Included in the donation purge:
- lots of clothing (mostly mine, some my husband's, some kid stuff that never fit Felicia very well so I didn't want to hang into it for hand-me-downs to cousins or future little siblings)
- shoes
- dishes (we had a few sets that we were given as wedding gifts [2 place settings of specialty dishes] and had only used them once or twice in seven years!)
- several purses
- wooden boxes, jewelry boxes, trinket boxes (without hanging on to so much stuff, I have found that I don't need so many containers to store it all!)
- jewelry
- toys (only annoying ones that Felicia never played with...she hasn't even asked about them)
- books (still have a LONG way to go before we fix our too-many-books situation)
- decorative dishes (received as gifts and I never knew what in the world to do with them)
- wine rack
We have also been able to give some items to friends and family who will be able to enjoy/get good use out of them:
- stained glass turtle lamp for the "big boy" room of a friend's son
- unused college notebooks/lab books and mechanical pencils (still in packaging and everything) to my little brother who is a freshman at the same college
- colored pencils to my mom who needed them for her biology lab!
A lot of stuff has also been pitched or recycled! Those guitar magazines from 1997 that my husband still had for some odd reason? Recycled! Those jeans with holes that I was saving for painting clothes? Trashed. Those socks that haven't had a mate in like 5 years? History! Those concert shirts that are way too big for my husband because boys wore clothes that were way too big for them in junior high/high school? Logos have been saved for future projects, the rest of the fabric has been turned to rags!
Even though we have made a ton of progress, we still have more to part with. Our ultimate goal (many years down the road, most likely) is that all of our belongings will be able to fit in a car (save for large furniture, obviously! We would like our home furnished and comfortable, but are embracing minimalism as much as we can!).
We are actively searching for a house and are hoping to find something 1200 to 1600 square feet. Itty bitty by today's standards, perfectly normal by 1950s standards. We made an offer on a 1954 rambler last Friday, but the nephew of the seller came forward on Saturday morning and wanted to buy the house so they are moving forward selling to him. Bummer. It was a real let down. My husband is actually taking it harder than I am. I had already decided where the Christmas tree would go, though, and pictured Felicia learning to jump rope on that concrete driveway. Here's hoping something equally great (or even better!) is out there waiting for us!
