Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Need nothing

Our water system hadn't been working for a few weeks, maybe more like months.  I don't know.  But it had become habit to fill up the drinking bottles.  Then on Thanksgiving it started working again.  It maybe even started working before that but I'd stopped checking.  Now that the water system is working our needs are down to 0.  There are things that will get repaired and items that will wear out.  I feel so grateful in this moment that we don't stand in want of anything.  Everyone is in good health.  Everyone has shoes, probably a coat, maybe socks, underwear check. 

I've been trying to use the MarieKondo method to look at my possessions and ask if this is bringing me joy.   You also have to ask if something is needful.  So far I have reduced my clothing stash and discarded an entire box of papers I didn't need to keep.  I also donated the 20 dinner plates we never use.  We like to use the 10 inch plates rather than the full dinner plates.  So it's time to let the dinner plates go.

Tonight in the middle of our history lesson I asked the kids about ~40 books on the shelf that nobody touches and only 4 were not claimed with joy.  I told the kids it was OK to let books be donated so another person can experience the joy of finding a book in the little free library.  I hope to repeat this with the children again and again to perhaps reach a goal of 10 books reduced from our cache.  One great thing of this exercise is reminding them of what good books we have and sparking their interest in reading them again.  Lately they've only been interested in library books which is great but why do we have 12 bookshelves of books if we aren't going to read them.

OK, I'm off to wash dishes which I can do now easier because I can use the dishwasher again.  Yay!

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