Our vacation was absolutely blissful! The beach was beautiful, the house we stayed in was adorable and most of all I thoroughly enjoyed the time with my family. I learned something very important as well. Okay maybe I already knew this but..............
WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF!!
Here is a picture of our basement playroom on any given day. Looks like a Toys R' Us war zone.
When we went on vacation I packed not one toy or even a book for that matter. We didn't have space in the car and I didn't want to worry about keeping up with all of it on the trip. Of course there was the beach to keep the kiddos occupied and they spent most of their days with a shovel & pail (we did buy them a few beach toys) digging in the sand. However in the evenings and time away from the beach there was not much in the house in the way of toys. So what did these poor children do?? Amazingly they occupied themselves with the 3 items that were available to entertain them. Those were a pack of Old Maid cards, a pack of Go Fish cards and the Sunday comics.
Some family before us had left the Go Fish & Old Maid cards (thank you nice family). The kids LOVED these games. They wanted to play everyday. They would laugh & jump up and down when the Old Maid card got passed from them to one of us. They were thrilled to play Go Fish and Nana was usually their patient and willing opponent.
They read the same Sunday comics over and over again for a week. They even had them memorized and started "reading" them for themselves. Snoopy was a big favorite as well as Blondie. In the latter one Dagwood kept getting the boot out of his boss' office and that made the boys crack up laughing every time they read it.
When we got home I realized how much time, effort and energy I spend just keeping up with stuff. My day is spent either tripping over "the stuff", trying to organize "the stuff" or yelling at my kids to clean up "the stuff." I don't spend time reading the Sunday comics with them or playing Go Fish because my time must be taken with "the stuff." Sad isn't it! It was a real eye opener for me. So begins my quest for getting rid of a lot of "stuff." I know for certain if we cut down on the toys, the DVDs, my own endless knick knack collection and so many other things that our family life will be immeasurably enhanced. I'll let ya know how it goes but I do know this-------getting rid of stuff is always a difficult task but our trip taught me that all the things that we think we NEED are truly only clutter that gets in the way of what's important.
