100 Thing Challenge Update

"There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more.  The other is to desire less." - G. K. Chesterton

I never did post our rules for 100 Thing Challenge. I'll have to get back to that. In the meantime, we set a goal to reduce to 100 things each by January 1, 2011, and live with no more than 100 things each for a year (at least, we may make it permanent). So how are we doing?

You probably saw our earlier post on getting rid of clothes. We still have more to do there, but for the most part we pared down our wardrobes rather significantly. We also got rid of a lot of dishes, glasses, and silverware. We kept two of each (plate, bowl, fork, butter knife, steak knife) and got rid of the rest. We have several drinking cups but we only kept the handmade clay cups we've saved from Medieval Forum each year. These are locally crafted earthenware pieces that have not only the local nature to them but also a bit of personal history behind them and a story, which makes them far more suitable for our family life than factory-made glasses bought in a department store that have no local ties aside from the local branch of the chain store, which hardly counts to us. I just brought two boxes full of kitchenware to the recycling center today and left them in the reuse area in the hopes others will take what they want or need.

We also finally got rid of the last of our CD and DVD collection. We did save a few DVDs and CDs that will take up space in our one bookcase each library, which means they displace books, which forces us to make choices. We plan to focus on any music purchases being digital files rather than physical media and hopefully independent (local) artists. We can borrow most of what we want to watch from Netflix, and we're definitely into resource sharing options like that, though there is of course a carbon footprint to the shipping involved.We make a lot of use of our instant queue so we can watch online instead of having a DVD shipped as much as possible, though we really don't spend a lot of time watching television and movies.

It finally happened. All of this, save about a dozen DVDs and a couple dozen CDs, is gone. We tore down the media wall.

We're currently going through books. We're down to three bookcases and shrinking (not including Ian's one bookcase for toys and books). Soon we'll be bringing the books to the used bookstore for others to enjoy and reducing clutter, which is a good thing! Since we got rid of so much physical media and so many books, as well as a lot of kitchenware, we've rid ourselves of a few pieces of furniture, too.

Next up: finish going through books and clothes, and then the game collection. The game collection is really going to be a challenge for us. We've pulled out a few things already, but not enough to make a significant dent.