How do you eat an elephant?

I have heard this saying before but never quite understood it; you know the saying I'm talking about: "How do you eat an elephant?---ONE bite at a time." I have never been a one bite at a time kinda gal. It's always ALL or NOTHING and that doesn't bode well for me because if you know me or have SEEN me, you can tell my choice is usually ALL!

Last year I continued my desire to purge the clutter from my life. Most clutter in my life comes in the form of 'treasures' I pick up from the Goodwill, the alley, Bunco or wherever I seem to wander. I have filled my four bedroom home with these treasures, much to my hubby's dismay and now to my own. Scott grew up in a home with barely a picture hung on the wall and my childhood home was the opposite, decorated in true "Home Interior" style with the main focal decoration matched with twin sconces and underscored with a plant shelf and miniature figurines that seemed to bring the whole thing to life. (google Home Interiors if you don't know what I am talking about). So here I am, stuck with stuff all around me and quickly becoming a runner up to a candidate for the show HOARDERS if I'm not careful. What to do?

I began slowly a year and a half ago of purging the stuff I never use. It was not too hard because at the time we were emptying out a spare room for a young man to use while he needed to. My garage became the junk pile and when the spare room became available to me again I chose very carefully what would make the cut and return to the comfort of the indoors. Soon, the garage emptied out and presented an opportunity for storage to friends of ours who moved out of their home and into an apartment; next we lost a friend of ours and I had to go through all her belongings and disburse them accordingly, storing other items for later dismissal. Lesson learned: it's all STUFF and most of it isn't necessary nor wanted when you are dead or forced to move on.................and so I was given a jumpstart again to motivate me in the purging process.

Fast forward to today: I have given my daughter a second bedroom as her 'lair' where she can entertain, craft, exercise or stock pile her JUNK and I am nearing the completion of a new room that has recently been emptied and I will call it, the Library. I have shredded all unnecessary documents and removed furniture that is useless to me and will now be able to shelve my books and move a couch in where I can laze away a rainy afternoon with some good friends found between pages of a much loved story. All this has been done painlessly, easily and fairly quickly. The key was to remove the extra without filling the empty spots with something new.

I am happy to have really seen progress that I hadn't noticed at first and I am eager to see if 2011 can bring the same success to debt reduction and weight loss. One bite at a time................I hope to look back and see a skinny elephant who is almost debt-free!

May you, too, eat the elephant of your goals this year. Savor the bites as they build character and strengthen you for the challenges that will come along. Let us season the elephant with the grace of God who will be helping us to digest this thing and will use it to nourish us as we become more like HIM.

Happy 2011