Over the years I have sold, donated or trashed a shit ton of stuff. Looking over this list of 100 things I got rid of conjures up a mix of pride, shock and a bit of embarrassment. While I do my best to use or re-purpose the things I own, I also take pride in letting go of the things I no longer have a use for. I have no desire to hold on to clothes, furniture, books and other useful items that no longer add value to my life. Instead of hoarding them ‘just in case’, I imagine how these things could be enjoyed in someone else’s life and then put them back into the world to be useful once again. I love it when I receive a text from a friend about how much their child loves the books we gave them or when I see their child wear a dress my child used to wear. That is so much more rewarding than keeping those things in a bin or leaving them on a shelf where they just take up space and energy (like when my kids play library and pull out allllll the books. Guess who ends up putting them back most of the time? Yup, me.) In sharing this list of 100 things I got rid of, I hope I can inspire you to let go of whatever things you know you don’t need anymore but are holding on to anyway.

Life is not stagnant and our homes should reflect that reality. Our kids grow up. We dip into different hobbies or try out new exercise routines. Our sheets get worn and raggedy from years of use. Instead of holding tightly to these things and the stages of our lives they represent, we must learn to go with the flow and release them when the timing is right. We must make room in our spaces and in our minds for the people we are today and leave room for who we might become in the future. It might feel uncomfortable for many reasons to let things go, but the process of doing so will make you more intentional about what you bring in to your home and into your life in the future.

So here we go, 100 things I have gotten rid of over the past five or so years:

• Baby blankets (except one per child that I kept for nostalgia’s sake)
• Worn out sheets
• Nintendo Wii
• Squeaky rocking chair
• Cheap back of the door mirror (I swear it distorted me)
• Noisy toys I was sick of hearing
• Crop tops that were wayyy too cropped
• Expired makeup (why is it so hard to throw out makeup we never use?)
• Expired medicine
• Sunscreen with a teeny bit left (you know you have a few of these lying around)
• Uncomfortable bras (should have burned these)
• Old computer
• Duplicate cords (how many USB cords does one family seriously need?)
• Infection causing earrings (a good excuse to only buy high quality from now on)
• Worn out bathing suits
• Cheap plastic picture frames
• Huge Canon printer (ink was too expensive to make it worth while)
• Recipe books (the internet is a beautiful thing)
• Partially used notepads and workbooks
• Duplicate toys like tea sets and lovies
• Unloved stuffed animals
• Happy-meal toys (I refuse to get happy-meals now, does that make me a terrible mother? I don’t care)
• Dead plants (I did my best my best dear hibiscus… I will always love you!)
• Goopy nail polish (this was before I learned that you can add a drop or two of pure acetone to restore old nail polish – you’re welcome!)
• Glitter and anything that has glitter on it (did the devil invent that shit?)
• Underwear that has holes in it (and thongs that are too aggressively tight, tell me I’m not the only one)
• Lonely socks
• Plastic outdoor kid table that my kids have outgrown
• Books I will never reread
• DVDs that the kids never want to watch
• Jeans that cut into my love handles
• Extra shoe rack 
• Dried up markers (loooove a good marker testing sesh)
• Broken crayons (I know I could get all Pinteresty and make something with these but I don’t have it in me)
• Photos that don’t add to my life (looking at you photos I took out the airplane window)
• Journals that I never want my kids to read after I die
• The crib that served us for six years and is now serving my brother and his twins
• Coin collection (I do wish I had kept a handful of these…)
• Clothes that my kids outgrew
• Heels that hurt
• Backpacks that don’t get used
• Decorative kitschy globe 
• Candles that I need to accept are no longer burnable
• Drawings/drawing pads from my past I don’t care for anymore
• Letters from past boyfriends (although you will always be in my heart…)
• Broken Fitbit (more like 3 broken Fitbits, why do they always malfunction?)
• Vases that I never loved in the first place
• Champagne glasses (whose marketing idea was it to have different glasses for every type of alcohol anyway?)
• Shot glasses from our 20s (got plenty of use out of these back in the day…)
• Dried up play-dough
• Slime that gave me PTSD when I looked at it (RIP corner of the rug)
• Baby books (like books for babies, not the books I made of my babies, I’m not a monster)
• Masking tape that I held onto for far too long even though it was a bitch to get each piece off without accidentally peeling multiple layers off (wow I guess I am still holding a grudge)
• Scissors that suck (the worst)
• Art that we didn’t love
• Tool set toy and workbench that rarely got played with but took up prime real estate in the playroom
• Train table (the ground works just fine for train building)
• Half of the play food (somehow we accumulated almost more than the actual food we have in our pantry)
• Phone chargers for phones we don’t own anymore
• Set of 2 lb and 5 lb dumbbells (I guess were too jacked, what can I say?)
• Resistence Exercise Bands we never used
• Knitting needles and yarn (took years to give up on this dream)
• Old sneakers that don’t even get used for yard work (the ultimate rejection)
• Old gasoline/oil mixture and gas can (sat in our garage for years before I signed up for my local hazardous waste drop off event)
• Extra chairs (at one point we had 4 large chairs sitting unused in our basement)
• A mountain of cardboard boxes
• Decorative pillows I thought I must have once upon a time
• Mismatched plates I’ve accumulated over the years
• Ride-on toys (trash picked a few too many)
• Phone cases that don’t fit our current phones
• Halloween make up that got gross and threatened to smear all over our costumes
• Wigs (had to give them away before they got too tangled in storage)
• Sippy cups
• 2nd string mugs (only the best for my morning coffee)
• Broken string of Christmas lights
• Ornaments that didn’t make my heart sing (I love our ornament collection and now it shines that much brighter)
• Puzzles with missing pieces
• Extra sets of playing cards
• Strollers (hard to believe that that part of my life is over)
• Games that were duds (Exploding kittens just isn’t for me I guess)
• Extension cord that was probably a fire hazard (I think I remember it from when I was a kid)
• Kindle fire that we never used
• T-shirts with holes in them (although you will have to bury me in my worn out, tattered gray t-shirt because I will never let it go)
• Stained kitchen towels (hot tip- don’t buy white kitchen towels)
• Almost all of my scarves (anyone else feel like they might suffocate while wearing scarves?)
• RC cars that broke (currently on our 3rd)
• Purses that never make the cut when going out
• Snow pants with a broken zipper
• Random tea cups and saucers I bought at the thrift store because I thought they were pretty
• Masks that don’t fit well or are uncomfortable (Old Navy masks for life)
• Crappy sunglasses
• Trivets that I never used (why I had multiple of these for years and years is beyond me)
• Fancy cheese board set (we always just use a cutting board and let’s face it, were not that fancy over here)
• Broken Tupperware or ones that lost their lids
• Toaster oven that took up a good chunk of our counter space (we have an oven and a toaster after all)
• Used pots and pans that were given to us but they just sat in storage the entire time we owned them
• Ugly Christmas bowls that we got during a white elephant gift exchange
• Beer brewing supplies
• A beautiful dress that I always changed out of after wearing for 5 minutes because it didn’t fit me right
• Old prescription eye glasses (did you know you could donate these by sending them in the mail?)

Looking at this list makes me want to never step foot into a store again. We spend so much of our time wanting the next thing on our list but maybe it is time to pause and recognize all that we already have. This morning while I was writing in my journal and sipping my coffee, a thought occurred to me: I have everything I need and want. I have books to read, a family to love, hobbies that enrich my days, candles to smell, a window where I can watch the sunrise from the comfort of my warm home, ingredients to make homemade meals that I will enjoy with my family, money in the bank and a solid home that I get to decorate and spend my days in. If you have a similar list of things in your life, I hope you can join me in realizing how god damn fortunate we are. Sometimes I want to say out loud to myself – enough is enough! It takes determination and intention to not fall into the trap of always wanting more, but if we can learn to let go of the things we don’t need, stop ourselves from accumulating more and enjoy the things we choose to keep around, I believe we will all be much happier with our lives and ourselves.