Materialistic things?

Today was not a good day in my book. I started out spending 40 min. on the phone with my health insurance company (UGHHHHHH)!!!!! Need I say more about that?

Then my hubs and I came to a conclusion that we needed to empty out our storage unit. If any of you have a storage unit you know they can be very costly and they hold a lot of unnecessary things. Here is my dilemma.....I feel all the many things in my storage unit are very necessary. I mainly kept holiday decor and baby items in my unit. Along with other stuff of course. And to find out we were paying for a climate controlled unit and the owner had the air conditioner turned off.....so none of our things were climate controlled, and a few of our belongings were ruined.

I have been hoping for baby #4 someday, and I know God will let me know when the time is right. Till then I have been holding on to all the numerous baby items I used when my son was a baby (a mere 2 years ago, so things are in mint condition). As all mothers know babies hardly use these things and they are very pricey. So instead of buying new things for baby #4, I thought I would hang on to what I have. Well now that our unit is empty I am forced to find a place for ALL these unnecessary materialistic items. As I was coming to the tearful (yes, tearful very emotional day) conclusion to sell all baby items, I started to wonder when did my life become so materialistic?

The memories of my life do not come from all the materialistic things I own. The memories of my life come from time spent with my family. My children are not going to remember the baby swing they had as an infant, or the bassinet they slept in the first few months of their life. That is what photographs and video are for.

During the course of our 13 year marriage we have been blessed. There was a time that we did not worry about money or budgeting. We bought brand new cars every other year almost, we lived in 2 nice houses and our 3rd house we built ourselves. We were not wealthy by no means, but we did spend a lot of money on frivolous things that we did not need. Whatever we wanted we would find a way to buy it. We enjoyed nice vacations with our kids and we treated them to things they did not need but merely wanted. So I guess I have pretty much materialistic my whole life.

Now 13 years later our lives are very different.....we only have 1 vehicle, we have to budget for everything, and we worry constantly about finances. 2 years ago my husband was a manager of a bank....he merely followed a dream of his. He built a car wash and a self storage unit in the small town we live in (1 mistake he made is going into business with a friend, the friend screwed us) the economy went bad and so did his dream. He is self employed in a business that is struggling. He has a Masters in Business and the jobs he can find he is told he is over qualified for. Now we are forced to tell our children they can't have certain things, they need to get just the bare necessities, no wants just needs.

I am not posting this as a sob story, but as an outlet for myself. A way to get things off my chest so to speak. Some days are better than others, today just ended up being worse than others. Tomorrow the sun will come up and I will start going thru my storage items I don't need (we do not have the room to keep everything). Looking back at today I feel very silly for crying over baby things I can't keep. After all they are just things. All the materialistic things in my life do not matter one bit, as long as I have my family and our health. I remind myself everyday, God has given me riches not in money but riches in a different form. The little things in life that matter most do not come from money, a store, vacations, or a car......they come from the heart, they come from family, they come from memories created together.