One point for Yaya

 One of the little voices I always hear in my head when I'm working on a purge project is Yaya saying, "I wish I would have kept that ___________." 

Or, don't we still have that _________ somewhere out in the barn,

or in the closet

or the garage. 

Being a typical daughter, I usually roll my eyes and huff.  Yes, even 33-year-old-daughters still do that.

It pains me to admit that occasionally I'm glad that there is something she's kept all these years. 

Example: This old school desk that she pulled out of the barn for Stella.  It is a great place for Stella to sit and work on her projects.  Of which she usually has about 10 going on all at once.  These pictures are from when we first set it up for her in the play room.  It usually has about a thousand scraps of paper, tape and markers all over it.  The nice thing is we can just shove them all in the desk when we're cleaning up. 

This one was a net gain on my quest for less things, but I appreciate that it is a solid piece made from metal and wood - not plastic! - that will probably keep getting passed down through the family.

Started with: no old school desks
Final tally: one old school desk
 = one point for Yaya

FiveFinger frenzy

As you may or may not know, Mr. Yost is quite the fan of Vibram FiveFinger shoes. 

My wonderful friend - shout out to Kathi! - texted me yesterday about a shoe sale in town with kids' FiveFingers.

Today I went to check it out.  Did I come home with a pair?

Nope.

I came home with TWO pair!

 Hudson's are still a little big.  I think they are the smallest size they make though, so he'll just have to grow into them.

 Stella was born to be a bare-foot baby.  I have a feeling they will get a lot of use. 

 A family of five fingers.  We thought it would be fun to buy a pair for me and tiny ones for Vivi.  Then we'd be the five FiveFinger family!

The kids know that Mr. Yost goes out for his nighttime "barefoot" runs.  They decided they better see what it was like for themselves.  Here they are testing them out in the snow.

Off they go!  They went a good couple of blocks...I'm hoping for a good night's sleep tonight!

Purge project: Jewelry

I worked on this purge project before Christmas.  I'm just now getting around to posting about it.  Over the course of the last 6 weeks or so, it appears that I've lost my notes about how many necklaces I started with and how many I purged.  It know it looked something like this:

Started with: A Lot
Kept: 60% of A Lot
Final purge tally: 40% less than A Lot

I learned a few things during this process. 

I like jewelry!

I think I already knew that before, but this solidified it in my mind. 

I also learned that it is more fun to open up a clean, organized jewelry box so that I can actually see all the jewelry that I love.  Shortly after this purge, Hudson was up on the bathroom counter looking through the drawers as he's known to do.  A delighted look came over his face as he declared, "Oh, I've never been shopping in this aisle before!"