Decluttering

Back when I wrote this blog post, my goal for our home was to be able to clean each room in the house in fifteen minutes...even at it's messiest.

We actually have achieved that goal with every room but the kitchen. I've decided that the kitchen is a losing battle. Without a dishwasher, even the dishes from just one meal take at least twenty minutes. But since we are moving at some point, (Princeton keeps switching when) I started tackling the closets. We aren't expecting to have much closet space in our next home, so I'm trying to become less dependent on closets. 

It was pretty amazing how much stuff we were able to get rid of just going through the large closet in the living room. Almost none of it went to the trash. Some of my neighbors took the bigger items, and the rest were taken by people on freecycle. We've decided having stuff just leave our home is better than waiting for someone else to buy it, and usually on freecycle, it will be gone sometime that day. 

We still have two more closets to tackle this week, but I feel satisfied by what we have already done. When the last bit was picked up, Matt gave me a hug and thanked me for doing this. I think that's one of the best encouragements, and I'm so glad that he is on board with me about how many things we need.

For birthdays, we are gravitating away from presents and instead working on cool experiences.

This is a recap of Matt's birthday. He got one gift...and one experience. I have my fingers crossed about the experience. He still doesn't know what it is, so we get to surprise him on Thursday.