For The Love Of February

I often walk into a room of our house and say “For the love…” because it looks like this:

leaning tower of randomness

No matter how many times I’ve sorted, sold, donated, thrown away, and reorganized, we still have way too much stuff.  It’s overwhelming and a symptom of our diseased consumer culture and I often feel the weight of having too much stuff. 

bags waiting to go to goodwill...and waiting....and waiting...

And because of this stuff, I often don’t allow myself to do other things… I think “when the house is organized we’ll host friends for dinner” and “once I’ve organized my art supplies I’ll paint that canvas” and “once I’ve finished rearranging all the furniture around for the last time I’ll put up the curtains and the photos on the walls in the office.”  And so my creativity and my house and my hospitality stands in this middle waiting space. 

poor curtainless windows

February is the shortest month of the year but it feels the longest to me.  It is the middle waiting space of winter and I hate it.  One year I put some place for us to go every single day on the calendar just to make sure I got out of the house.  This year, I’m going to take the month of February to give some love to my home and the people who enter it. 

I’m going to give myself permission to put some more holes in walls, some paint on canvas, and make our home and the month of February more beautiful.  I’m going to tackle some ruthless sorting and purging and reorganizing.  I’m going to try to use what I already have for these projects and buy as little as possible.  As much as pinterest would like me to believe otherwise, the answer to organizing my home cannot be buying more stuff.  Trust me, I’ve tried it.  

see how those cute baskets just tidied this space right up???

I have four creative projects in mind, one for each week…I have endless purging goals that need to be more refined…all for the love of a peaceful home where stuff doesn’t get in the way of people.  I'm looking forward to reflecting as I go and I'll keep you posted!