It’s been almost two years since we cleared out my father’s Holly Springs MS estate to market it for sale. What a learning process!

Thankfully, much of the large period furniture was sold with the home and it had been voided of most personal items that would have held meaning for my brother and me. Also thankfully, my brother and I — and our spouses — were a good team and on the same page for the purging process.

But the thing I learned was that I will never EVER accumulate so much “throw away” BS in my older age. My dad had one entire closet dedicated to paper party products and funny cocktail napkins. His cabinets were stocked with multiple FULL SETS of Pier 1 and Pottery Barn tableware, glasses, plates and utensils — and CLOTH napkins, in case he ran out of cocktail napkins, I guess. There were hoarder-worthy collections of tortilla chips and salsa, bless his party-loving heart!

My dad loved to entertain at his beautiful home, but I’m not sure he was accounting for need and overstock. So all that extra stuff, all that rando cheap decor and semi-unused serving pieces were extracted, piled on the porch and donated to the first person who said he would take it all away. We didn’t have months or the bandwidth to make sure all this extra stuff found just the right home. We thoughtlessly gave it away. Over and over again.

I want to remember what a wasteful hassle all the extra can be to my loved ones. I want my Grand Plan to include thought around reducing, reusing and re-thinking every purchase. #GrandPlans