Besides clothes, the other thing I have a lot of in my house is Legos. Star Wars, Bionicles, just plain bricks. You name 'em, I got 'em.
My family spent the better part of last weekend rearranging furniture and assembling shelves from IKEA to store our evergrowing collection.
Why are you talking about Legos? I thought this blog was about shopping.
Yes. And no.
It's actually about not-shopping. But what it's really about is everything that we are truly looking for in the perfect sandals/jeans/bathing suit.
Since Christmas (I know, it's May), my living room has been shamefully strewn with toys. Not because we are lazy and don't make our kids pick up after themselves. It is because we are hoarders. Every birthday and holiday, my boys receive dozens of new toys. Their eyes light up as they unwrap each one. But after a few days, many of them are ignored. Some are broken. Some just never worked the way the package promised. Still, if I ask my kids to give some away, they swear they still like EVERY SINGLE ONE... and they might want to play with them again someday.
Do you get what I'm driving at?
The one kind of toy I won't pressure them to give up are Legos.
I love seeing bins full of them.The colors, the shapes, the sizes. The different ways they can be mixed and matched. The potential they represent.
Sort of like a pile of t-shirts in every color. Jeans organized from darkest to lightest.
Enough lipglosses to wear a different color every day of the week.
Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Sometimes, when I want new clothes, what I really want is:
change
possibility
creativity
potential
beauty
If we look around, there is beauty all around us.
It's May! I have gone four months without buying a single stitch of clothing. Okay, I did buy those lipglosses above at Costco. Technically it's not clothes, but you know what lipgloss is really good for? Making the slope really slippery.
Next month is my birthday. I need to ponder what that means in terms of a gift to myself...
i have hoarding tendencies too--but it seems much easier to teach my kids (or rather, attempt to teach my kids) self-discipline than to do it myself. for the b-day presents, i don't let them open the presents right away--rather we open them up on special occasions (after a chinese school test!) or really boring days. we started this when they were young and didn't know to complain--and now they complain, but figure it's normal (don't tell them otherwise!). it really builds the excitement of each toy and i figure they treasure the new item for at least a day, rather than just 5 minutes :-)
ReplyDeletedorothy
The saving birthday presents til a rainy day is a great program. I started letting them unwrap everything the day of the party- so they can write Thank You notes. Then, I quickly hide a few in the closet and take them back out later.
ReplyDeleteOur main problem (mom and sons) is that we need to follow the one-in, one-out rule!
4 months- good for you!
ReplyDeleteI also like to buy myself a little something for my birthday so I feel for you.
Every year I ask my husband for something that he can do for me, not buy for me. Fix or make something, but not buy anything.
Good luck!