Fall Cleaning

Something about living out of a suitcase for 3 months has made us realize what we can live without.  Coming home, we have been motivated to clean-out our house and purge ourselves of the things that we don't use.

This began with our basement.  We have two storage rooms and a garage (that is not usable for parking in) that have collected a myriad of things in the four and a half years that we have lived here.  It is one of those places where when we don't know what to do with something or we don't have time to make a run to the recycling center we are just kind of like, "just stick it in the basement."  So, in the last week or so, Anthony has loaded up his Ford Explorer and made three runs to the recycling center.  It was mostly boxes left over from Christmas and birthdays.  We have also filled numerous garbage bags full of things to drop-off at the thrift store.  And our smallest pile is of things we are going to try to sell...mostly baby stuff that is still in good condition and a few 110 appliances that I have been holding on to for no good reason considering that I can't really use them here in Germany.  So, as of Thursday, we have the basement officially organized and cleaned-out.  We are no longer even using one of the storage rooms.  I am just still going through the endless boxes of baby girl clothes that I have to evaluate what to save and what to sell.

So, next we have some organizing and purging to do in our actual apartment.  I have done a little bit of this as we unpacked from the summer, cleaning out all of our shranks (closets) of clothes we no longer wear.  It feels good to unload the excess in our lives.  And we are hoping and praying for another, slightly larger but still in our price range and village, home to move to in the near future.

We first moved into this apartment before we were even pregnant with Alethia.  It has been a great home for us and where we have brought both of our babies home from the hospital to.  It has also been a great location, close to the school Anthony works with and to his office and youth room, right next to a playground for the kids, and in a great village with lots of walking trails in the woods just down the street, not to mention just blocks away from a great coffee shop and bakery and eis cafe.  However, with two additional family members and all the accessories and toys that come with them, we have outgrown this apartment and would love something a bit bigger and with direct access to the yard for the kids to be able to play outside more.  However, we are a bit picky and are thinking that it might take awhile to find just the right place.  At least we will be ready and organized when God brings the right place along.