James and I constantly go through phases–they ebb and flow like the seasons.  Sometimes we are content and leave things be. But sometimes one (or both) of us freak out, something snaps and then we go through these brief extremes in weird personality traits. A lot of times this is in the area of our stuff. For some reasons, in our happy comfortable American country that we live in, we just hoard stuff. Why do we do it? Who knows. But I know personally, we purge often because of our nature of accumulating so many things. So, yesterday, after getting frustrated that I couldn’t find my container of buttons in the mess of our crawl space, I freaked out. Seriously though, I have to say that whoever invented the idea of the crawl space in the first place should be confined to living in one for a few days. It’s physically painful to navigate around, I always exit there pouring with sweat and about ready to convulse on the ground in back spasms. And keeping it organized is just about the most difficult thing I can think of.

My issue this time around was dealing with my crafting supplies. Firstly, I had about four places that I had a strangely large stash of sweaters that I bought last year when I briefly had a little upcycled photography prop business for three months. Secondly, I had literally about thirty bags full of random things from past craft projects. Scattered all over. Shoved in bigger bags. Some in bins. Some in baskets.  I finish things and then keep all the scraps and supplies in case I “need” it later on for something else. It was, no joke, a literal nightmare. So we dragged EVERY single one of my crafting things out to the family room, where I spent the next two hours throwing things away, reorganizing, and putting things in a couple of bins, as opposed to the immense disaster that it had been prior to that. Two gigantic bags of garbage later, I feel much better about life. Funny how getting rid of stuff and cleaning house makes you feel happier on the inside. It’s not all about the stuff is it?