Enough

Going through my drafts in my blog posts I found this post that was never published!! It was written November 30th, 2010. 

The girls have enough dolls. Enough dresses, headbands, shoes. Enough puzzles, crayons, patterned tights.

I think about my girls and about giving them more than I had as a child. I was surely not deprived but certainly always yearned for a little more. What kid doesn’t?  As I look around the house, I realize that my girls have plenty. I constantly go through Jenin’s books, clothes, and toys with her help to donate to children that don’t have as much as she does.  I want her to appreciate what she has and be compassionate enough to give to others so that they experience the same childhood joys of having special belongings. 

I have enough fabric. Enough scarves, cookbooks, craft supplies.  Enough kitchen appliances, enough shoes, enough pasta, enough albums.  I always come across an item on clearance that I just “have to have” when in reality I could live without it and did up until the point I saw it.  I’m not entirely to blame. It’s genetic.  But I’ve realized at this young age that I can break that habit now. With a bit of willpower and a boycott of Target. Okay maybe not a flat out boycott, but a break.

For the next three months I will no longer try my absolute hardest not to buy anything we don’t need.  Alhamdulilah, all praises due to God, we have everything we could ever want anyways.  I want to focus on our actual lives and not on de-cluttering or picking up their toys.  I’m sick of stressing over the pile of laundry that I haven’t folded because there isn’t even any room in the girls’ drawers to put them away.  If I have to clean/organize/purge my garage one more time, I will seriously just load everything into a cargo van and haul it all away leaving only my washer and dryer.  I just can’t take it anymore.

If I find myself putting something unecessary into my cart, I will take it out and write down the name of the item in a notebook.  It will be very interesting to see the list (hope it’s a short one) of items that I would have bought that I didn’t actually need.  Might also be interesting to record the price and to add up how much I would have potentially spent on crap stuff.

Wish me luck.