Well, hubby donated a bunch of the items I had set aside for the yard sale. I don't really have enough left to make it a real attention-getting stop-the-car and get out sale now, so I have resorted to plan B. I am donating the little items, and I am putting the rest on craigslist.

I did one sale to test the waters and walked away with $20 for one headboard. Not bad! I made my second sale today-- $15 for my son's portable baby swing. I think I like the online thing. It's slow, but you get more for each item individually than you would at a real yard sale.

And, of course, the house is finally getting cleared out, albeit slowly.

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In other news, we are completely peddling backwards on our saving account. We had a lot of expenses this month: our new patio, the swing set for the boys, and a weekend trip to New Orleans (without kids) that hubby and I really needed. Oh, and the property tax bill is due. So, we took about $3000 out of savings to cover all of it. It makes me sick to do that, but it seems to go that way. We're great at saving, but when we spend, we do it all at once and end up pulling out of the savings account.

That said, I am enjoying my new patio. I'm sitting there now, drinking tea. Love it. And, the boys and all of their toddler friends L-O-V-E love the swing set. It's been a baby party here at least once a week, and that makes me really happy. Good for the beans, and good for us parents to have adults to talk to.

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Now that we have spent basically all of our home improvement budget for the year, we've decided that the rest of the year is dedicated to decluttering, organizing, and simplifying. We realize that less stuff will make us happier. We are always tripping over something and we can never ever find what we are looking for. Never. It's very frustrating.

I know we have a lot of mess because we have two kids under two, but still. It's infuriating to never be able to fins a screwdriver or a AA battery when you need one, and with two kids following you, it's even more frustrating not to be able to do things efficiently.

Part of our declutter strategy is the online yard sale and donating. I want to declutter until it hurts. If it isn't useful or really meaningful, it's out. More stuff does not make you happier.

I want life to function smoothly, and for that to happen we need to have less stuff to sort through and everything that is left has to have a place.

Do you know I've lived in this house 4 years and we don't have a dedicated place for the vacuum? How sad is that. It just kind of lives in the last room it was used in, and it's always in the way.

After we get rid of more things, I am going to research some closet/ organization ideas so we can finally find a home for our vacuum and all of our sports/ski equipment. I feel like the disorganization is out of hand.

When it was just the two of us, we could skate by, but now that we have kids, we have to control the chaos. I don't want them to grow up never being able to find anything!