you know, you don't have to keep it

I'm working on decluttering.

With the help from The Non-Consumer Advocate, my own pesky pregnancy hormones, and my desire to get our house sold, if anyone ever wants to buy it, I've been decluttering a good bit lately. Well, I should say, when I have the energy to do it.

Today I think I had a minor breakthrough. I was looking at this fruit dish that we had gotten as a wedding gift (7 years ago), which we have used on the table often, but which has mostly bothered me, because it's very hard to keep spotless. I guess you'd call it stainless steel, but it is really really shiny, or it's supposed to be. Let's just say we have trouble keeping it looking nice, even though it is useful for fruit. But with two small children, other things often end up in there. Duck sauce from nights of Chinese take-out, small stones and twigs that Jack has collected (including his "favorite rock," as he declared a few days ago), random halves of granola bars and other disgusting cast-offs. So, the fruit dish thing is not really working for us.

I was looking at it today, in the midst of cleaning with my Cleaning Angel, and I was wondering how to make it better. And then I had an original thought, maybe a thought I've never had before: "You know, you don't have to keep it."

It was, for me, a bit of a burst of lightning. And so I wiped it off and tossed it in a bag with other items that are on their way to the Goodwill. And I hope I have that thought a lot more often from here on out.