Stuff, Stuff, and Less Stuff!

I feel like I've been packing and sorting for weeks, because I have!  I was amazed when I posted something online to sell, how often I wrote "we only used it a few times," "hardly used"  or "like new."  It was eye opening really.

This learning system that I bought last spring, is a very good example. I loved it and thought it would be a great learning tool.  Knowing that we wanted to RV in the next year or two, I liked the compactness of it, and the ability to grow with the child.  In my mind, it was a perfect purchase.  Ha!  I can't tell you how many times I put it out as one of Mae's workbox activities, and it was left untouched and forgotten by both of us (and the routine, is that every workbox is done each day before school is over.)  Needless to say, I gave it away while downsizing our stuff.  It will work great for some child, just not mine.

I guess I can admit it here.  I'm a teeny, tiny, eensy, weensy bit of a hoarder.  I've been saving- and packing and unpacking every 10 months for 4 years, a LOT of school and craft supplies!  I would save extra supplies at the end of each school year, for the next year (all teachers do this, trust me!)  The problem started when I stopped teaching, and brought all my extras home.  I was saving them for the day when my child would be old enough to start doing school- at home, in a house, with lots of storage in the basement.  Well, let's just say that I could have started up my own private school with all the supplies I've been hauling around all this time.The joke is on me, as we are not even done with our first year of homeschooling, and we are hitting the road.  Yesterday I packed up all of our school and art supplies to bring with us, and here it is.

In all areas of our lives, in order for an item to make the cut for this move. It has be something that we actually use on a regular basis- not something that we wish we did, or think we should, or know is good for us.