<em>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.</em>

Anyone recognize that paragraph? I hope so. It’s the introductory paragraph to the <strong>Declaration of Independence</strong>. My fingers automatically typed those words instead of what I was meaning to say thanks to some teacher who made us memorize it and the Preamble to the Constitution.

Guess I became sidetracked by all the political ads and chatter everywhere. Today we have the option to cast a ballot for the Presidential candidate of our choice.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/vote.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-1539" title="vote" alt="" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/vote.jpg?w=150" height="150" width="150" /></a>

Now you go do the same. It’s our right and our privilege.

But I digress, the course of events that I meant to reference is that point in our lives when we recognize the time for change has arrived and we must do some personal downsizing.

No denying. All of us reach such a point sooner or later. By choice or by death.

As an antiques dealer, I’ve done enough estates – either as organizer, buyer or seller – to know that all our stuff ultimately has to go. Hearses don’t pull U-Hauls. We’re no longer an Egyptian pyramid culture where we entomb our worldly goods with us.

Recently, my husband and I returned from our vacation home and looked around at our beautiful home in the suburbs of the nation’s 4th largest city and experienced a tipping point.

We asked one another, “Why do we need all this stuff?”

The obvious answer was we don’t. For 4-5 months every year, we live in a small, small house in the Rio Grande National Forest and love every minute of it. We come back to hustle and bustle and headaches. So we asked ourselves, “Why?”

That’s when we reached the tipping point and decided to sell our house and stuff and vie for a simple life in the woods.

Our children are extremely grateful that they won’t be saddled with the grueling task after we’re gone. I think watching us disburse estates of our parents, his older sister, and our aunt and uncle convinced them it was an arduous job.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/kids-at-easter.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1540" title="kids at easter" alt="" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/kids-at-easter.jpg?w=300" height="224" width="300" /></a>

We’ve discovered a fringe benefit -- seeing our children enjoy the things of their childhood and objects from our home in theirs.

[caption id="attachment_1559" align="alignleft" width="150"]<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sara-and-her-barbie-house1.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-1559" title="O" alt="" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sara-and-her-barbie-house1.jpg?w=150" height="120" width="150" /></a> That's Chicken Wrangler Sara and her original Barbie house. She couldn't believe we'd kept it all these years![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1562" align="alignright" width="150"]<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/jb-landry-chess3.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-1562" title="O" alt="" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/jb-landry-chess3.jpg?w=150" height="74" width="150" /></a> Our son and his son playing chess on the table where my husband and son played many a game.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1566" align="aligncenter" width="150"]<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/knives-at-stephs4.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-1566 " title="knives at steph's4" alt="" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/knives-at-stephs4.jpg?w=150" height="121" width="150" /></a> This knife set (a wedding present to my husband and me) now hangs in our youngest daughter's kitchen.[/caption]

On Tuesdays, I’ll be blogging about our journey to simplify and the amazing freedom we’re finding as we turn the stuff loose. I'll tell you how we decided what to get rid of and what to keep and how we disbursed the stuff.

Probably not every Tuesday. After all, this is a monumental task that takes time.

Plus I have another book due out this year. Gotta get in my writing time.