Life Dictates How and When to Downsize

What is "downsizing?"
 - Letting your real life dictate your living area and storage space. Downsizing progress becomes obvious during the weeks before Christmas.

1. Downsizing has begun when Christmas accoutrements are missing, when red and green storage boxes are reduced to 3 labeled boxes, when they are emptied twice, when those green chargers are lost forever. Downsizing is moving right along when sets of red chargers take center stage, sets that were in the pantry, and no one knows the green ones are gone.

2. Downsizing is underway when certain Christmas placemats are missing, when sixteen placemats in various motifs are unaccounted for, when a brainstorm signals where four favorite placemats are located, and when 4 similar placemats in same fabric are found in a highly unlikely place: Clearance aisle at TJMaxx.

3. Downsizing calms when wrapping paper and ribbon are in plentiful supply. Hidden away under the bed in a red and green wrapping paper container are four rolls of coordinating Christmas paper and five rolls of wired ribbon. No wrapping paper anywhere else, no bows in dresser drawers, no tissue paper stuffed away in a box labeled 'tissue paper.'

4. Downsizing is fun when the baking and cooking essentials of the season are readily available and it's not necessary to unload the pantry to find and use them.

Step 1 in the downsizing process has been accomplished. Proof: when it's a challenge to find 'white elephant' gifts once stashed away on multiple closet shelves.

The Next Step: As Marni Jameson, Arkansas Dem-Gaz columnist and author of Downsizing the Family Home, said, "Life is not supposed to be a snowball of stuff that keeps growing as it rolls along."

She has two rules that struck a chord with me:
     1. Do not be a storage facility for your children or parents. If you are 65 and still have your son's Cub Scout uniform, you have issues.

     2. Those who have aging or deceased parents are not responsible for being the family museum.

I am challenged to move toward Step 2 in the Downsizing process.