Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Purging Toys

I have always enjoyed getting rid of things.  I like to go through drawers and closets to find things I no longer use and put them in grocery bags to drop off at the thrift store.

Recently I came across a great blog that follows the journey of one family who is making some radical steps toward simplicity.  I read it and become instantaneously inspired!

On Saturday Zac and I decided to gather Feven's toys to one location and see what she really plays with these days.  We were SO BLESSED to receive toys from friends and family, but we are tired of tripping over them and picking them up each day.

We decided less is more in this area, and by downsizing our stock of toys, we hope to gain:
-more time to be with Feven because we won't be picking up so many toys
-more creativity in our playtime because we can come up with multiple uses for each toy
-more space on our shelves due to fewer toys

We gathered all of the toys into the "Cabin Room" and separated them by category.

Friends, her toys covered the floor.  As I looked around at all the piles of colorful toys and dolls, I thought to myself that these would be enough toys for an entire orphanage.  And we have all of these for one little girl.

As we examined each toy, we put it into one of 4 categories: Keep out because she plays with it often, Save for future children, Give Away to our friends who might enjoy it, Take to thrift store.

Oooh, it was glorious to see what we had when all was said and done.  A big bin went to the thrift store, a box now holds toys for our next child (no, no announcements or anything of the kind right now.  Have you been reading my blog?!? We're completely overwhelmed with ONE!), and my favorite thing was that when we put all of the toys she currently plays with out on the shelves, we had one empty shelving unit!  That's right!  It sat completely bare!  We happily moved it downstairs and started mentally calculating all the extra hours in our week from not having to put toys back on that shelf daily.

My camera is being silly right now, so I can't show you a "before" picture.  I'll try to upload it later, but for now, I'll leave the scenario to your imagination!

What can you get rid of today?

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