done, but don't worry, I'm compiling a list of these good books that I would like to own and I will be giving that list to family members just in case they are ever in want of an idea of what to give members of my family as gifts.

I also need to go through our dishes. It seems that the few times that we do go out to eat and my children receive their drinks in those little plastic cups that they bring the cups home and become part of our cupboards. Well, I now have a large supply of such cups, and I don't believe I need that many to wash time and again. Perhaps instead of donating them to a thrift store I will use them to start plants in here in a couple of weeks. I also have a rather large supply of butter knifes. I think I must have about 20-30 of them. I have no idea how I came to acquire so many, but I certainly am not going to use that many. Those, along with extra spatulas and wooden spoons, will most likely be donated to Deseret Industries. All of this should simplify my life, right?

I do have a few things that I would like to add my house, but I like the philosophy of one friend "Out with the old to make room for the new". If I'm so busy holding on to things that I can't make room for anything else then who knows how many good things I will be missing out on? And besides that, I have a lot of things that I've been hanging onto for one reason or another that don't bring me joy when I look at them, in fact, they weigh me down when I look at them. I think life is challenging enough as it is that we don't need extra things around us that are going to bring us down. So here is to "Out with the old to make room for the New!"