Why?

So the whole theory behind this blog is to keep me accountable. I got the idea from a good friend who shared with me this page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/100thingchallenge/ - I love the premise. Use less. Consume less. OWN less!

Here is some background: I'm a stay at home mom to 3 kids with one on the way. My husband is a software developer. My oldest has Aspergers and Tourette's. My youngest is a primordial dwarf. I do not have extensive amounts of time to focus on keeping up with our things. I knit and sew too, which means having excessive amounts of STUFF.

A family of 6 has lots of STUFF. And boy have I really realised this recently with our newest addition. I was going through tubs of clothing, blankets, shoes, etc. and realised that it was just way too much. Why couldn't we live more simple? Why did this baby need hundreds of pieces of clothing, toys out the wazoo, and so many blankets that I could create a fort that went across the whole house (may be exaggerating, now I feel I need to try it).

Ultimately I'd love for each person to have 100 things. We would also include 100 things for our home (vacuum, tools, etc). So this would mean there are no more than 700 possessions in this entire home. Every thing counts!

Our rules: pairs of things equal ONE, if you can create an outfit do it and it equals ONE, food and necessities do not count, sets of things may count depending on what they are (i.e. my husband's magic card collections count as ONE thing per box instead of ONE per card). And so on. If the rules become more elaborate I will post our update.

We are also attempting to remove 1000 things from our home by the end of the year. This will surely be a challenge considering the baby is due in October and we will have a surplus of baby things for at least a few months after he/she is born. I may or may not be counting down the days until we are done having babies so that all the little tiny things that all the mommies get so attached to can finally go out the door.

In my next post I will be describing some things that are leaving us tomorrow...