clearing out

ok. so in the previous post, i wondered who would notice this beautiful decoration in our dining room. it doesn't look very pretty, but it's not laundry left laying around either.

i started a challenge 10 days or so ago that i'm not certain we can fulfill. i love to do things that i don't KNOW we can do. that's what a challenge is, right?!?

the challenge is for EACH of us (including me. but not pat - he's not home during dinnertime) to give something away EVERY night from oct 20-thanksgiving. we've missed a couple days already (while we were camping) but some of us chose to give more than one thing to make up for it when we were back! (some didn't. and that was fine.) every night when we come to dinner, we bring "our thing." for the younger kids, i have to "ok" their item (no, you can't give your brother's history textbook away.)

the basket was officially FULL yesterday evening. so we put everything into 2 (full!) trashbags to take to be donated. as i walked out of the room with the 2 bags, i asked the kids, "does anyone miss ANYthing they've put in the basket so far?"

nope. not one person missed one thing out of all that STUFF!

we're clearing out before the holidays come and things seem to creep back into our house. it feels GOOD!