One Hundred Things

No, I will not be listing one hundred things on any topic. Aside from it being far too much for you to have time to read, it would get in the way of at least a hundred things I need to do this weekend.
 
One hundred things refers to the thought I brought home with me today. Having read an article about a guy who wrote a book about de-cluttering when he realized that the stuff around him was taking his time and energy away from the more important things in his life, I wondered what it would do for me--for my whole family--if we worked not just on cleaning and straightening up, but on elimination of some of the accumulated clutter that might be tripping us up (literally!) in just the same way.
 
At dinner, I announced my intention to eliminate one hundred things a day. I think my kids may have been momentarily stunned (though they recovered quickly and resumed conversation about their weekend plans). After dinner, the process began. The first five items were easy--sweaters I'd been thinking to ditch when I'd looked at myself in the mirror wearing them. I even got up to fifteen pretty quickly, 24 if you count the books I took off the bookshelf last night. That, combined with assorted long unused cups and bottles in the kitchen, and I was on a roll. Question is, do the discarded broken candles and duck sauce packets count as one item each?
 
One hundred items a day won't be easy. My daughter was quick to point out that 25 might be a more realistic daily goal. But I am sticking with one hundred. If I had kept count of the duck sauce packets and the candles and the disposable chopsticks that will never be used, I probably did make it tonight. And even if I can't make the hundred every day, it is the extreme nature of the goal that will keep it interesting. If all goes well, so interesting that my kids will give it a try with their stuff. As the guy I read about pointed out, being surrounded by stuff we could easily live without gets in our way on a daily basis. Instead of enriching our lives, it can block our path to living our lives, and I certainly don't have time for that.
 
I'm shooting for three hundred things by Sunday. And yes, the broken candles and duck sauce packets do count--if not individually, as some kind of number toward the total.
 
Stay tuned...