I spent most of the day at the former home of my in-laws (both are deceased) cleaning the kitchen and part of the bathroom, trying to find the counters and sink and floor beneath the grime. We’ve been painting and remodeling and fixing things over there for quite a while now, and we’re hopeful that it will soon be ready to list with a realtor. Hopefully. Soon…

Of course, housing being what it is these days, we want to make the place look as good as we can. The number one thing they say you can do to get a house ready to sell is to get rid of the clutter and clean. So today I cleaned, and by the time we left, I must say the kitchen looked usable and shiny.

But there is still a lot to do. Randy has already gotten rid of a ton of clutter there, but when I walked through the basement, I could see so much more to do. So many nick knacks or scraps of stuff for unfinished projects! That got me thinking about my own house and all of the nick knacks I have and the unfinished craft projects I have stuffed in boxes somewhere. Why do we collect these things? We give them as gifts or pick them up as souvenirs, reminders of a place we’ve been or by them with the intention of making them someday. But too often those projects never get done, and those souvenirs end up packed in a box and we never look at them. Or they collect dust on a shelf we never dust because it’s too much work to move the nick knacks. And I was wondering why we hang onto these collections? Are we sentimental about them? Do they bring us joy? If so, great! I can enjoy the site of such things. But when does it become too much?

I pondered this when I moved a cabinet and had to take all of the nick knacks out in order to move it. I put most of them back, but not all. I think it’s time to part with some of them.

And I was also thinking how so much of what we own starts to own us. When does it become like an idol to us? When we care too much about it to let it go? If we move to a smaller home someday, would I take all of this stuff with me? One thing is sure, I can’t take it with me when I die, so if I stop enjoying it here and it just becomes clutter to me, then it’s time to part with it. If I don’t do so, someone else will have to do it for me.

My grandmother used to say, “If you haven’t used it in a year, get rid of it.” I don’t subscribe to Grandma’s way of thinking, but when she died, she had very little left to part with. She knew how to keep nick knacks and other stuff from cluttering her life. A good lesson to learn from a day of cleaning.

Selah~