Friday, October 18, 2019

Colder weather, cleaning, decluttering, and life


The kids really enjoy playing with magnets!


Lydia made this costume. She is a remarkable seamstress.  She did NOT get that from me.


Butterfly on Kevin's finger


It got cold enough to legitimately close the pool. Kevin gathered the troops and got to work. It is closed now for the season. We had such a great year of swimming but I am thankful to have a break from working on it.  It takes many chemicals and a fair amount of tender, loving care to keep it pristine. Or even close to pristine.




Our sun room often degenerates into a total disaster.  The kids do art in there and often leave it super messy. I cleaned it this week. It still looks pretty good, 3 days later.

I'm also in the midst of a moderately subdued decluttering frenzy.  I've been going through clothing and working on getting rid of stuff we don't need.  It is always exhausting work and I'm not someone who gets attached to things very easily.   And of course some people in this family are mightily attached to some things.  Not that that is bad -- everyone is different.  There is a place of balance where we enjoy what we have but we don't cling to everything.

I felt peaceful at the cabin last week when we just had a couple of small suitcases.  It was simple not having piles of stuff. So part of me wants to throw away half our belongings but hello, I'm only 1 of 11 people so I can't just toss things wholesale :-).

But I can comb through clothes that Daniel and Rose have outgrown, and give them away. I can go through the pantry and organize it so that we know what we have and don't buy more of what we don't need.  I can look at my books and get rid of some of them.

Really, I do get rid of books sometimes :-).

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