Feeling Totally Ridiculous

I have yet another confession - I am a complete toy-a-holic. If you have been to my house, you know what I mean. I love toys. I love to buy toys, and not just for my boys and other children - even for myself. So as time with four small children progressed on, we have managed to accumulate enough toys to run a day care. Not kidding. And when it would be time to purge, I would take out the occassional grocery bag full, not the black sack needed to adequately do the job.

But today I had help. A very dear friend was over, and I happened to mention my intentions to take another bag out of the playroom. She offered to help, and I gladly accepted - after all, sometimes we just need that impartial observer to get past our emotions.

Boy did that do the trick! My first clue should have been her response when I brought in two grocery bags. "Oh, no" she exclaimed. "That isn't going to do it!". I grudgingly went for bigger kitchen trash bags and felt an uncomfortable tightening in my chest.

An hour later, we had filled two kitchen trash bags, one black 39 gallon lawn bag, and a 66 qt rubbermaid tub. I still could use a few different sized storage bins, but it looks good. The finished results




Now the totally feeling ridiculous part - I am a little bothered by this. While it is nice and neat and easy to access, I feel like we just got robbed! How totally silly is that! I find myself saying "what will we do now?". Keep in mind that we still have Lincoln Logs, Legos, Playmobil, and other castle/pirate things in Brennan and Nicholas's room. We are certainly not lacking, even for four children. Why am I having such a hard time with this? I am realizing how materialistic I can still be, and how much farther I have to go in the area of letting go of these things. Truthfully, it will be much easier for the boys to help pick up and much much easier for me, as I have felt like I spend my entire day caring for these things instead of caring for the little people here. That is where I need to shift my focus. Because these little guys are much more important to me than any of these things.

Thank God for good friends that are there to help us through our own personal trials that we face! I really don't know what I would do without them!