holiday fireplace mantle with spheres

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

-William Morris

I know the typical thing to do at the beginning of a new year is to make all sorts of resolutions about being a better person – which usually means spending less, eating less, being selfish less, wanting stuff less.  Blah, blah, blah.  Done it, bored with it.  This year, I have decided to resolve to enjoy MORE.  And I mean specifically to really, selfishly, materialistically appreciate my stuff.  Instead of making a New Year’s resolution to do more or less things which aren’t any fun,  I am launching “Favorite Things Friday” (unless I think of a better name for it!) to help me really enjoy my stuff and I would love you to join me!

Every Friday, I plan to celebrate my favorite stuff.  Whatever stuff makes me the most happy.  Because, if the stuff you have doesn’t make you happy, why have it?  From week to week, this could be anything – a piece of funky jewelry my friend made, a tool that has made my life easier, or any old thing that just tickles my fancy.  Each Friday, I am going to look around my house and pick out my favorite thing and love it up.  I am going to let myself revel and bask in the good feeling that this ”thing” gives me – instead of feeling bad that I have too much stuff.  Which doesn’t feel as good.

I LOVE this twig sphere!

glass sphere from my daughter

My daughter gave me a beautiful glass sphere for Christmas this year – the first gift she has ever actually spent money to buy for me.  (This is a big milestone for a cash-strapped teenager!)  I have collected the others along the way.   By the way, the silver globe is actually a Christmas ornament turned upside down in a candlestick holder.  If you want to get all technical, it isn’t a sphere.  Okay I admit it.  I am faking a sphere.  I just like how it looks with the other more rustic materials.  It’s plenty perfect.  So there.

other spheres I love

After I have enjoyed, basked and reveled in feeling good about my stuff for a while, I am going to look around and find 10 things that don’t make me feel that way and let them go. Not because I feel bad that I have too much stuff, but because I want to make sure my home is filled with things that I know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

Letting things go is hard for a lot of people, including me. I have a hall closet full of clothes I have been meaning to get rid of for about 6 months. I keep moving things in and out of this collection and procrastinating about donating them. I worry that I might need these things someday or that the money I paid for them will be wasted. But if we are living with things we do not “know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,” then we are giving our stuff too much power and it weighs us down. This is a great opportunity to let these less useful and beautiful things go back out into the world and become useful or beautiful to someone else.

Here is what I am going to let go so it can be loved by someone else…

give-away pile

1.  Stainless steel water bottles we don’t use.

2.  Materials from volunteer work I no longer do.

3.  Box of shells for a vacation many years ago.

4.  Metal bed frame I don’t need anymore.

5.  Lunch box no one uses.

6.  Cooler I don’t use.

7.  Angel which is not my style.

8.  Sealing wax kit I have never used.

9.  Tea cup and saucer that does not match my dishes.

10.  Storage basket which I cannot use in my shower.

(Notice that my closet full of clothes did not make this list…I am still working on that.)

When I think about these things in direct contrast to my spheres - which give me happiness everyday - these things are really easy to let go.  And it feels great to unload these things from my house – sort of like Friday feels by the end of the week!

What are your favorite things?  After appreciating your favorite things, are more able to let go of things you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful?