As I've mentioned in another thread, my husband and I are cleaning out his mother's apartment, now that she has gone to assisted living. She literally threw nothing out (besides food waste and paper products). Empty boxes in every closet, items in boxes labeled with something completely different than what was in them, so many knick knacks and kitchen gadgets "as seen on TV" (she didn't cook). Bottlecaps, every rent/electric/utility receipt going back several apartments (she lived in this one for 25 years, so that's a lot of years), every report card from all 6 kids, at least 20 bedspreads stuffed in various drawers and closets, a dozen packages of curtains still in the original packaging and never used, 2 full sized Christmas trees as well as another half dozen small ones. A lot of the glassware and nicer knick knacks are going to our town's take it or leave it shed. The big truck comes tomorrow to take away the furniture and remaining trash we haven't put out yet (you can only have 4 bags per week in her town). And then there are all the buckets in my basement for later sorting of papers and pictures.

This is something I never want someone to have to do for me. I'm usually pretty good at going through things every few years and donating/discarding but now I'm on fire to do more. I want to just have some nice things around me and use them, or display them. When you have so much stuff, nothing is precious and things get damaged from being shoved into drawers or left to the elements. I want to keep continuing to cull, even though I have plenty of space. I'd like to move towards a more curated house. I want one nice item instead of 5 so-so items. I want all the things I do have to be easily accessible and not require moving something else out of the way first.

So thank you, Mom in law, for modeling behavior that I do not want to emulate. It has brought great clarity to me on how I want my relationship with things to be. I want to use and have nice things, but not too many, know where they are and take care of them, but then when its time, be able to bless someone else with them.