The Joy of Throwing Things Out!

For the past few years I’ve seen people doing this “40 bags in 40 days” challenge during Lent. I always found it intriguing but it seemed impossible. Get rid of one bag of stuff every day for FORTY days?! Insanity! I won’t have anything left. This year I decided to try it though. Im a few days in and… I LOVE IT!

I never thought I’d be so excited about getting rid of things that I’d spent my hard earned money on or been given. The first night I cleaned off my bedside table and my Husband’s. The next night I cleaned out the junk drawer in our kitchen. For God knows what reason we had two giant bottles of super glue in there and a ton of expired coupons and mason jar lids. (Seriously wtf made me think that all of that was supposed to go together?!) The night after that I filled a garbage bag with junk from The Boy and Crazy Eyes’ room.

Last night I picked a weird one and went through my nail polish. As I sorted out the keepers I put them into a box and put the trash in my bag. I didn’t think much about it until I looked into the box. I looked in and was surprised at just how happy it made me. No more ugly colors that I frown at every time I see them because they are ugly. No more colors that remind me of rough days in my past. No more dried up gross nail polish bottles. All that was left were things that I enjoyed. It was like I’d been given a shopping spree in my own custom nail polish isle. I was even able to put this smaller collection into a smaller box so that I could use the box for more important things.

It does the spirit good to get rid of the crap sometimes. I’m not really good at it but Lenten promises aren’t supposed to be easy. In my case, every bag I throw out or give away is a sigh of relief even if I’m grouchy while I’m getting to that point. I despise cleaning but I’m so tired of having a house full of stuff and still not being happy with what I have. I’d rather have less than have a whole bunch of stuff collecting dust because I don’t actually like it.

I’ve got 40 days of cleaning to do folks. Do me a favor and give me some suggestions on where in the house I can clean next in the comments.