Clutter, you are no longer welcome

I've mentioned here before that My husband and I are slight pack rats. We like to keep everything that might be sentimental some day. The thing is, it gets put in a box and we never look at it again.

We have gotten better over the 5 years of marriage that we've survived. Each year we tend to go through our boxes of stuff and see what we can part with. It's amazing to me the importance of some things and the unimportance of others.

In the past I have thrown away my engraved plaques from Awana, yet held onto a note written by my husband. I've thrown out my cap from graduation, but held on to a childhood toy. It's amazing the things I find importance in.

The best thing we've done for our clutter is learned to throw away things as the come in the door. There are lots of things that we get- say a birthday card or other piece of mail, that in the past would have been thrown in a box after a few months of being displayed on the desk. Now They are displayed, then thrown away. If they are exceptionally cute, I might cut the picture out for scrapbooking, or card making, but normally they just get tossed.

One day, we'll get to the bottom of the boxes and realize it's pointless to hold on to that stuff, but for now, I'm happy with our baby steps.