WARNING: It's Contagious!

As I arrived home rejuvenated from my time away, Dajuan and the big girls (as Shay and Kiera have been defined since Kendra joined the scene) were eager to lead me downstairs to the basement. Apparently they have been bitten by the downsizing bug! I could not believe my eyes as I gazed around clutter corner, the office space, and the playroom. It was almost completely without clutter AND reorganized! The results were:
1.) one trash bag full of junk to go out in a blue bag on Friday
2.) one trash bag full of shredded paper from Dajuan's diligent culling of piles of files
3.) several items placed in a pile for our upcoming Yard Sale (this is a bit of foreshadowing for downsizes to come - stay tuned!)

Of course I praised them up and down for their efforts and rewarded them even further by rolling up my sleeves and digging in to the few piles that were deemed "my stuff to go through". In short order I had added to each of the bags and the yard sale pile. The basement looks like an entirely different place!

Now there is a lesson in all of this - beware of having living spaces that are out of sight of the average visitor. You see, we have found it far too easy to let piles of junk accumulate in the basement because for the most part no one sees it except us. Call us the former hoarders because those accumulation days are over. Today we took back the reigns and we are now in the driver's seat to keep our out of sight living space more livable!

You may be wondering why I featured a picture of my husband snoozing on the couch for this entry. Well, faithful followers, I wanted to be sure that you knew the risks of getting into the downsizing game. Amber, a frequent reader hinted in a recent comment that she too has begun to downsize so I felt compelled to do some truth telling. Beware! It is an exhausting sport at times. I am afraid that Dajuan got all worn out from shredding, trashing, and moving piles of junk. Or perhaps I have misdiagnosed this altogether. Maybe, just maybe, his three girls wore him out in the 36 hours I was gone.


All joking aside, the contagious part of the challenge for me has much less to do with the satisfaction of ridding our home of junk and entirely more to do with the journey that I am revealing through the written word. The Master wrote an eloquent piece titled The Journey a few days ago. Please take a moment to read it as it may help you to see what was so contagious about this challenge for me. After following Reed for an entire year I couldn't help but long for the same sort of self discovery that he achieved through committing to the task of doing SOMETHING everyday for an entire year. I chuckle as I think about the daunting task that I have taken on as my own. There are weeks that even taking a shower daily seems like an insurmountable chore and yet, I have decided to get rid of one thing and write about it daily. Call me crazy but, I am so grateful for the 22 day journey I have already traveled. I sincerely hope that this bug bites another reader in the next 343 days so we can call it an OUTBREAK!