10 years....Gone with the wind!

    I turned 58 on October 25th that was just two days ago.  The passing of another decade, time really does seem to fly by and now I am sitting here wondering if I am too old to consider this my "midlife"??  Yes I have grown well beyond "Midlife".  Dean and I celebrated 33 years of marriage in August and I hosted my high school class reunion, 40 years!!  Our four kids are all grown up with children of their own and they will be entering the midlife phase of their lives in a few short years.  I am truly blessed.  

  The end of July this year we were notified that we had to move from my Great Uncle Teddy Edvalson's house in High Valley.  This has been our home for 3 1/2 years now and I have absolutely loved it.  The current owner had Yaks and cows here it was really fun to sit and watch the baby yaks in the spring from my second story window in my craft/sewing room.  The snow in the winter and my flower gardens in the summer. These are all things I will miss.  It has been a very peacefull place to call home the past 3 1/2 years.

  Trying to find a place to move to has been really hard and I started packing, back in August because over the years we have accumulated so much "STUFF" that I have started to feel suffocated by it all.  Counseling and books on learning to let go of all the excess can be liberating. But it also does'nt just happen overnight.  I have talked to Dean about how hard im working on it and that I will really need for him to be there for emotional support along the way.  Wading my way through the stacks of boxes in the garage and cellar has been interesting and I am finding it easier all the time to make the decisions to throw away, donate or to sell things because as I am freeing up space that I could have been living in and using productively the past 3 years it has been a real eyeopener and a little bitter sweet.  

  i have found that I need to rely on myself to stay positive and just keep my momentum moving forward.  Because when my husband and kids have called me a hoarder and it really makes me angry & hurts my feelings because a hoarder is the person who lives in piles of garbage with small trails to get around their living space.  One of the most helpful mantras that has stuck in my mind is saying to myself has this item served its purpose in my life and not something that I am still currently using.  Also to not hang onto things just in case I need it sometime in the future.  

  The reality is when that time in the future comes that you need to have that thing you've been holding onto you cant find where it is and end up having to buy the part or item anyway.  So I am trying to develop a mindset that  anything that I need I will be able to purchase it when the time comes.  The other area that is a little harder to make decisions on are items that hold a memory of loved ones not longer with us or from your past in general.  But again I ask myself am I still using the item or does it just hold memories???  If it is memories I can take a photo of that item then I don't have to physically keep it and someone else can get use out of it or it can be thrown away. 

   Yesterday we signed a rental agreement on our next home it is the Gekeler Ln Century Farm built in 1900.  So now with a faster pace I will continue my de-cluttering journey where in the end I am bound and determined to make Dean and the kids eat their words because I know none of them expect me to be succeed.  They think it will be them having to clean up boxes of stuff when I'm gone but i am going to show them all.