Replies to '01/02 New Year: Old Habits'

Quote From: geri511

 It's after Christmas, and it seems that they make children's toys bigger and bigger every year. We have a toy section in our living room, consisting of a shelving unit I built and a wooden storage box we bought from the home decor store.  Now, it's overflowing! I have 3 bins of children's toys stored in totes in my 3 yr old son's room.  My 1yr old daughter has her own "girlie" toys as well, and it's just getting to be too overwhelming.  Today, after talking to some old high school friends from the Philippines, I've decided to "ship" the outgrown and excess toys over there to give a little joy to the impoverished children (orphans and chronically ill).  For some of these kids, it may be the only toy they may get for the whole year.  I'm going to make this a yearly thing, since it only costs $55 to ship overseas by boat.   I figured this will make a great way to open up our children to part of their heritage (my hubby's from India, and I, the Philippines).  With God's help, we hope our children will never know poverty, but at the same time, we want them to learn to give and share in small ways, and big ways.

On a personal note, I wish Dr. Phil would come to my house and help me with all my clutter.  Does he have a lottery for this? How does he pick all these lucky people?  Since my kids were born, my home has been chaotic and growing with so much clutter.  I think it just grew through the years, more so when I was working (nurse hours in the hospital are really crazy!  ....Now that I'm a SAHM, I've been trying to chip into it little by little....but the kids need majority of my attention.....and as long as I keep them away from certain parts of my house, they're safe.  I've been getting rid of a lot of stuff through ebay.  It's help a little with the money situation since I'm not working anymore.  But I just can't seem to get rid of the clutter fast enough.  I've used the local freecycle.org to get rid of some things that don't sell on ebay.  But I also end up gathering stuff from other people through the site, too.   (my Dh calls it the "clutter trap.")  It's hard to let go of some things if I know there's a little monetary potential left in it that I can extract through ebay. 

Anyway, I bought the book by Jill M. and will try to start reading it this week to get a better clue.  Good luck to all the clutterbugs. 

My New Year's resolution: Get rid of the basement clutter, and have a more organized life for the sake of my family...esp. my kids!