Less is More

Today I'm doing more packing and decluttering of our house in Bellevue. I keep chanting "less is more" as I go about cleaning out our refrigerator and pantry. We had a great meeting yesterday with our housesitter, Cindy, who seems to be very conscientious about details. I felt bad as we showed her how to work our TV's, which we want her to be able to enjoy. She took notes as we showed her how to work the 3 different remote controls for each system. Most of the controls don't look the same. That made me think of how much more complicated our lives have become with advances in technology. I'm not sure if we are happier because of all of our new inventions and many choices. There is pleasure in simplicity. Nothing beats sitting down in peace and quiet and reading a book--unless it's listening to an audio book while sewing.

My big job for tomorrow will be to do a trial run of packing the car. I'm really curious to see what it will hold. I'll keep saying my chant and hope that I pay attention to what I'm saying. It's easy for me to get carried away with sewing supplies. I just discovered that I have multiples of many of my favorite sewing notions as I began to pack. I want to take them along. They remind me of what I do when stocking my kitchen. I discovered that I have multiples of canned goods and salad dressings that I forgot we had to eat. Now some of them are past pull-date and need to be tossed. My friends with more than one home have pointed out that it's also hard to remember what you have in one home vs. the other. Maybe I'll learn someday to keep inventories and check them more often.