Confession!!!!! I have not done very much over the past 3 days because I am taking care of Miles.  Translation:  4 yr old boy full of more energy( than I could fit into an entire month) running around my house playing spiderman and dancing and playing and making messes.....I'm exhausted!  It has been 7 years since I have had one this little in my home for an extended period of time.   I will resume after Thanksgiving.  We are headed to Oregon on Monday.  Maybe I will get a few things done over the weekend......

Oh I did purge my water bottles today.  After washing a couple more I found myself staring at the very large drawer stuffed to the max with water bottles.  you know, recycle, save the planet, buy a reusable one.  One being the key word.  Not 20.  5 in our family = 5 water bottles.  I saved my reusable water glass with lid and straw for trips.  But it is mine...all mine.  Keep your grubby hands off!  Go drink out of the fauset like you always do even though I ask you not to.  Save a glass from having to be washed in yet more water we are trying to save!

thank you!

I'm sitting on the floor in my room amoungst a mountain of clothes the I did not know I owned.  First, I am not a clothes hound.  I do not know what is in "fashion" right now.  I was at the mall last week with my 14 yr old son who had some "I helped grandma" money buring a hole in his pocket.  We spent 1 hour in the mall in Foot Locker, Scheels and the Hat store.  We walked out of the mall with 2 Oregon Ducks shirts, 1 pair of Nike shorts and 1 Oregon Ducks hat.  That was the 1st time I had set foot in the mall in over a yr.  I do not like to shop (ask my mother), I do not like crowds (ask my husband) and I do not like buying name brand clothes when I can find the same thing at Walmart for 1/2 the price (ask my kids).  Anyways, I have never concidered myself  to be hoarding clothes.  Now I know differently.  Today I own:
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Shirts: 26
Church blouses: 6
long sleeved: 7
Cami's: 2
Jeans: 8 (3 still have tags on them)
workout pants: 2
shorts: 11
sweatshirts: 5
sweaters: 6
lightweight coats: 7
heavy coat: 1
pj pants: 2
pj shirts:4
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I havent gotten to my closet yet.  I only keep dresses and shoes there.  I will get to that in a minute.
So I think 26 shirts is a lot, but then I realize that most of them are work shirts (I work fulltime mid April to the end of October as a professional landscaper),I have decided that I do truely need 2 sets of clothes.  One set for everyday living and 1 set for working.  And since I am not working full time during the winter months, those clothes will go into a box in my closet.  All of my shorts are work shorts, but I will only keep 4,  2 of my sweatshirts are work sweatshirts and 2 pairs of jeans are designated as work jeans.  Still, I  need to get these numbers down.  How many work shirts do I really need? 4 of them have the companies name on them, so I'll keep those.  1 sweatshirt has the company name on it so it will go in the box too.  My 2 work jeans will go in to.  If I have any hard dirty work to do this winter I will just go to the box and pull them out.  I will put 1 more shirt in so I have 5 for 5 business days.

Now for the rest.  I have norrowed it down to:
2 jeans
1 sweatshirt
5  short sleeved shirts
1 black long sleeved shirt
1 pj bottoms
1 pj top
3 dress blouses ( I got rid of the other 3 because the were basically the same black shirt that I always buy because black is slimming)
I did keep an extra 2 t-shirts not listed in my 5 above because they are shirts from the kids high school and I need those to wear to school sporting events.
1 sweater that I can wear casual and to church
1 light jacket
1 winter coat
undergarments dont count.  I dont have an over-abundance anyways.  enough undergarments, 3 bras and socks that I keep in a laundry basket in the corner of my room as a jumbled mess.  I do not match the socks because the "fashion" now (so I'm told) is not to have matching socks, so I let the girls pull from the basket and it saves me a boat load of time!

I have a dresser with 6 drawers.  I barely fill 3 now.  Good feeling. A  Really REALLY good feeling. Laundry day should be a snap now :)

As I get up from the floor I look up to see my husbands dresser.  It's the 20 hats pilled on top that catches my attention.....Really! 20 hats.  And that's not including the other 20-30 in the closet.  We'll save that for another day.......

As I get ready to shut down for the night, I am thinking about what I really want to accomplish here.  what is my gaol?  do I set an end date for myself?  for my family?  All questions I need to ponder a bit more.  I will say this though, it will not happen over night, in a week, in a month or even in a year.  This is going to take time.  just like getting a mind set to eat healthy, this is going to take more effort than just purging the linen closet.  What really is important to me?  my family will always come 1st.  I told my kids tonght that in the process of changing me, I hope to be able to spend more time with them.  Rolling of the eyes came from 2 of my children, 1 smart alec remark from the other.  I can only hope that as they see me going through this and making my life better and developing my "easy" button, (I've always wanted one), they will see that this is for my family.  I hate being stressedout over what should be simple chores.  The less I have, the easier the chores, the easier the chores, the happier I am, the happier I am, the happier my family is, the happier my family is the easier life is.  It goes round and round.  Yep, I think this is going to be good!

Jessica age 11 (10 at the time of this picture)

Rebekah and JJ.  Halloween 2012.  Rebekah came up with the idea AND talked JJ into it.  I still cant believe he follwed through with it.  They got a lot of laughs at the Ward halloween party!

Rebekah age 16 and her TWIRP date.  I cant believe such a beautiful girl came from me.  I am blessed!

Ok so day one of my purge to get to 100 things.  I went to my linen closet.  I open it up and "wow" is all I can think.  We are overflowing with towels, misc stuff such as bandaides (not in their boxes but scattered about), medicines, lotions, sunscreen, batteries, shampoo, conditioner, soaps of all varieties, lightbulbs, a shoe, TP..the list goes on but I will stop boring you.  OK, where to start?  The most obvious, the one that screams at me because there-is-no-right-way-to-fold-these-so-that-they-stay-in-place-Towels!.  I pull them out one by one and final count is 47.  Seriously, 47!  For a family of 5.  I can understand having a lot of towels if say you have 12 kids, 4 dogs and a few other pets, but 47 for my small family of 5.  It seems a little...well...much.  I get rid of all the ones with holes or that are fraying.  I'm down to 30.  Next I get rid of the ones that are too small or our big bodies.  I'm down to 25.  Ummmmm.  Ok in reality we only need 10.  2 each.  I'm down to 10, but start to think do we even really need 2 each.  Each of my kids have their own towel that they take to the bathroom with them, it comes out of the bathroom with them and they hang it up on a hook in their room.  If you forget to take your towel with you to the bathrrom when you shower you must "streak" to your room.  Believe me this only happens once or twice, and the other kids are waiting with camera in hand.....My kids are also each assigned a laundry day.  My kiddos started doing their own laundry at age 12.  3 loads on their assigned night.  1 whites, 1 darks and 1 for sheets and towels.  for the most part we stick to this plan, but the other day I pulled 4 towels out of my youngest room thinking to myself "I am really slacking off, need to be tougher about the streaking!" So back to the towel delima, if we each have 2, 1 for everyday use and 1 for the day we do laundry, and the 4 back up towels for guests with a grand total of 14. note: this does not include hand towels for the bathrooms nor does it include washing rags or towels for the kitchen.  I'll tackle that another day, but for now I can close that closet door, towels neatly folded and staying in place and feel like I have accomplished something today.  One step closer to my 100 things.