We throw away things that people kill each other over...

A few days ago My husband and I watched "The Book of Eli."  In this movie, the world is a totally different place that where we live today.  The ozone layer is so thin that the sun will blind you if you are not wearing sunglasses, there is little to no water, people have very little, and education is not a priority.  The Bible and religion is lost. 

One of the quotes from the movie got me thinking.  Well, actually, many things made me think about my spiritual life, but this one in particular made me think about my physical life and the things I have or think I need.

A young girl was asking Eli what it was like before and he replied, "We threw away things that people kill each other over now."

It made me think about all the excess in my life.  What do I really need, what is just junk, wasting space, cluttering up my house/mind/soul?

One of the biggest recurring arguments that Hubby and I get into is over clutter and cleaning up.  I don't like clutter, he doesn't seem to see it.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided that we do have too much stuff.  Less stuff = less clutter = less arguing for Hubby and I = even happier Hubby and I.  Sounds logical, right?

So I am slowly going through the house and looking at everything we own and asking myself  "Do I really need it?  When is the last time I used it?  Do I have a plan to use it in the near future? Does it work? Do I have space for it"  All excess is being dealt with (donated/given away/recycled/ etc.). 

We've taken bags of clothes to the Salvation Army, a box of "decorative knick-knacks/junk" to a friend who was having a charity garage sale, and even emptied our pantry (are we REALLY ever going to eat this?  If not, it went to our church for the food pantry).

Ironically, one of the biggest excesses we have is...MOVIES!  We have an entire bookshelf filled with DVD's plus the two DVD cabinets that are on our entertainment center!  Now, most of these movies were bought, and watched, by the Hubster himself so I don't want to just go in and assume that he doesn't watch a movie enough to warrant keeping it...so I'm attempting to get Hubby to discern that for himself.  It's slow going! HAHA  I love him! :)

The movies that I have chosen to keep are: The Princess Bride (my all time favorite movie), Chronicles of Narnia, Chicago, all of the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Twilight series, and of course my Audry Hepburn movies for a total of about 20 movies.  Yes, I know.... I don't NEED movies for my survival, but we aren't going that far (yet). 

So my question of the day is...What are your favorite movies that you couldn't part with?  If movies aren't your thing, then what TV shows, books, or whatever?

Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up...

As I sit here and look at my clutter, I wonder...what does everyone else do to control this?

In my defence...I'm not the messy one (hahahahaha).  But seriously, I have things that I do to control the clutter and mess that, believe it or not, will actually work - If you use them!

1. Do it right away!  If you've finished with the bowl, go ahead and rinse it out and put it in the dishwasher rather than just tossing it in the sink.  It only takes 2 seconds longer and keeps the sink clean.  Plus it's easier to do it in 2 seconds now than waste way more time later doing several dishes.  This works for everything.  Go ahead and put it where it belongs....now.
2. When you leave an area, take something with you! If you are walking to the kitchen to grab a drink of water, go ahead and hit the trash can or the dish washer on the way.  Again, a few minutes now is better than spending much longer later.

This is great in theory.  However, I haven't been able to convince my husband that this is a good idea yet.  I'm not trying to have a perfect house - I couldn't live in a "show home" anyway.  I just don't want to be COMPLETELY embarrassed if someone just stops by to say hello. 

Even more than not wanting to be embarrassed, I want my house to be safe for my Baby Girl.  Leaving things around that she can get into is very dangerous and I'd rather not have to constantly be hovering over her worrying that she is going to get too close to this, or get into that, or pick up...whatever that is over there!

So the questions for the day are:  What do you do to keep your house clutter under control...and how did/do you get the rest of your household on board with it?