Reading.

Last week I started reading a book by Gretchen Rubin called The Happiness Project and I'm loving it. Its basically her journey to find happiness in life, she has monthly projects focusing on different things like parenting, love and friends. I'm just starting on April which is focusing on parenting and everything she writes about is more less what I have been doing. This book for me is like a validation of all the thing I'm trying to do in my own life to be more happy and to make my family happy, from eliminating clutter, going to bed earlier, not nagging to enjoying the fun and failure. Its a really good read.

My first step in improving my life was stepping back and looking at all the thing that we accumulated over the years, with two kids, my business and hobbies and my husband who loves movies and photography its very easy to have massive amount of stuff. Every Spring and Fall I look thru my kids cloths just because they are growing and donate everything that doesn't fit anymore, but things like books, movies and crafty stuff can be easily overlook. So first I set some rules, anything that has been seating on the shelves for a year or more with the intention of being used, worked on or wear and never been touched is out the door. We are almost done and I have to say that my home looks so much better, the cleaning is so much easier now and life is simpler which is the main point of all this.
Another rule that was very important was to think twice before making any purchases, going thru little list like:
- is this something that I want or need, 
- can I function without it, 
- am I going to be O.K if I don't have it, 
- and last one that I always try to explain to my kids, if we would not see it you wouldn't want it, you might not even know it exists so there for you will survive without it. 
I also tell them to make a list of things that they really like and when Christmas and birthdays come I will pick something from it for their present. 
I am very happy with the results and progress we made, live without clutter is so much happier, better and simpler.