A Good Day.

Today, the thrift store gods gave me a mini-doughnut pan.

Tonight, I will make mini-doughnuts, like these on Sprinkle Bakes.

You don't mess with the thrift store gods.

Success! Okay, progress, anyway.

Yesterday, with the kids home from school, I made them wash all the laundry, then we evaluated everyone's wardrobe.

Results: three laundry baskets' worth of clothing have been taken out of rotation. It may not be perfect, but that's got to make a difference.

We tossed anything stained or with holes, then culled the non-seasonal items. After removing things that didn't fit anymore, I only had to make a few tough calls about too many shirts for Ivy. Olivia had a drawer full of things that didn't fit anymore and she never wore, and Hollis had four pairs of church pants.

I have the summer clothes and outgrown clothes in a pile in my room, so I need to put them in the appropriate boxes. Then, let the living become easy, right? Thanks to all my commenting friends, for holding my hand here. It really helped!

MINIMALISM: The natural enemy of the large family.

Do you ever have trouble deciding which things you need to keep and which to toss? I sure do. It's easier just to stick something aside than to actually deal with it and judge whether it is worth keeping. Clothing is a major issue in our house. I have five kids, right? So let's say that each of them has five pairs of shoes, then that's twenty-five pairs of shoes (fifty total). My tiny mind starts to boggle.

I read on a forum once about a mom with five or six kids who went through all her kids' clothing and kept a weeks' worth of items for each. I'm talking about seven shirts, seven undies, seven pairs of socks, seven pants/skirts, a couple pairs of pajamas, and maybe a set of nicer clothes for church. AND THAT'S IT. The idea is so appealing to me, with it's logical, black-and-white reasoning.

But then, when I try to sit down and figure out what we would need in a typical week, I invariably get stuck. What is a typical week, anyway? What if we get behind on laundry, do they go nekkid? What would we do about winter/summer wardrobes? Coats and snow boots, bathing suits, and the like? What about when a kid loses their jacket? Don't we need a few spares kicking around to replace it until we find it?

Think about socks. Wouldn't it be simple and easy to have seven or eight boring pairs of socks for each kid, and call it good? But wait, what about for church? Little girls can't wear thick white athletic socks with little dainty Mary Janes, can they? And aren't fun socks one of life's little luxuries? STRIPY SOCKS, people. It's one of my obsessions.

Then, when I try to pare down a child's wardrobe, so much baggage gets in the way. I may not particularly like something, but if it was a gift, or if the kid really loves it, I can't just get rid of it, can I? Ivy and Loch, especially, seem to never have decent-looking clothing that fits them properly. We are always running out of pants or shirts for one of them, but their drawers are packed full. How does this work?

This all leaves their bedroom littered with dirty clothes. The dirty clothes basket is woefully inadequate and always overflowing. I wash two to three loads of clothes every day, and usually end up folding them, because if I don't, they end up in the floor and then the dirty laundry again before even being worn. THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY.

What also drives me crazy is the knowledge that if I did manage to be on top of the laundry, we wouldn't have enough space to store all the clothes if they were clean all at once. I don't want more places to put things, I want to know how to have less things in a reasonable, non threatening (to a borderline packrat) sort of way.

So how do I draw the line between enough and too much?

Thirteen.

I must admit that now I keep track of how many years we've been married by adding two to Livvie's age....

Thirteen Years Ago, We Had:

No money.

Barely nineteen years apiece.

Unwilling parents.

High School diplomas.

A crappy Dodge Omni.

And most of all, determination that we had to be together.


Since Then:

We stayed together.

We've produced six kids (Yeah, I'm counting this one.)

Paid our bills.

Owned thirteen vehicles.

Been in five wrecks that weren't our fault.

Had several different jobs.

Tried school again a few times.

Rented a crappy apartment.

Rented a crappy house.

Remodeled a crappy trailer house.

Mostly remodeled a crappy cat-ridden house and lived there nine-plus years.

Bought an investment property and didn't break even.

Bought another old house on the awesomest 17 acres ever, totally unexpectedly. I hope to be here long enough to make it not crappy....



No list seems adequate to sum up the last 4742 days. All I can say is, it's been worth it.