In the beginning....

I recently started reading the book "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh, the anti-clutter guy with the accent from Clean Sweep. (he's also on Oprah a lot) It was time to make some real changes in my home and I had no idea where to go. Late one night I did a few Google searches for things pertaining to clutter, lifestyle changes, etc. and found Peter's book. I was able to read a few pages of it online and knew it was what I needed. The next day I checked it out from the library (why buy when you can borrow!) and started reading it during Katelynn's nap time that afternoon.

Side Note: In 3rd grade I lost my childhood love of reading. I'll spare you the pathetic details, but with lots of help from my teacher I began to believe I just wasn't a good reader and if you're not good at something, don't do it for fun. I had a mom and friends that were voracious readers and I just assumed that wasn't me because I couldn't read fast enough to read for pleasure. There had been a few instances growing up and in college where I got "sucked into a book" and was amazed at my ability to actually finish a book - and ENJOY IT! So needless to say, unfortunately, I still rarely read for pleasure, assuming I won't be able to read far enough, fast enough to get anything out of it. That didn't happen with this book!

I got the book on Wednesday afternoon and I read to page 41 before I got a few phone calls and then naptime was over. (Granted, I read a bunch online the night before.) Then Thursday during naptime I read to 194 before Kevin came home. I almost finished the book in 2 days!!! I was getting so inspired and motivated to make real changes. That night on the way to meet some friends for dinner I was telling Kevin all that I was learning and at one point Katelynn says sweetly from the back seat "Mommy, can you stop talking please?" I asked her why and she said because I was talking too much! This coming from the girl that rarely stops talking! I laughed and told her I had a lot to share that night!!

I won't go into all the details here, but what was really starting to amaze me was the correlation I was making between what I was reading and what we had learned in our Financial Peace University course. I'll give you some quick background:

Two years ago Kevin and I took the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University (FPU) course. We had been talking about it for a while but never really got serious about it. Sure we could get the books, but would we really read them? We could take the online course, but would we really do it? So we jumped in with both feet, signed up for the class, and were amazed at what transpired over the 13 week course. We weren't TOLD what to do or how to live. We were offered a vision of a better financial lifestyle and guidelines for what COULD BE and it was up to us to decide how we wanted that reality to be played out in our own lives. We saw what was possible and we wanted it for ourselves. We were consumer debt free within a few months, had a realistic working budget in place that was actually going to help us get to our goals, not just to the end of the month, and we were proud of ourselves! It's no surprise to most people how impressed we were with the course and how much we got out of it. I bring it up to almost everyone I know and encourage (okay, sometimes nag!) them to take the course! Financial Peace. It wasn't an oxymoron anymore. Sure, we're not independently wealthy *yet*, and unexpected things come up, but it's definitely not the topic of heated discussions in our house. I have heard from so many friends how their finances effect their marriages and homes. Oh, how I want for them what we learned from our course.....it IS possible.

Finances may not be the topic of heated discussion in our house anymore but other stuff is. And by stuff, I do mean STUFF. Somewhere along the line I got the "stuff gene" and I began accumulating STUFF and it was time for that to change, but how? Which is why I was getting so motivated by this book, he was talking to ME and it really was possible to live with less stuff and have an un-cluttered home! I won't go into all the nitty gritty of the book - I'll let you read it!! But I wanted to at least start journaling what I’ve gotten out of it and tracking my progress via the blog.