Cleaning House

 

Winter in the south lasts about 2-3 months, depending upon how deep you are living in the south.  In East TN, our winter is typically from January until the middle of March.

One good thing about winter is that it keeps you inside most of the time, where you can get projects done that you put off because you were enjoying the outside weather. like organizing the closets and removing items that you have not used in several years.

We moved into our downsized home about two years ago and when we did, we eliminated about 50% of what we had accumulated over the twenty-year period we lived in that house.  What made it worse for us is that we had a basement and much of our stuff was located there.

I had been holding onto about 20 file boxes of training materials that I had collected over my 45-year career.  Not sure why I was saving them especially since most of those materials had been replaced with new approaches.

The other items that we gave to charity, like clothes.  I had numerous suits that I had purchased over the years for work and my consulting business, that I no longer needed being retired.  I kept one suit and a sports jacket just in case, I needed them but after 10 years, I have yet to wear either one.

I still have more clothes than I really need but I suppose I am hanging on to them just in case...  You would be surprised what you can eliminate if you focus on what you really need and not what you want.