Everyone should read Voltaire

Or maybe just this quote: "The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out."

I spend my day designing.  I am a graphic designer by trade, and everyday I am faced with piles of information (many that end in exclamation points!!! and requests for bursts ...gah.)  And I am asked to arrange it, rearrange it and make it all make sense.

As a graphic designer I am, in many ways, an editor and filter.  I have to look at twenty pieces of information and not just make them visually pleasing with a fresh perspective, but also discern what is most important, what is second, third, etc.  And, most difficult, what is unnecessary.  Then, of course, I have to pepper in the answers to requests for this or that thing to "POP!" (shudder).

But, in design and in life, we can't include everything.  We must edit.  I fill my life with activities and people and projects, (it takes a lot to keep me busy ...I don't know if you've noticed) but I still have to schedule time (often) to sit down, take stock and decide on a hierarchy.  I can't do everything.  I know, you're all like, "WHAT?  Of course you can!  Have you met you?  You make cheese and sew buttons!"  (raucous laughter and a bit a milk comes from the nose...)

But seriously, as my lists of projects and responsibilities pile up, I need to take a moment and heed my own advice.  Look at it with a designer's eye.  What is most important?  What can be discarded or moved to the bottom of the pile?  Not everything can "POP!", and if you try to cram it all in, you end up with mush.  A big scary, muddled mess where no one knows where to look or what to do.  I walk this line, teetering to either side on occasion, realizing that eyes are glazing over as I relate my endless list of activities...  until I remember those words of Voltaire, and the one thing I never want to be is BORING!

So, Yes! to fun and interesting projects with my kids.  Yes! to hanging out with my husband and mother.   Yes! to this wacky, wandering blog.  Yes! to show choir.  Everything else... you may be edited.

But it's FREE!

I posted earlier about the dance of stuff that my family is doing right now.  I feel like I spend every moment that I'm not at work and/or the kids are sleeping traversing our piles and piles of stuff.  At least once a week I fill the car with unused items and drive them to a donation bin somewhere.  In fact, I am right now waiting for a friend to come and empty my car of baby gear.

With every trip I feel a little lighter.  I know that I am abiding by my rule, "if we're not going to use it at the new house, we're not moving it."  And the real motivation comes from the fact that we're moving ourselves.  I don't want to exert the energy to literally move stuff for nothing.  And I know, that even without all this stuff, we will still fill that house!

Then, this morning, we get an email from our sellers' agent.  They have stuff they aren't going to move, do we want it?  I should say no, right?  I mean, we have PLENTY of stuff between our house and my mom's. BUT IT'S FREE STUFF!!  I mean, it can't hurt to at least find out what it is, right?  We can always say no later...

Why is it so darn hard to say "no" to stuff?