Sometimes nesting means "Scaling Down"

I know I'm in full on nesting mode, so I won't be offended if someone thinks I'm crazy for seriously wanting to chuck half the stuff I own (don't worry, I'm not being *that* drastic).

At the beginning of the year I made it one of my big goals to purge the house before the new baby comes. So I know it's nesting, but I also know it's this:

"I'm tired of being a household drudge, feeling resentful when I do take time to clean and guilty when I don't." (From "Scaling Down" by Judi Culbertson and Marj Decker).

So far, I've finished the upstairs purge, and it was some hard work.

I kept a lot more than I probably should have (it's okay to have two can openers, and 6 sets of sheets for a family our size).
But I also got rid of more than I ever dared in the past.
For example, post purge, we now own a total of 9 pieces of tupperware and about the same number of small pyrex containers. We said goodbye to two huge black garbage bags of tupperware, and tons of other misc. kitchen items that rarely if ever get used.

I can honestly say now that I know what every item in my kitchen is, and it is something I use! Imagine!

I found this book at the library this week and it's been echoing the feeling I'm hoping to achieve:

"Once in a while a wake up call comes sooner. Judi's came when she was in her early thirties and spent a week at the beach in a vacation house. The kitchen contained only the essentials that were needed to make easy meals; the living room and bedroom could be straightened up in a matter of minutes, leaving the family free to relax or explore for the rest of the day. For the first time in her life, she knew exactly where everything was. The experience was an epiphany."

As someone who likes to paint, sew, and enjoys working on many projects and updating and re-purposing old things, it's going to be hard to pare down ALL our clutter. But I'm going to make a herculean effort to pare down our "stuff" to the things I won't resent keeping and caring for!