Useful and Beautiful...

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.“

- William Morris

Okay, so I am struggling...BIG SURPRISE. I was reading one of my favorite blogs The Keeper of the Home. I have mentioned it before...and she had this quote on her site along with a post about...stuff.

I have lots of stuff. But right now I am specifically going to focus on my school room. I have too much stuff. I am also NOT using the stuff. I have great intentions, but keeping it real I just dont use it. So we are, in the near future moving to a rent house. It will most likely be smaller than our current accommodations. This means I have to pare down!

I am sooooo not good at that! Now dont get me wrong. I will throw stuff away. I will throw perfectly good stuff away simply because I am in the ZONE and know it will never get to a recycle place, or thrift store! When I am in the ZONE, I dont want to bag stuff up and have it just sit in a corner waiting for the Salvation Army pick up day! I know that is BAD, but whatever it is what I do.

When I am in that place, I gotta get it out RIGHT THEN!

So back to my stuff... I have all this awesome home schooling stuff. I have neat curriculum, tons of books, hands on activities stuff, craft supplies! But I am not using it! Some of it I have had for years and still havent used. Some stuff I bought when I home schooled Sarah Jean and that was 10 years ago! I havent used it yet...but I cant bring myself to throw it away. I mean it is neat, it is educational and I have great intentions that I will USE it someday.

So the problem is letting go of things that are not useful or beautiful...

If I havent used it in 10 years and my kids are past the age I would have used it than I GET RID OF IT!!!

If I have plans for something "neat" than I need to put it in writing when I plan to use it, write a curriculum plan and put everything I need for it in a bag or folder!

If I have read a book that I didnt really like I DONT have to keep it. Even if it was a gift!

If I have changed my mind about a curriculum than I need to get rid of it! Bye Bye Horizons!!!

If I am NOT using it because my kids are simply not there yet, than I need to make sure that it is really a curriculum that fits into Dave and my plan for how we want to school. If it does not NO MATTER HOW AWESOME IT IS...I can throw it away.

If I have 5000 googly eyes... I can probably put a few hundred in a simple Ziploc back and GET RID of the rest! I don't have to keep every craft item I ever bought just because there were a few left of it!

If I have printed something out, but didnt use it I can throw it away... I can find it again on the world wide web if I need it!

If I have a paper that I really need to keep I can scan it into my computer and keep it on file! Wow using technology usefully!!! What a concept!

If it is not beautiful or useful...it's out of here!

For all you peeps who are freaking because I keep saying I will throw it away... I will put it all in a box or two and put it directly in my suburban. I will take it to our home school coop one time and on the way home dump the rest at a donation center! Feel better?

Maybe someone else will find it useful or think it beautiful!!!