it's time for a reduce-olution!

Ah, the new year! A time for fresh starts! "Spring" cleaning! Or as a woman in line at a local store said this past week "January always brings so much potential with it! So many possibilities! Now by February it's all shot to crap, but at least we have January!" Man, is she right, or what?

So here I am, on my three day weekend, not feeling the best (dang cold/flu/sinus who-ha-whatchamacallit! Whatever you are, go away I tell you, go away!) Anyway, it was time to take down the Christmas decorations! Easy, or easy enough, you say? Well, ah, no, not really. Why? Well... I'm a tad ashamed to admit this; but I sorta own like, cough cough, erhm, nine tubs full of Christmas decor. - Nine. That number that comes before eight, after ten, and declares to the world "Son, you have WAY too many freakin' Christmas decorations!" Knic-knacs, ornaments, little Christmas trees, big Christmas trees, garland, icicles, ho ho holy heck, I'm drowning here! So I was over it.

Decorating for Christmas has seriously become a groaning moment! Just the idea of dragging down ALL nine of those tubs from UP in the attic was, gah. So not only was I going to put my Christmas decor away this weekend, but purge those tubs down to SIX while I was at it. And before you say "Six?!? Why six?!? Why not less." Six at this point, is a miracle. Indeed, angels would be descending to sing Hallelujahs to me, if I actually managed to reduce my decor down to six tubs.

And... I made it to seven. I know, I know. But you know, at first I was angry with myself I hadn't gotten to six. But uh, this little put away that was supposed to last, eh, one day; took all three. ALL. three. THAT. is. insane. A. couple. more. words. with. periods. after. them. cause. it. makes. them. extra. EXTRA. important. No angels, but I stepped back and realized that I should still be impressed with what I'd done. I'd managed to reduce my Christmas clutter by two whole tubs! You gotta start somewhere, right? Right!

And I removed so many items from the boxes they came in, which really helped me make more room in the tubs, etc. Which was great, but still... something in me snapped as I hauled those tubs back up into the attic. The attic FULL of stuff. Just stuff and stuff and way more stuff than one man should ever own. Ever. And I threw out all those empty boxes into the recycling container outside, and I still had a few more Christmas items sorta loitering around in my art room that didn't have a home yet (cause I sorta forgot about some of those. D'oh!) And that's when I'd had enough!

Enough! And I decided I finally had my New Years theme! My goal of goals! And it was: REDUCE! In all ways! I'm sick of cluttered closets full of clothes I haven't even seen in years (and uh, can't currently fit into!) I'm tired of all that crap up in the attic! Of bulging drawers that explode as I open them searching for a flashlight! (Flashlight? Oh, no flashlight in here. But we do have some user guides for products you no longer own, some weird screws that I'd found and knew I would "need" somewhere around the house for something they came from, someday; some linens for the table that made me go "uh, why did you buy these again? They're u.g.l.y. what does that spell? Ugly! Yeah yeah, they're ugly!"; a few rolls of random ribbon, a tape dispenser, refrigerator magnets, a miniature pony named "Here Boy", two turtle doves, a Mini Cooper, the launch codes for the President's Big Red Button, and, oh you get the idea. No flashlight!)

I'm over not being able to fit into so many of my clothes anymore! And REDUCE! works here too! Less body weight, please! I'm really, really tired of being in debt. REDUCE! Those frickin' book clubs, DVD clubs, CD clubs, boiled meat of the month clubs... no wait, I'm not in a CD club! Well, I'm over those too. Cancel, purchase if you still need to, then cancel those suckers! REDUCE!

Eat in more. REDUCE how much you eat out! REDUCE the amount of time you spend not going to church on Sundays (ah, see how I'm using the ole' word now! Tricky, tricky!) REDUCE the amount of time you spend after hours at work (for no extra pay.) REDUCE the amount of time you spend not hanging out with friends! REDUCE how many months you go without going on a date (months!? Bah! You mean years! Yes, ok, years. But shh, don't tell anyone. Oh, and REDUCE that!) And but last and not least in fact mostest of all, REDUCE all that crappy crap you bring into your home each and every year. There was a year, not so long ago I bet, that you once had only one Christmas tub. And that one tub filled your tree nicely with glittering ornaments. But like everything else, you turn around, and suddenly everything has REPRODUCED like rabbits. Ahh! (Only you uh, helped them along this time!) It's time to take watch of what you bring into the house, and if you buy something, replace something you already have in the home as often as you can. Swap them out! Recycle, reuse, REDUCE!

In fact, I think it's time for a REDUCE-olution! Hey, are ya' with me? Let's do it!