Home

We’re home. It’s nice to be home. It’s nice to have a home to come home to. When I see/hear the number of people who lost their homes due to the fires in our county, I am astounded. I am grateful to see a patio to clean ash off of rather than the lack of a back yard that I saw before. I am grateful to see a ginormous master bedroom rather than the astronomical homeowner’s association dues that I saw before. Okay, that one still gets to me a little bit but you get the idea. I have my home and I am still surrounded by my stuff. Some people lost all of their stuff.

Having to evacuate does give me a different eye with which to look at my “stuff”, however. For all the “decluttering” I do, I still tend to hold on to things “just in case”. Would it be so bad if I had to buy some more the next time I needed it? Just because it could come in handy doesn’t mean that I should keep it. I think one reason that I struggle with that is because going from two good incomes to one good one for me to stay home with The Tater Tot has been a bit of an adjustment. I often feel like I shouldn’t give something away and then buy more when I need it in order to save money. Of course I’m not talking about essential stuff we use regularly. I’m talking about those sewing/crafting/scrapbooking/office/misc supplies that tend to hog up all the closet space in the homes of us creative/organizationally-interested-but-often-challenged types. Or the books that suck up every available book-related surface (and some non-book-related spaces as well). Or the clothes that I wasn’t quite ruthless enough about getting rid of during my last closet purge. I know that de-cluttering my home is an ongoing process and will never be “finished” by definition because everybody periodically gets new stuff. And I feel like I’m getting better about letting go. But I’ve still got a ways to go.

That’s why, when Harper-Collins sent me the list of available books to review, I jumped on “Downsizing Your Home With Style”. Already, just having read a part of the introduction, I have hope. She hopes to tackle the emotional part of downsizing your home as well as the practical and style-related part. I am all over that! Although it’s written for people going from a larger home to a smaller (sometimes much smaller) home, I am looking at it as an aid to downsizing in my current home. Making it a place that is easier to maintain. What Mommy wouldn’t like that?! Hopefully I’ll get through this one faster than “The Bilingual Edge” that I finished a couple of weeks ago. I’ll let you guys know what I thought of that one in the next couple of days (preview: very reader-friendly!)