Someday

I simply MUST save that recipe.
Someday I will do it with the children.
I have to have that new item.
Someday I will have company over and use it.
I have to clip that article and read it, someday.
I have to save that dress.
I might be able to wear it someday.
I simply have to keep that article,
someday we will make that craft.

Always living for SOMEDAY and never living for today.
Are you like that? I know that I am.

I have wasted so much time COLLECTING things we will SOMEDAY do, that I waste the precious short time God has given me with my children/my family. I save all these things we will SOMEDAY do, and never get around to doing them. Maybe because I have so many that I can never find it. Or maybe because I spend so much time collecting that I don't have time to do them.

We recently went to an estate sale. A REAL one (not one where people just call it one so more people will come). I was looking at all her stuff there. Stuff that was precious to her, precious enough to keep, that was now just a burden to her family. Something to be gotten rid of. I wonder what, if anything her living family kept.

When my grandmother died (my mom's mom), my mom took an orange pitcher. I am not sure as to the meaning behind it, but that was so valuable to her. I look around my house and wonder, what value does any of this have to my children? What value will any of this have to them when they get older?

I would hope that some of the stuff I have made (like quilts and such) will have meaning for them and be kept. But what about all this other ... STUFF. And why am I waiting for SOMEDAY to use it?!?!

So no more collecting! All that does is add more CLUTTER to my life! And something for my children to declutter when I am gone. TODAY is the day to ENJOY what I have been given.

Instead of adding one more thing to be mended to the pile (of which most of the stuff there no longer fits anyone in this family), I create a time each week to mend things. I decide if I want to take the time to mend it, or just toss it.

Instead of collecting more things to do, I will start DOING them. I will plan one day a week to DO something that I have either already collected OR came across that week.

I will start making those fun recipes WITH the children and discarding them if they are not good, or adding them to our recipe file if they are. I will try a new recipe a week (funds allowing).

I will get rid of those clothes that I have not worn in over a year (because they no longer fit). A lady whose house had NO clutter in it was having a garage sale. Not much stuff was there and she said that it was all her clutter. ALL of her clutter could fit on two tables at a garage sale! She had a rule that if she had not worn an item in a year, it went on the sale rack at a garage sale. No matter how cute it was or how much she loved it. If it did not sale (and she was charging VERY reasonable prices), then, and ONLY then would she put it back in her closet for another year. Take all clothes I have not worn in a year and sell it!

Books that I have and have never read I will start reading one at a time, and determine to keep it,Paper Back Swap It, or sell it. (I know that seems odd to exchange books, but my interests have changed so much from when I first started "collecting" books, that things I really want now, that will help us no matter where we live or what we do - like raising a son to be able to be the sole provider for his family, teaching girls how to love being women and women for the Lord, growing your own vegetables and making your own soap, etc. - need to fill my shelves.)

I will stop waiting for SOMEDAY and I will start ENJOYING TODAY!