So the story starts with this box.
I mean, basically. Lives and stories are honestly too complex to define when things culminate to exact starting points, but to simplify my long life story of being a farm kid, knitting my way through high school history, getting married to Mr. Missionary Kid who can sing the roof off, lots of moving across the country, and Pickles with food allergies, I'll just start with the box.
The box which also ties in closely with that moving part. 9 years ago we posted a "For Sale" sign in our front yard and lightening fast it was sold and we pronto needed a place to stay as we were also in the midst of new job hunting and didn't have a new house secured yet. Without knowing how long the process may be, we packed up everything we owned, moved 500 miles away to live with extended family for a bit and then moved into the cutest little one-bedroom above-garage apartment you've ever seen while we continued the job search.
It was at this moving/packing point that I knew I needed to be intentional. I had limited space and limited access to all the creative goodies that we owned. I needed a plan to adequately feed their creativity and thrive in our mobile time of life and in small living spaces.
We knew we had no idea how long the whole process would take, and we certainly had no idea when we sealed the tape across those boxes that they would remain in storage for 17 months!
We had three little Pickles who daily woke up with adventure in their eyes and hands eager for things to do. Time and travel and access to stuff wasn't on their minds. But it was on mine, and I wanted to keep the adventure, and normalcy, and creativity going for them while it felt like part of our life was on pause.
Enter this box.
I chose to select *just this many* items from our life that would feed their creativity and offer maximum creative play. All items I selected would have to fit completely inside--with the lid on--for ease in moving and fitting comfortably in smaller spaces.
What did I choose?
I'll talk about what I included in Part 2!
What few choice items would you keep handy in a single box if you packed up your house and stuck it all in storage for a while? I'm curious!
Always be creative,
Marie Winfield